My mother plant is two months old, a little stretched but looking very healthy. I decided to start taking clones, since this is my first cloning attempt I decided on three and took one from the bottom, one from about midway up, and one close to the top for a few reasons, I wanted to see how differently each area from the mother responds as far as rooting time and flowering time as I've read clones from lower spots root faster and clones farther up flower faster. This is a learning experience so I only took a few so I don't stress her too much and end up losing her. She is a bag seed plant and this whole process has been very new to me as this is my first grow, not that I haven't been around other grows and I'm not completely without knowledge but my first. My question is after taking clones is there anything special I should do to reduce her stress, cause let's be honest taking a clone causes stress. I want her happy and healthy, I've looked around on several forums and not been able to find anything specific about any special care directly following taking clones. She's growing in a fishy peat/perlite mix getting fed once a week with grow juice veg and Cal-Mag. She gets her morning light from the sun in a window and gets moved outside either in the greenhouse or straight outside depending on the weather, and in the evening she comes inside and gets hey light from 9 23w cfl's (2@2700k and 7@6500k) for several hours. Lighting schedule is between 18/6 and 20/4, without a light meter I can't be positive what the morning light is as I know the sun has to be at a certain level before it can be considered true sunrise for a plant, but I'm satisfied she's getting a minimum of 18hrs of daylight. I took the cuttings yesterday and she's still looking really happy with no obvious signs of stress, she's very perky. I made sure and sterilized my cutting tool and followed the basic cloning techniques, I'm honestly not as concerned about my clones rooting/growing properly as I am about my mother plant staying happy and healthy, I can always get more clones if I screw up with these but I've got a lot of love and energy put into the mother. As this is bag seed, if/when the clones take I'll probably veg them for a week then throw them into flower just to see what I've got for potency and yield, just to see if I want to keep this mother, if I'm not satisfied I'll throw her into flower and wait on my seedlings to start a new mother (I have two that are two weeks old, also from bag seed but this time I'm growing organic in a mix I made out of compost from my farm). Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
You need to make sure she's getting the same amount of light every day. Getting 16 one day then 20 the next, back to 16 for example will stress her out more than taking clones. It doesn't matter where the clones are taken from. Usually you pick whatever looks the healthiest with tight internodel spacing. A plant will not flower faster, it's flower time and rooting speed is all based on genetics. And as far as stressing it out by cloning, you have nothing to worry about unless you cut half of it off. Which I'm assuming you didn't do.
Her lighting schedule is staying the same, just not exactly sure on the measurable morning light compared to visible daylight as I don't have a meter. She's still looking really good and getting bushier and taller, almost 2' now and in a few days I'll probably do some root trimming to slow her down a bit. Thanks for the advice, I had looked around and didn't really find anything about after you take clones do xxx or anything so I figured just normal care but wanted to be sure. With the clones I did 24 hrs of darkness to promote rooting, so far they are looking good and healthy still and never drooped. What I'd read about the lower areas rooting faster and the upper areas flowering faster had to do with where the hormones were in the mother plant, figured I'd just do a test and see for myself. I know every strain and every plant from each strain are a little different so just learning how she reacts, really, while I learn what I'm doing.