so i was wondering, in my little experience ive only bought one clone and planted it and its actually doing wayy better than i had ever expected it to do and it will be harvested in the coming weeks. i was just wondering, with all these threads and talk of germing seeds and whatnot that i have no clue about, is it worth it after i finish this clone project to take a stab at seeds? i do not use any kindof setup, i refer to it as Ol' Natural, planted the clone in a flowerbox and i water it 1-2 times a week... simplest thing ive seen on this forum so far... anyways, can anyone experienced explain to me the pros and cons of germing seeds and planting clones. for instance, does going one way give certain benefits that you wouldnt be able to get with the other way? any help/info would be much appreciated Chenny
If you have a decent sized garden, do be careful with clones that someone grew elsewhere. That's how most people get a pest problem, especially spidermites.
One advantage of clones, besides saving you a of couple weeks growing time, can be realized if the cuttings are all from the same mother. This way they are identical to one another and will be the same shape, height, finishing time, and so on. Seeds, even ones from known genetics and all from one batch off one plant, will give you individuals with variations, very often distinct ones. You can get some duds. That's not necessarily a bad situation if you want to look over a selection of vegged young plants and pick out the most promising ones to flower out. And sometimes a seed will give you something unexpected and special that you might want to propagate and clone on and on and on.
As a cloner I would say clones! In all seriousness, if you have access to good quality clones I would definately go that way. It looks like you live in San Diego (founded by the Germans btw), most of the clubs down there are like ours up here and inspect everything with a 10x scope before they are allowed on the shelf, simply find a reputable club and get your clones there as it will very much speed up the entire process. As stated above you will also avoid Pheno differences as most cloners pair things down to a single Pheno. For example, my Vortex pheno is the grapefruity pheno, my Girl Scout Cookies is the "sugar cookies" pheno, my NL pheno is the stinkiest NL I have ever seen, even the clones stink. When I bring in a tray of Vortex they should all grow up to look pretty much the same which of course is going to make your life easier instead of handling plants of different sizes and potentially different finishing times and distinctly different finished product.
thanks to everyone who helped i appreciate it, at this point i think ill go with gnomepunter because he is right, i live in SD and my current favorite co-op has some pretty smart growers that all take excellent care of their clones so il stick with the clones. thanks again guys! good luck with your grows!
Some strains are clone only so you have no choice. But seeds have some advantages. When you buy clones at some clubs, you don't know what you're getting, despite what they say it is, and you can get some crap clones that give you crap weed, which is a real bummer when you have spent three months of effort on them. You are also stuck buying the strains the club has, which everyone has because the clubs have them, and you don't get to try the very cool strains from seeds. Also many clubs sell tired clones, clones that are from old mothers or clones that have been cloned from clones cloned from clones, so they are just not as vigorous. And like they mentioned, so many clones from clubs come with bugs or diseases. With seeds, you know exactly what you are getting, assuming you bought it from a reputable seed dealer, and they are new plants, and have no bugs or diseases. You would buy a few seeds, grow them to a certain size, select the strongest for your mother(s), and then clone from those mothers.
[quote name='"usedtocare"']Some strains are clone only so you have no choice. But seeds have some advantages. When you buy clones at some clubs, you don't know what you're getting, despite what they say it is, and you can get some crap clones that give you crap weed, which is a real bummer when you have spent three months of effort on them. You are also stuck buying the strains the club has, which everyone has because the clubs have them, and you don't get to try the very cool strains from seeds. Also many clubs sell tired clones, clones that are from old mothers or clones that have been cloned from clones cloned from clones, so they are just not as vigorous. And like they mentioned, so many clones from clubs come with bugs or diseases. With seeds, you know exactly what you are getting, assuming you bought it from a reputable seed dealer, and they are new plants, and have no bugs or diseases. You would buy a few seeds, grow them to a certain size, select the strongest for your mother(s), and then clone from those mothers.[/quote] I ordered 6 of the same seeds and they all grew different. they all looked like different kinds of plants. And this was from attitude. Also if u can't sex them indoors assuming u are trying to do outdoor u might grow the whole season and then find out there are some males. What a waste of time. Getting clones from the club is the way to go. Most of the time they will usually even have the final product on the self so u could even sample some out before u buy. As far as bugs it all on the owners. Some care and some dont