OK so this may be a dumb question but I'm going to ask anyways. I have always grown outdoors and never really studied up on indoor techniques. Why clone? To keep a really strong mother plant? To keep from having to order more seeds? Is it possible to plant one seed and clone as many times as you want?
There's a lot of different benefits. The main one is to keep a phenotype of a good strain that you enjoy around. It allows you to skip a good week or 2 on seedlings since clones will get to a reasonable veg size a lot quicker. It's garentueed to give you all females if you clone a female plant. If you are growing only one strain then it will be easier to take care of the plants since they will all grow the same and require the same upkeep. You can clone the same strain over and over for many generations. Sometimes after several generations you might have some variation, especially if it's a clone of a clone. If you clone from the original mother you can extend this period a lot longer.
So you know what you are getting. Growing out a good female, you want to be able repeat those genetics. Also if you clone you own, that makes you self sufficient. That's the kind of freedom that is both practical and realistic LED indoor - https://forum.grasscity.com/index.php?/topic/1394646-Pure-AK-barebulb-cfls
I would go for it, cloning is really not hard at all. I actually have a lot more issues with seedlings than I do when I clone. All I need to get a 90%~ success rate is a cup of water, clonex rooting gel and a solo cup filled with 100% coco (or whatever medium you would lke to use). I take the cutting a little below where I want to have the roots form, then I stick the cutting under the water and make a 45 degree cut on the node where I plan on having it root. You want to make the cut under water to prevent an air embolysm from forming. After that I just dip it in the hormone and plant it, after that put it under a humidity dome (or a ziplock bag covering the cup) for about a week.
Thank you. When it's under the dome or ziploc do I just continue with a normal 18/6 lighting schedule?
I always do yeah. Some people like to stick them in darkness but my success rate doesn't seem to change regardless. It's just easier for me to stick them in with the mother and the other vegging plants.
If you clone you don't have to keep buyin new beans like with autos.. It cuts down costs and sometimes growing time compared to seedlings nonfiction's multi-strain grow