Can you clone an Autoflower?

[Techead]

Well, I would have said no, as the life cycle of an Autoflower is pre-programmed, so not really worth the effort and the results would be disappointing and not worth the bother.
I gifted a Gorilla Cookie Auto to a friend, basically, he is a Photoperiod grower and never tried to grow an Auto, so I told him what he could and couldn't do with an Autoflower.
But despite my dire warnings, he's the kind of guy that does things his own way.
He repotted it several times, something I thought was a NoNo.
He took two clones from the seedling plant a little over 100 mm tall, another thing I told him not to do.
The original plant is growing and flowering in cheepo Levington Compost, on offer at Tesco's, two 40L bags will cost just £6, and its a monster, about 1.2 metres tall and covered in sticky buds, one of the clones is just 100 mm tall, yet the other is approaching 1metre tall and flowering beautifully.
So, I guess in answer to my own question, you can clone an Autoflower but it's a bit hit and miss, one worked and one didn't.
Obviously this is just a sample of two plants, so not really statistically significant, if a way can be found where it's not so hit and miss, it could potentially save us all a fortune.
Autoflowers are in veg for such a small period of time, maybe this is the key and if this could be delayed in some way, it would make a lot of growers very happy.
I would be very interested with other growers thought and experiences on Cloning Autoflowers, this has opened up my eyes on new possibilities.

[M_C]

This is something I mean to play with at some time... I'm convinced you can sucessfully clone an auto... not sure about a clone from a clone though... these are things I want to play with (when I find enough time!)

[Jingo]

Cloning a XXL auto might be smart move if you reverse the clone and pollinate the original, you'd have seeds forever. I'm doing that for my favorite photos just to save money on seeds. Money doesn't buy much anymore :-(

J

[Techead]

Pondering a bit, if it is possible to keep an Autoflower in Veg for a bit longer, how big could it get, IF, (Note the big IF, it's even possible), WOW, an Autoflower Mother Plant, I want one!

[M_C]

Pondering a bit, if it is possible to keep an Autoflower in Veg for a bit longer,

Keeping it in veg is easy... getting it to grow bigger at the same time is the sticking point

[Techead]

Errr, how do you keep an Autoflower in Veg, pray tell?
It does seem to me that his re-potting the 'Mother' may have slowed things a bit, possibly due to root shock.
The successful clone is actually a tad smaller than the 'Mother', but to me is big enough, whether this would make it viable to sacrifice a whole plant and use it to make as many clones as possible, given that they will be smaller, whether half a dozen smaller plants will have a higher yield than a full-grown 'Mother', is open to question, it is certainly not as mature as the 'Mother', whether it will catch up in time, I really doubt it, as the Ruderalis 'Clock' started ticking as soon as the 'Mother' germinated.
I grow in a Tent, like a lot do and am restricted on plant height, probably just 1.6 metres tall max, but if it's possible to have cloned plants slightly smaller, than the max for that strain without cloning, that might be an interesting possibility?

[M_C]

Errr, how do you keep an Autoflower in Veg, pray tell?

Lower the temp, lower the light & reduce lighting hours - basically, it stops growing

[Techead]

Mmmmm, I looked on another forum, (Shame on me!), and they had an answer of sorts, the poster stated that as the hormone that triggers the countdown starts at the top of the plant and takes just a couple of hours to reach the lower branches, a very small window to take clones from the lower branches exists, however, it also stated that clones taken from an Autoflower, (I imagine using this method?), the clone will only achieve 80% of the height of the mother. I stated earlier in this thread that the 'Mother was about 1.2 metres tall and one of the clones has achieved almost 1 metre, that calculates to 83% approx, I reckon my friend was extremely lucky to actually hit the sweet spot when taking this clone, but it doesn't end there, some research papers suggest that bending the top of the plant to the base, inhibits the hormone reaching the base branches, thereby extending the VEG period, (It didn't say for how long though?), sort of LST methinks.
I have seen tomato Plants growing upside down, this is getting weird, could this be done with Cannabis, albeit for a short period?

[barney_b]

Hey this IS getting weird and I like it.

Some thoughts on cloning autos:

Why?

If you could reveg a flowering auto that was a "prize" pheno and then reflower it, I see a great reason to clone. It sounds however, and please correct me if I've made an incorrect assumption, that it was taken during the vegetative phase.

So then you'd be trying to save the genetics but only as far as the structure goes since you don't know what the flowers will be like.

Else, you only have 1 seed and want to grow 4 of a certain auto? To cut down on pheno variance?

The person that figures out how to reveg an auto is going to change everything.

Nice to have these out of the box topics.

Cheers
B

[Techead]

Hi Barney_b, Thank you for your post, Initially, when my friend showed me what he had done, I must admit a great deal of head-scratching occurred, so I started digging and what I found surprised me. In the early days of Autos, some could be cloned and some didn't flower at all, I seem to recall one Auto and a very stubborn grower waited almost SEVEN years for it to flower.
But that aside, extending the Veg period of an Auto, opens up a whole raft of possibilities, none of which would please the seed suppliers, I have used Colloidal Silver on an Auto's before, and of all the times I tried, Once I got a male flower, and this pollen was put on another plant, and I got just ten seeds, of which just six proved viable, the way they have been bred makes life very difficult as there is a very small window to get it right.
I do however think right outside the box, sometimes I get a lot of Flak for this, even just writing this thank you, I am wondering if flipping a plant will delay the way a plant declares, if it does, alright might, possibly, make it easy to 'Male' a plant when its returned to its vertical position, as the lowest branches will not have gotten the Flowering signal, and just before that is the ideal time to start applying Colloidal Silver. Auto's normally only takes three weeks to declare anyway, so it's quite a practical experiment.
A few years back they altered a Yeast cell to produce THC and CBD, as a avid wine maker, I want some, growing chuff in a bottle is something I'd also like to try, I got 'Mullered' on Cannabis Beer in Amsterdam once, this made me want to visit California and their Cannabis Vineyards, where they make some Cannabis Wine, the BOX is getting bigger.
Of the Trillions of Atoms that make up humans, it's very unlikely that any of us think exactly the same, our judgements are born on experiences along the way, my brain was fried by LSD in the early seventies, but the music was great, I saw Hendrix at the Marquee and Hawkwind at the Round House, those who were there tell me I enjoyed it, I live everyday like it's my last, Coz someday it will be.