Cloning clones vs Mother plant

Yes that is possible, that's how I get my new harvests. Just make sure you clone from a strong healthy plant and it will provide many more. I double the size of my grow every two months this way, it's a bit out of hand right now with how many I have.

 

Mothers take up space and energy. i simply take a clone within the first 2 weeks i put a plant in flower. Keeps that pheno around without wasting time and nutes on a mother.

Some claim potency drops off after many rounds of this type of cloning clones, but i have a few strains ive been running 2 years with and havent noticed any difference.

 

Anybody who claims potency drops off has no idea how plant cloning works on a scientific level.

You may see a change in the phenotypes of the plant through cloning of clones of clones of clones (generally takes many generations to make noticeable difference in this area anyway), however cloning a plant in no way affects its genetics, it will still grow the exact same plant plus or minus environmental factors.

edit: Clarification: The phenotype is the physical traits of the plant (as opposed to the genotype, the genetic "programmed" traits of the plant, determined by genetics (what strain it is)). So after clones of clones of clones you might end up with a less stable plant, and your crop can end up looking different from each other (or all different from their original mother), with different flowering times, different bud structures, etc. but the actual product itself will be nearly identical.

edit2: And for what it's worth, I much prefer the negligible "hassle" of having mothers capable of producing as many clones as I need whenever I need than having to cut nodes off of my plants every harvest when they're just about to start growing buds. If you're making 12 clones, you've just destroyed a few dozen potential bud sites as well as potentially shocked the plants and slowed their growth. My mothers need very little attention and when they get too big, I'll clone new mothers and throw the huge mothers in with the next flowering cycle for even more additional bud.

THAT BEING SAID, there is absolutely no problem with cloning a clone, and you shouldn't experience any problems using your current crop to clone for your next crop if you prefer not to keep mothers.

Just my $0.02.

 

Another thought: if you plan to clone your current grow for the following grow, you really have two options:

1) Build 2 rooms. If you clone during the first 2 weeks of flower, your clones are going to be rooted and need transplanting and begin to veg long before your other plants are done flowering, yet will need different light cycles, so will have to be kept separate. The only way to do this is if you have 2 light-separated grow rooms.

2) Clone ~21 days into flowering. Sometimes referred to as "Monster-Cropping". You can read up more on this idea, and you can always cut the clones later, but this will solve the problem of needing a 2nd room. Clones cut from late flowering take longer to root and switch back into a vegatative state (which is beneficial if your only grow room is currently occupied by flowering plants), however they will also show incredible branching power without the need of any topping/FIMing/LSTing etc. This would allow you to time it so that clones can be ready to transplant around the same time the flowering plants are ready for harvest. I would not recommend this method for new growers though. Clones cut from late-flowering plants can be very fickle and sensitive, with higher failure rates than traditional clones cut from vegetating mothers.

 

This will vary drastically based mostly on strain, but also on what you do to your mother. If you top and LST to get a branchy, bushy plant, you can get 1 mother that can give you more clones than you could possibly grow. Even with little to no training, most strains will reach that stage. I took 15 clones off of one of my mothers about a month ago and I could already take another 10 if I had room for more. And my other mother that we only cloned 2 off of is far bushier, we could easily clip 30+ clones a month off of it.