Which seedbank has the best Jack Herer?

[GrizzWald]

Then you go buy 200 seeds and have at it. I am not looking for a unicorn. I am looking for something that helps relieve my back pain so I can sleep at night. I don't smoke to get high. I just want a good performing pain killer. I am not going to go grow 200 plus seeds to find a unicorn. If I can find a plant from some other seed breeder that gives that to me, I am cool with it. Thats why I grow. Prior to my back issue, I smoked 4 times in 25+ years. So maybe for you cannabis fanatics what you talk about makes sense....to me, it doesn't. I get decent results from ATF, and Chemdawg 4. I am growing a Blueberry to try. I don't give a rats ass if its a good mother or bad one. Will it produce bud that serves as my medicine....thats all I care about. If it does, then I am willing to make feminized seeds and have a perpetual availability of medicine. There are many of us on here that aren't looking for the mythical unicorn, just decent bud or medicine that we don't have to pay Jay the street dealer for. Not sure how to make it much simpler to understand. Again, I respect the points of view that you guys represent and if that's your thing, then great. For many of us, its not ours.

Hey mate I think if you grew a packet you'd find females that you'd be really happy with and also high chance of something superior to what your grown (just going by some comment, no offence meant).. I'm coming from a 'finding that superior plant for next generation' mentality.. I'd grow a pack out and be happy with the smoke, I just wouldn't expect to find the elite straight away (if at all)

 

[Van Stank]

Hey mate I think if you grew a packet you'd find females that you'd be really happy with and also high chance of something superior to what your grown (just going by some comment, no offence meant).. skunkworks and myself are coming from a 'finding that superior plant for next generation' mentality.. I'd grow a pack out and be happy with the smoke, I just wouldn't expect to find the elite straight away (if at all)

I probably would be happy with it, but I am still not going to order 10 seeds of it at this time. It very well could be superior, but again, I am not a cannabis connoisseur. I am just a guy that blew out my back and need some herb a couple times a week to sleep well. I love gardening, and growing so I took this up as a hobby. Sensi will continue to exist regardless if I buy their seeds or not and i will continue to find relief for my back in other strains of Cannabis.

Don't mistake my personal stance against buying a 10 pack of seeds without knowing if I even like the medicinal properties of a strain, particularly at that price (and again, I am not knocking the price....I am all for them getting what they can get for their products, it just won't be from me, and thats cool). This is a back condition I will likely be dealing with for a long time. So I would rather grow one or two beans of a strain (realizing the chances of that single bean being an accurate representation of a complete strain is slim) and trying it for its medicinal effects on me. If I find one I really like, then I will look into further advanced growing of that particular strain.

I completely understand those that fully support Sensi and their Jack Herer strain, much like whiskey connoisseurs. I can't justify paying for a good bottle of whiskey or wine. Give me the cheap shit and i am fine as long as it does what its supposed to do. Now beer, I have a higher standard on....and I will pay for a good beer and refuse to drink budweiser or coors or miller (don't care for the taste). I say the same about audio fanatics. They spend more money on their speaker cables than I will spend on a whole system. Good for them. My stuff plays music at a quality I am happy with. Sure I would love a better sounding system, but I can't justify it. So I listen to my sub par radio (by the experts standards), drinking my "cheap" jack daniels (by whiskey fanatics standards), and smoking a knock off Jack Herer strain (that most of you would probably consider crappy bud) that makes my back feel better and I am a happy dude.

 

[GrizzWald]

That's it mate,do it and get as deep with what ever you do to the level you like/enjoy.. if you look into cbd crew you'll find they have collaborated with aloe of differrent breeders on strains that are either breed for specific ratios.. also mns are starting to add some to their auctions. Although you'll get 10 seeds CBD crew 18-22 mns, depending on strain they'll be around 50c to $2 each.. best of luck with finding the relief..

 

[TorturedSoul]

don't be pissed

I'm not p!ssed, just giving you my opinion, along with my reasons for arriving at it.

Perhaps you have money to burn

Far from it. I'm the guy that, when you visit in the Winter, you wear your coat - and don't remove it while visiting. That's sort of why I don't shop at WalMart or do my cannabis seed shopping by price. Price is what I look at after I have made my selection, when I'm figuring up how much I need to send (and, often as not, how long I'll have to save up first in order to do so :rolleyes3 ) . When you think about it... After you remove the hemp seed class (generally sold by the pound/kilogram, if not the bushel or comparable measurement) and extremely low-number limited editions and/or rediscovered treasures from the past that tend to be sold at auction and fetch almost nonsensical prices... the actual difference between the cheap strains and the expensive ones is not that large a figure. When taken as a percentage of what one's harvest can be reasonably expected to amount to and that dollar amount is rather negligible, ergo one should pay little or no attention to the price when shopping for one's cannabis seed stock.

I won't say, "It all costs the same to grow," because it's obviously going to take more light (and, often, space) to produce a given quantity of sativa than it would to produce the same quantity of indica. But in terms of quality of seed/strain... yeah, I guess it'd be valid to say it, lol. Have to buy the medium, containers, water, lights, fan(s)/filter/ductwork, nutrients, et cetera - and you have to pay the electric bill every month from germination to harvest. It's not like buying the seed that costs half as much is going to cut my expenses in half. Drop my total expenses, what... 3%? I don't even know, but it won't be much of it. It's just not really relevant. And, while I'm thinking about it, it's not necessarily a mark of which strain is generally considered to be the best (and certainly not going to tell you which will be best for YOUR needs in particular).

Again, buy whichever version/generation/whatever of any strain you like. The subject of the thread wasn't which strain is cheapest, it's which seedbank has the best Jack Herer.

I don't smoke to get high.

Respectfully, you're probably in the wrong thread. If you smoke Jack Herer, you're going to get high. If you don't, it isn't likely to be Jack Herer, lol.

I just want a good performing pain killer.

That sounds like an appeal for an indica. Or perhaps a hybrid that is mostly indica, with just enough sativa genetics to keep you from getting that heavy narcotic feeling when you consume it. Maybe one of the high-proportion CBD strains that have been developed in recent years. While Jack Herer does have some benefit in regards to pain (and some will have a bit more), it is primarily biased towards being a head med.

I am not going to go grow 200 plus seeds to find a unicorn.

A unicorn? Naw... Buy seeds that were produced by a good breeder (and, if ordering from a third party, stored/shipped well) and purchase a reasonable number of seeds, and you will almost certainly find a keeper (and usually multiple keepers). Buying (relatively) large numbers of the same strain (again, from a reputable breeder)... it's like bettering the odds - going from, IDK, 92% to 94%, then on to 95%, then 95.5%, 96%, 96.25%... It also tends to better one's odds of finding examples that are considered to be "above and beyond" and, incidentally, generally raises the overall quality of the plants that the grower does choose as keepers. Better aroma, better taste, an effects profile that better matches the needs/wants of the person consuming it, the same with the strength (more potent is not always what a person is looking for), flowering time, amount of growth during the stretch phase (first 40% of the flower cycle), amount of yield, all of this can vary between multiple plants and what ends up being best for YOU is not necessarily what's best for me or any of the next several people that purchase any given strain. With that having been said, the fact that out of - however many seeds you purchase - might turn out to be ones where none of the variants produced are quite what you're looking for. And that doesn't mean a strain is not a good one - but it sure can be annoying to the grower, lol. And then... Whether the grower spent a little or spent a lot on his/her seeds, es will have spent quite a bit in total in electricity, growing equipment, water, other miscellaneous items, and the grower's time - which means that particular seed purchase was not a good value.

Once the grower has his/her keeper(s), which are tailored to es needs as much as possible, it is simple to keep mothers alive. One can even keep a plant alive in a small foam coffee cup, although a larger container would obviously make things easier (and increase the rate at which clones can be generated). But for the grower who basically just has one or more "premium plants for personal production" and wishes to keep the strains and/or phenotypes handy while having the ability to produce a few clones from each from time to time... plants kept in small containers and given long hours of low-intensity light will stay small, use smaller amounts of water and nutrients, and require little care. If you have a private room in your house (or aren't concerned about hiding them), you don't even need a dedicated grow area; you can keep a plant or three on top of your medicine cabinet, lol, as long as you keep the light fixture above it on for the majority of the day and remember to water them now and then. When it gets close to the time that you expect to need a fresh set of clones for your grow, simply place them under light that is a little stronger. Increasing pot size will allow you to take more cuttings at any one time, but if you are comfortable with rooting a cutting or two every week to two weeks then this is not a must. You can even keep such small plants in your flowering room as long as you have the minimum amount of space (perhaps a shady corner?) as long as you are able to move them to a different light source every day. And you don't need the long day to consist of (for example) 18 hours of light per day; as long as you interrupt the darkness in such a way that the total number of uninterrupted hours of darkness remains low (e.g., light is on from 6:00 am to noon, then again from 6:00 pm to midnight. Whatever ends up being convenient. Treat them like houseplants...

Will it produce bud that serves as my medicine....thats all I care about.

Yeah, sure, that is completely reasonable. It's just, in my mind, that makes it even more important. I mean... If I'm just running somewhere quick for lunch, I might say screw the steak and salad bar, I can get hotdogs five for three dollars down on the corner. It's no big deal, really - and both the $5 meal and the $20 one will serve to fill the hole. So... A man has a headache, and it's not a mild kind of headache that sends you a postcard mentioning that it'll probably stop by Tuesday for coffee between 6:30 and 7:00, lol - it's one of those headaches that scream, "HELLO!!! Remember me? I bet you thought you were actually going to be able to crawl out of that corner, stand up, and get something accomplished today, didn't you? DIDN'T YOU? Well guess what, ol' bud?" And this guy, he's just a regular Joe, the kind of guy that has to work - and work hard - for his money, right? He knows that he can get generic aspirin for $4.50 per bottle, or he can get Excedrin Migraine - but it's $13 per bottle, and there's only half as many pills in there (FFS, lol). And you know what? When my head is hurting so much it's an effort not to puke and the faintest light or the quietest sound is cruel and unusual punishment, and I really have to go get some work done regardless, err, I mean when the guy, uhh... Well, anyway, I'll pay the extra money because the product is treating my ills. That's important to me. Again, this is my opinion. As in all things, YMMV....

 

[Van Stank]

The wrong thread, since my desire isn't for the high, but for the relief? Isn't Jack Herer the strain that supposedly is the strain doctors in Holland generally prescribe? That sounds a lot like medicinal value to me and something I am interested in possibly trying. Just because I say I don't smoke to get high doesn't mean I don't get high when I medicate. I have tried the CBD oil and it doesn't give me the pain relief nearly as quick or to the same level as smoking either ATF or Chemdawg 4. If it did, I wouldn't smoke except on the rare occasion with Ms Stank or other trusted people.

And again as I said before in a previous statement, I don't care about the individual seed price. So I can get 10 seeds for 160 buck....or 16 bucks a seed. I would gladly pay 16 bucks for a seed especially if I knew it was a female I would pay more if it was a strain I wanted to try. At this point in my growing time, with a limited space (4x4), and how I grow (love the training and experimenting and having the plants get bigger to fill out all my tent space) as well as experimenting with the relief different strains may potentially provide (can I find a day time sativa that will give a some pain relief while giving me energy to work outdoors in my vegetable garden for a few hours....or if its the winter time and I need to shovel snow for two hours can it provide enough relief on my back to get me through the shoveling and giving me the energy to do it), dedicating half a year or more to one strain that I have never tried isn't logical to me, regardless of the potential to find a gem. I wouldn't know a gem in the cannabis world if it hit me square in the face. Its very likely the stuff I smoke would be horseshit to many people in here and thats cool. Like I also said, if I found a strain or two that really did it for me, then by all means I am fully supportive of taking the type of approach you guys speak of. I have several strains in my bean box that I intend to try several from different breeders (white widow is one, blue dream is another, Northern Lights as well....perhaps there will be one breeders strain that I will favor and it very well might be different from what you or other cannabis fanatics would pick, and thats cool). I currently have Jack Herer from two or three different banks. I don't care if they aren't the original sensi seeds. Will they either fill in for a daytime relief with energy or a night time pain killer that will help me sleep when my back is on fire? Thats really all I care about....and the fact that I love growing cannabis. Its a fascinating plant to me. It amazes me with the things I see this plant capable of doing growing wise.

You talk about taste.....every bud I have ever smoked tastes the same to me. I don't get flavor profiles. I don't know if its because they are churned out quickly in commercial grow operations or what. They all make me cough if I take a big hit. I watch strain reviews and see the guy moving his mouth after he takes a hit and says "hmmm....I taste some berries and a little bit of this or that". I think to myself I haven't ever tasted anything other than weed flavor. So again, I am not looking for the same things many cannabis guys and gals want.

And thanks, I am well aware of what this thread was and is. I am thankful for this thread. I know far more about Jack since I sub'd than I ever did going in. I read all sorts of thread or articles about different strains and their potentials. This stuff fascinates me greatly. The world of medicinal cannabis use enthralls me. I am out of work for the last 8 months due to my back and most of the time if I am not trying to get some limited work done around the house or outside in my garden, I am reading different articles or books (have read several of Ed's cover to cover). Wanting to learn something doesn't mean I am necessarily going to do it, but its still nice to learn and gain knowledge. I am thankful for all the input that people on this site give, and so willingly. Its a refreshing change from the shit you see on a youtube video where someone posts something and instantly the Trolls come out with the name calling and bashing. Here its all about peoples love of cannabis, regardless of if its to make oils, edibles, to get high as fuck, or because someone just loves growing it, and thats cool as hell.

And its interesting, the original post on this thread that got me to offer my opinion on why some people scoff at buying Sensi seeds appears to either have been taken down or deleted. Again, I just offer my opinion which is based off my my thinking and the many different conversations I have had with other amature or small scale growers who don't want to necessarily buy 10 of anyones seeds when they are at that price. It may not fit your logic and thats cool, but it fits ours. For me, I am just starting out brother! I had never seen a cannabis plant growing before I dropped my own beans. I am just now learning a little about how they grow and what is possible with them. In my short time doing this, I have fallen in love with it. Me and Ms Stank have talked about how much I enjoy it and how I want make a designated grow room or areas when we finally find our dream property and can do what we want (looking for 20+ acres where I can build a house the way I want it built with grow set ups the way I want them set up...even including outdoor grows of short flowering time strains). When I have the unlimited space I want and can grow in something besides a 4x4 tent where I am hiding it from my land lord, then I can definitely see changing how I approach seed buying and growing in general. Until that time, I am perfectly content to save my money for that property and house, buy seeds in the smaller pack, and try different varieties to discover what I like because quite frankly, I don't know what I like other than pain relief. Perhaps I will discover a strain that gives a high that I like and doesn't put me to sleep inside of 30 minutes (like Chemdawg 4) or have my mind racing too much like my brother's Cali Trainwreck did. But the only way for me to do that is to try different ones, from several different breeders if necessary and I am cool with that.

Everyone has their passion. If its searching for a great mother to keep around of one particular strain, then awesome. If its dabbling here and there discovering different strains and how you like them, then great. I certainly respect the approach passionate people take. The world needs single focus passionate people, I am just not one of them. I love to travel and fish, see the world, try new things. For me the type of cannabis growing you describe isn't for me at this point. Most my money goes towards the other things in life. I took my dad to Costa Rica on a fishing trip 2 months ago (cost about 10 grand US dollars)....my hard earned money is far more important for things like that than buying as bunch of seeds from one strain to get the best possible plant. Thats a once in a lifetime trip. I am saving to take Ms Stank to Alaska (her dream trip), so I completely get what you talk about in saving. I am not one of those 'gotta have it now' kinda guys. I pay for my trips upfront and refuse go in debt over them. I get what you are saying. But for many of us, cannabis seeds aren't as important and therefore buying 10 or 20 of a single strain that we aren't sure of doesn't make sense. I would rather buy one Jack Herer seed or a 3 pack to try and put the rest of the money into a vacation fund. But I get everything you have said Tortured Soul and respect the hell out of it, it just doesn't fit in with my outlook at this particular time brother (assuming you are a guy, sister if you are a chick).

 

[TorturedSoul]

The wrong thread, since my desire isn't for the high, but for the relief? Isn't Jack Herer the strain that supposedly is the strain doctors in Holland generally prescribe? That sounds a lot like medicinal value to me and something I am interested in possibly trying. Just because I say I don't smoke to get high doesn't mean I don't get high when I medicate.

I may have misunderstood. If you're fine with a buzz accompanying your pain relief, then the strain may be fine for you.

I have tried the CBD oil and it doesn't give me the pain relief nearly as quick or to the same level as smoking either ATF or Chemdawg 4.

I smoked some oil that was supposed to be more CBD than THC. It seemed beneficial, but I couldn't help feeling like it was missing something. But an extraction is not always indicative of the strain, itself. I have a few "CBD strains," low THC / high CBD, purportedly with a much more extreme THC:CBD ratio than I am used to (instead of the CBD being a fraction of the THC amount, they're listed as being 1:2 to 1:5 - and may even be 20x as much CBD as THC). If/when I grow such a strain, I hope to be able to add to my own pain-relief meds. But it'll mainly be grown for those who either aren't looking to get high at all, or who may only feel comfortable getting a buzz at limited times (while they wish to have pain relief as often as possible, lol).

Unfortunately, I only have a single seed of each of those strains. So it'll be a crapshoot as to whether I'm experiencing what the breeder was attempting to achieve with the strains. As the breeder states, there will be some variability amongst examples of any given strain:

For the strains that also produce THC: we aim to have THC in a 1:1 ratio with CBD. To know if you really have a perfect 1:1 you’ll need to test a sample of your flowers. When testing large populations of seeds (for example 100 seeds of the same variety producing both THC and CBD), we noticed that the average results tend to show a 1:1 ratio, ranging from 1:0.5 to 1:2

A range of 4x in the CBD to THC ratio is quite a significant difference, IMHO. And while the statement about the average being a 1:1 ratio, depending on their methodology and use of the term "average," tells me that the odds are good of me getting something that is... in the general neighborhood of a 1:1 ratio, it's sort of like aiming and throwing a dart at the curve, lol - it'll probably land somewhere towards the middle, but I could just as easily end up throwing one towards one end or the other.

Fully lab tested in both USA (The WercShop) and Europe (Fundación CANNA, Spain ) all the CBD Therapy came out all low THC high CBD and the seeds were released to the market. Now after getting a lot of great feedback from growers and medicinal users, CBD Crew noticed that not all seeds came out with very low THC, high CBD. Some closer to 5:1 even a few 2:1, so CBD Crew did an extensive new round of testing of the latest seed crop to see if the variations occurred often. They found that 50-75% of the CBD Therapy seeds will have very low THC, high CBD, but 25-50% could have higher THC. No seed will produce only high THC, always both CBD/ THC. Never seeds with higher THC than the CBD, but variations from 20:1 to 2:1 can occur. In every package, there will be one or more low THC, high CBD phenos.

Variability. It's not that I might get a "dud" if I only sprout one seed - or a very small number of seeds - so much as I may not find exactly what the breeder was looking for, and I may not find the best example (of any particular strain) that happens to be best for ME; and those two things might not be the same, anyway.

I could grow out a larger number of plants than I otherwise would. This would not be optimum (for ME) - but it would still allow me to judge those plants against one another. It wouldn't have to involve a major grow room expansion (or even a minor one). I expect that the entire harvest would be usable. But, as those multiple plants would not be clones from the same parent, there would be differences between one and the next. Ideally, I could set up some kind of blind test so that I didn't even know that sample #3 came from plant #3, in order to keep other factors out of the equation (IOW, just because plant #3 was more of a delicate grower does not detract from its potential medicinal value).

(can I find a day time sativa that will give a some pain relief while giving me energy

I used to grow Strawberry Cough, and I considered it to be a mild sativa. An "all day" sativa, if you will. A friend tried some and <COUGH> had some words to say about my description of it as being mild. Same strain, same phenotype, same plant - two different opinions. But, in any event, it wasn't a bit racy (I made sure that it was ready to harvest before I chopped, and feel that a lot of sativa-dominant strains get harvested too early). And it was definitely milder than Jack Herer, IMHO.

dedicating half a year or more to one strain that I have never tried

While there are certainly advantages to a LONG grow, it isn't necessary (or a long vegetative period isn't, I should say). I would not spend the same amount of time - that I'd spend on something already known - in growing multiple untested examples, either.

I wouldn't know a gem in the cannabis world if it hit me square in the face.

You probably would, lol. It's like... You have 27 pans of water sitting out, each one is one degree warmer than the previous. It might be tough to correctly rank them all by temperature - but stick your hand in one that's 185°F and there won't be any question at all as to whether or not it's the hottest thing on your counter, lmfao.

You talk about taste.....every bud I have ever smoked tastes the same to me. I don't get flavor profiles. I don't know if its because they are churned out quickly in commercial grow operations or what.

Maybe the bud wasn't cured properly? Two people sampling a well-cured bud might get into a discussion about whether that elusive taste is coffee or chocolate... and then sample bud from the exact same plant, only bud that was merely dried instead of cured - and not even find such a flavor.

They all make me cough if I take a big hit.

Take smaller hits, lol.

I am saving to take Ms Stank to Alaska (her dream trip)

Good luck. I had a chance to go about ten years ago and turned it down. A friend decided to go - in the 1989 Dodge Caravan that his grandmother gave him when its odometer reached 250,000 miles :rolleyes3 . He actually came back in the same vehicle he left in. It looked a little different, but before he went on the trip he thought the van would look cool if it was lowered (IDK, it's a kid thing, I guess?) - so, being a redneck, he did some torching and cutting. He'd replaced the suspension components with ones that were, err, all there. And the 150(?) pounds of stereo speakers/amps/etc. were long gone. As was at least part of the exhaust . And the WIFE he had in the passenger seat was new, he he. Last I heard, she'd talked him into heading down to the Everglades. I guess she didn't ever want to see snow and ice again. Me... I hate to even move when it's above 70°F. I have learned that I can put a great deal of clothing on if I get cold enough in the Winter - but there's only so many clothes I can remove in the Summer time, and then I'm sitting on the couch naked, sweat falling like rain <SHUDDERS> . (Funny thing is, I end up getting most of my work during the hottest part of the year - and I don't work in climate-controlled conditions.)

Hope you find the strain/phenotype/plant that works best for your needs, and that you can keep it alive for years.

 

[Van Stank]

Yeah I am fine with the buzz that goes with the relief. My comment was meant to say that if I didn't need the pain relief I wouldn't really smoke much at all (just vacations). But with the back, I need the pain relief a couple times a week when I either overdo it at physical therapy or working outside in the garden....so that is the reason I smoke.

LOL, i will be happy if I can get a single clone to take. I was 0-6 on my first attempt in rockwool with clonex gel in a humidity dome. Gonna try Rapid Rooters next time. Gotta be better success rate than zero, certainly can't do any worse.

I have an extremely sensitive endocannabanoid (sp?)system, doesn't take much to get me high. (wish it was that way with beer cause I am an expensive 'date'). Took one hit off Girl Scout Cookies (via some sort of vape thing) that my brother grew. He and his room-mate took many hits. I was so freaking high I couldn't follow along with the conversation or watch the movie they had on. LOL, all I kept thinking was 'I am pretty sure I only took one freaking hit'. My brother was over in the kitchen studying for a test after like 5 hits. I don't think I could spell my name if I took 5 hits.

I have several CBD strain seeds, of varying ratios, from 1:20 THC to CBD down to 1:1 ratios. I will grow one on my next grow but haven't decided which one to do yet, still have a month or so to decide before I gotta start popping beans. I will try a different one each grow.

My general plan is to try to grow a new Sativa or sativa dominant strain, a new Indica or strongly indica dominant strain, a new fairly balanced hybrid, a new CBD strain, and a 'hey, this looks kinda cool...let me try this' kind of strain on each grow. It will expose me to different kind of smokes and highs and pain reliefs. I don't want to get pigeon holed into "hey this works good, I am just gonna grow this and be done with it" mentality. I figure if I gotta deal with this back issue for a few decades, then I have a bit of time to check different things out and find what I really like or what really works good. I can always regrow a strain for additional medicine if I find one that works well....but with 5 strains per grow it really gives me a chance to experiment.

 

[TorturedSoul]

LOL, i will be happy if I can get a single clone to take. I was 0-6 on my first attempt in rockwool with clonex gel in a humidity dome. Gonna try Rapid Rooters next time. Gotta be better success rate than zero, certainly can't do any worse.

I used to like Olivia's Cloning Gel. Pretty much 100% success with it. So one day I contacted the company and asked if they had any other products and, if so, would they like to send me a sample? They sent a bottle of their Gel and a quart (IIRC) of Olivia's Cloning Solution (very mild nutrient concentrate, possibly with added hormones). So I started dipping my cuttings in the one and watering with the other - and that worked great.

I made a little floating platform with holes to insert cuttings into, and a "mad aeration" setup that constantly kept the dissolved oxygen as high as possible. That worked great, too.

Add this, that, and the other thing...

In recent times, I've just been sticking my cuttings into any handy small container filled with soil (generally, but not always, Fox Farms Happy Frog cut with about 25% perlite). And that works pretty much every time (if you drop ones that the cat "just happened to be standing beside" after something else must have eaten and puked it back up ).

As a matter of fact, I gave someone a rooted clone a while back - Sensi Seeds' Jack Herer, as luck would have it, lol - and, by the time they managed to kill the poor thing, I'd already rooted the cutting that I snipped off the one I gave him - and then promptly forgot about until i returned to see a wilted mess on the table. So he came back whining (I told him he was never going to teach that thing to swim, so he might as well stop trying to give it an ocean every time he walked past it...) about killing it and I already had another one. When I gave him that one, I cut off another piece. It's currently overgrowing a half-liter water bottle. I was going to stick it into a two-liter bottle full of perlite with a hint of coco coir, but I wanted to do so when there were just a few short roots. Whoops. They just seem to grow so fast.

I wish you lived next door (who knows, maybe you do, lofl). I'd be willing to help you with cloning. And I'd probably have a rooted cut of the Jack handy....

but with 5 strains per grow it really gives me a chance to experiment.

I have just about decided that I don't want any more grows with large numbers of different strains. I'm borderline lazy (flip a coin as to which side of that border I'm standing on at any given time ), so mixing nutrients in a half-dozen or more different formulations/strengths gets to be tiresome. I'd much rather just mix up one or two batches and be able to feed every plant without worry of (for example) giving one plant too much nitrogen and another too little just so I could give the other plants the amount they need. Plants having widely varying lengths of flowering period, different amounts of stretch, different amounts of stretch... The rewards of a well-tuned multi-strain grow are obvious. Unfortunately, so are the hassles.

 

[Van Stank]

I don't know how you do the multiple quotes thing or I would do it. For me, multiple strains are easy because I grow in Kind Soil. I don't add any nutes or anything other than water that is pH'd down to 6.5-7.0 (my tap water is 9.2) with organic Earth Crystals. I literally water every 5 days (will probably drop down to 4 days as they progress in flower stage). There is absolutely no guessing "this one should be at xxx ppm, but this strain doesn't like it and needs to be xxx ppm, and this one doesn't like this". That was way too much for me to want to deal with on my first grow. I popped the seed in a solo cup with an inch of the kind soil on the bottom and the rest of the cup with Coco-Loco (I used a clear solo cup so I could see the root development and see when I needed to transplant and then I slid the clear solo cup into a red solo cup to protect the roots from the light). For transplanting, you use Kind Soil at a ratio of 1 lb per gallon size of the container (5 gallon container gets 5lbs of kind soil and fill the rest with Coco-loco.....7gallon pot would get 7 lbs). Don't water to overflow (wash away all your nutrients from the soil) but water your soil thoroughly. Let your pot dry out between waterings (when I see the leaves start to show drooping I know its time to water...or you can go by weight of the pot). It really doesn't get any more low maintenance than growing in Kind Soil. The company doesn't recommend you add anything to the soil, especially chemical nutes as they can kill the living organisms in the soil that allow you to grow without adding anything. I might add just a bit of Earth Worm Castings and Bat Guano as I am about 8 days with hairs on my girls in flower stage because I had about a 2 month veg. I probably don't need to add it, and I am not going to add much, but I think I will give it a touch of a recharge.

Eventually I want get to where I am making my own version of organic soil, but that will be next year. Kind soil is 20 bucks for a 5lb bag (plus shipping). So 5 plants in 5 gallon pots costs me 100 bucks plus shipping....but I have zero maintenance and nothing to do but train and water. I haven't had a single spot on any of my plants (except when I went on vacation and got delayed coming back home early in the grow...but that wasn't the soil's issue, that was mine) and I have only gotten 1 gnat sticking to the little yellow insect traps that I hang on my plants.

You brought up a point I didn't consider when picking out my strains initially....but I figured would be an issue as my grow progressed, flowering times. Luckily there isn't a huge difference between them on my strains. Blueberry and Blue Kush are 55-60, Durban Poison is 55-65, and the ATF is 70-75. I arranged my tent based on these times so that the two ATF plants are on the right side of the tent under one light. The Durban Poison with a possible extra 5 days of flower time (I realize those are averages or estimates and not concrete) is in the back left. The Blueberry and the Blue Kush are in the middle and the front left. So I can harvest those two first, and I am hoping the Durban as well around the same time, then I plan on putting up a light barrier in the middle so I can hang and dry them on the left side while the ATFs continue to flower until they are done. This also allows me to shut down the light on the left side of the tent to save electricity as well. It is definitely something I realize that I need to factor in on future grows.

 

[Skullman420]

Hmmm. This thread makes me think I should write a fool-proof guide to cloning cannabis. I mean - If it were not for the cats eating half my clones, my success-rates would be 100% with or without rooting gel/powder. I can sum up fast what I do:

- Sterilize everything you're gonna use - the grow-house, the dome, the knives and so on. I use Klorin (bleach)
- Fill the bottom tray with vermiculite. About a cm or so thick or whatever - That's not important. Just use enough
- Use either R/O water or boiled water. pH to around 6 (5.8 - 6.5) Use this water for every step from here on. Make sure you have a couple of liters so you have enough.

- Put rockwool or other rooting-media into the water and let it stay there for a while. Half an hour or so should do the trick. Keep them there until it's time to put clones into them. Give them a gentle squeeze the moment before you put your clones into them so it's not 100% wet. You would more want it to be like 80%'ish, so don't squeeze too hard either.

- Take the cuts with sterile equipment, Do an angled cut right below a node or so, and scratch the stem gently to get that outer layer peeled off. Just a little of it will do - the point here is to be fast. Then dip into rooting gel/powder (or skip that step) before you put the clone into the rockwool or other rooting media.

- You already made the vermiculite wet. For this you used the remains of the water you boiled. You put most of it into one of those misters so you can mist your clones daily. The rest you poured all over that vermiculite. You see - That will keep the humidity super high under your dome. It will keep it around 90% for several weeks. That makes you not have to worry so much about them drying out or anything. They can actually drink from the wet air.

So just put your clones on the wet vermiculite, give them a mist of water with or without some fancy rooting nute. I use Canna Rhizotonic for this step, but you only need water really. Rooting gels/powders and so on just speed it up a little bit. Then put the dome on and leave them be. Don't touch them, don't move them, don't play around with them. Give them a gentle misting once a day and at the same time you get the air-exchanged under the dome. Keep vents open at all times cause it's really wet in there even when the dome is off (thanks to the wet vermiculite)

Then you'll notice the lower leaves will turn yellowish. That's a sign of the plant rooting. Just leave it be like that for some weeks and then plant it - that's basically it. You'll know it's ready to be planted when it can survive outside that dome for a few hours without getting sad and starting to hang. If they do that, just put them back and wait a few days more and try again.

The only important thing I can think of other than that is temperature. Keep it above 23 but below 26. The moment you get above 26c, you get a climate that is perfect for harmful bacteria to grow. This will kill your clones before they can root. So not too hot, very wet and sterile - that's the keywords to cloning success.

With this method roots even start coming out from the stem above the rooting medium!! Like they're growing into the wet air. They love it in there!

 

[Van Stank]

Hmmm. This thread makes me think I should write a fool-proof guide to cloning cannabis. I mean - If it were not for the cats eating half my clones, my success-rates would be 100% with or without rooting gel/powder. I can sum up fast what I do:

- Sterilize everything you're gonna use - the grow-house, the dome, the knives and so on. I use Klorin (bleach)
- Fill the bottom tray with vermiculite. About a cm or so thick or whatever - That's not important. Just use enough
- Use either R/O water or boiled water. pH to around 6 (5.8 - 6.5) Use this water for every step from here on. Make sure you have a couple of liters so you have enough.

- Put rockwool or other rooting-media into the water and let it stay there for a while. Half an hour or so should do the trick. Keep them there until it's time to put clones into them. Give them a gentle squeeze the moment before you put your clones into them so it's not 100% wet. You would more want it to be like 80%'ish, so don't squeeze too hard either.

- Take the cuts with sterile equipment, Do an angled cut right below a node or so, and scratch the stem gently to get that outer layer peeled off. Just a little of it will do - the point here is to be fast. Then dip into rooting gel/powder (or skip that step) before you put the clone into the rockwool or other rooting media.

- You already made the vermiculite wet. That will keep the humidity super high under your dome. It will keep it around 90% for several weeks. So just put your clones on the wet vermiculite, give them a mist of water with or without some fancy rooting nute. I use Canna Rhizotonic for this step, but you only need water really. Rooting gels/powders and so on just speed it up a little bit. Then put the dome on and leave them be. Don't touch them, don't move them, don't play around with them. Give them a gentle misting once a day and at the same time you get the air-exchanged under the dome. Keep vents open at all times cause it's really wet in there even when the dome is off (thanks to the wet vermiculite)

Then you'll notice the lower leaves will turn yellowish. That's a sign of the plant rooting. Just leave it be like that for some weeks and then plant it - that's basically it

The only important thing I can think of other than that is temperature. Keep it above 23 but below 26. The moment you get above 26c, you get a climate that is perfect for harmful bacteria to grow. This will kill your clones before they can root. So not too hot, very wet and sterile - that's the keywords to cloning success.

Thanks Deville I appreciate you taking the time to explain it. I did most everything you said on there but a couple. I didn't use the vermiculitte. I had the rockwool sitting on the tray. Then I used distilled water, don't have RO. Not sure if that makes any difference. I sterilized everything very well, rubbing alcohol.

I think my mistake was having it sit on one of those seed germination pads. Environment was rather warm. I was guilty of picking them up to look for roots starting around day 7 (when they were starting to look bad). I actually tore one that looked dead apart to look for any sign of roots (there weren't any). I will have to convert your Celsius temps to F to see where I am falling without the germination pad. I have them under a small T5 (4 bulbs, 96 watts).

Again thanks for your time and info. I have a big male plant I have in a separate tent that I will take a few clones and practice on since these are about dead. I have one that I cut and put right into water to see if it would grow roots like other plants will. I was also planning on trying to take a cutting, dip in rooting gel and then plant in soil and see if it will work (I do this often with tomato shoots with a 100% rate). I really don't want to buy a cloning machine....seems like so many people like yourself have great success without one.

 

[Skullman420]

PS! You can use perlite as well, but that doesn't keep humidity at the same insanely high levels. Can't remember what humidity levels were laying around when I did it with perlite. You could probably also just put them directly into soil with a dome over. Will try that some day

 

[Skullman420]

Day 7 is about when they start looking bad when they're being boiled Fuck that heat-pad. It kills the clones. I do have one for extra cold days. Used it like 10 minutes every morning for a few days when it was a little colder inside. I did the same mistakes the first hundred times I tried to take clones. The heat killed them every time. When you do it right they won't look bad after 7 days, they will look happy and healthy and stretching for the light

I was guilty of picking them up to look for roots starting around day 7 (when they were starting to look bad)

 

[Skullman420]

If your temps does fall too low. You can use heat-pad together with a timer. Just figure out how often it needs to be active during a day to keep temps up but not too high. I know they also do sell thermostates for heat-pads, but they're expensive.

 

[Nicholas Flamel]

Good advice about the heat pad Deville, you really have to keep a close eye on them bitches cuz they will cook your seeds/clones. A timer works well like you said. When i first used one i thought they had built in thermostats and would Stay the perfect temp for seeds. Nope

 

[handjive4mota]

asking questions with no clear answer?? sounds snowflakey!

 

[Skunkworkz]

If your temps does fall too low. You can use heat-pad together with a timer. Just figure out how often it needs to be active during a day to keep temps up but not too high. I know they also do sell thermostates for heat-pads, but they're expensive.

The under $30 answer:
VIVOSUN 10"x20" Seedling Heat Mat and Digital Thermostat Combo Set

Or just the thermostat for $19:
VIVOSUN Digital Seedling Heat Mat Thermostat Controller 68-108℉ Color Random

 

[Skullman420]

That's not so bad. You should see what the local hydro-shop are charging for this crap

The under $30 answer:
VIVOSUN 10"x20" Seedling Heat Mat and Digital Thermostat Combo Set

Or just the thermostat for $19:
VIVOSUN Digital Seedling Heat Mat Thermostat Controller 68-108℉ Color Random

 

[Skullman420]

Actually there is very few questions out there that have clear answers.

Anyway - The answer to your question is "because it's useful, fun and thought provocing - and sometimes, just sometimes, someone may end up learning something. Holy fuck I learned a lot of stuff from asking the most silly of questions.

asking questions with no clear answer?? sounds snowflakey!

 

[TorturedSoul]

In regards to taking a cutting from a cannabis plant and rooting it... If one sits down and thinks about it, he/she will see that - under good environmental conditions - it's hard not to root a cutting.

If you've ever had a cannabis plant growing outdoors, or even in a really large pot, and seen a branch hang so far down that it is literally on the ground... Wait too long and you might end up with roots there, lol. Throw a little dirt over that branch and you almost certainly will. It's not an inanimate object such as a door or a thick plank - IT'S ALIVE, ha ha.

If the mother is properly hydrated (has been watered properly), has been given an adequate amount of nitrogen, and is otherwise healthy... If you're not doing this in desert-like conditions where the relative humidity is in single-digits, if you're not in the habit of smoking around your plants and, therefore, clogging up the stomata on the undersides of the leaves, if it is not sweltering hot or shivering cold, if you use a good sharp sterile razor blade to make your cuts instead of a pair of scissors (which tend to pinch the cuts)... If you don't buy into the advice for hacking most of the leaves off and cutting away parts of the remainder, or that you "need" to use a humidity dome (which sort of fights the plant's natural behavior and responses)... Then you ought to be able to root a cutting.

You can root a cutting that you cut and then forgot about until it looks like a wet green noodle. You can take a bunch of cuttings, hear the doorbell, panic, wrap the entire two dozen in paper towels and throw them into the refrigerator until your company leaves, several hours later... and root them anyway. For that matter, you can start to give a malnourished, WAY too tall clone that has been living months in a coffee cup away and think, "Wait, that's my last one - I better chop off a piece," and come back a couple hours later, see that you forgot all about it, scrape up the mixture of soil, perlite, and whatever else happens to be on the table, pour it into a water bottle, make a hole (because a green wet noodle is obviously incapable of being pushed into the soil, lol), recut the end of the stem at a good angle, maybe make a cut up - to split the bottom of the stem a little - and scrape along the bottom half inch or so of the stem (not really necessary, but...), carefully drop the stem in, gently press the soil/etc. down around the stem so that there are no large air spaces and you have good soil-to-plant contact, water it in well, check on it the next day...

...and it'll almost always be standing proud, as if it's shouting, "Hi, look at me! Gee, that's a pretty light up there, I think I'm going to head that way. BtW, you don't have a cat, do you? Because I'm sort of allergic and break out in a puddle of complete destruction and cat vomit. But if you don't have a cat, I'm golden. Next stop, the sky!"

My source for the above? Personal experience, lol. I'm somewhat lazy - and a whole lot forgetful. I once sat on the couch and discovered a cutting between the cushion and the arm of the couch. WHOOPS. Rooted it. It was wilted - but it wasn't dead.

Actually, these days, I prefer to let my cuttings wilt a little bit before planting them. Why? Because it becomes so obvious that a cutting is going to make it when it goes from a wilted mess to "standing up" and looking healthy in just a couple of hours. That is a sign that the stem is taking up moisture. Not much, of course - after all, a cut stem-end is NOT a root system. But it doesn't need an ocean, it just needs a little, along with the ability to get a little more when needed. This, combined with the energy and nutritional reserves contained in the leaves that I did NOT cut away, provides the resources needed to grow roots. Ensuring that the cutting has access to just enough moisture - and from the CORRECT end of the plant :rolleyes3 - actively encourages the thing to produce roots quicker. Keep pouring in the water, cover the container so that the humidity level builds and builds and builds, and... Well, stick a fat kid in a recliner and keep throwing candy & soda pop at him and see how often he gets off his fat arse and actually goes looking for food/drink, lol. Me, I don't want a well-watered but rootless cutting - I want a rooted clone.

It aint rocket science. People have been doing it for thousands of years, methinks. Back when "high-tech" was thinking about, you know, maybe we ought to haul that bloated sheep carcass out of the town well, do you suppose that might be why half the populace has died this week, lol? So common sense tells you that there can't be that much required to do this thing.

There are things that help - antifungal type agents one can apply to the stem end, for example. There are things that may speed rooting - the aeroponic cloner, or something like a DWC setup (with mad levels of dissolved oxygen in the solution, mad!) with a floating platform able to take dozens of cuttings. But it's not necessary. All that is necessary is the cutting, something to stick it in, a good clean interface (the stem-end), a little light, and a little water.

Cannabis isn't a difficult to clone species. Even the strains that seem to take a little longer just... take a little longer, lofl. If it was a species that was known to be difficult to root, I'd hunt up a thread where I discussed making a cut around a stem, making another cut the same way about an inch lower, making a vertical cut to join the two - all those cuts through only the first layer of plant, BtW - then peeling the one-inch section away, packing the resulting wound with moss or something similar, adding a hint of water, wrapping the mess with something, and continuing to care for the mother as per normal for a couple weeks, then carefully unwrapping the wound site - and seeing ROOTS, lol, at which point you can cut off your brand new, fully-rooted clone (which constantly received all the water/nutrients it needed, from its mother, just like a gestating baby does right up until you chop the umbilical cord off). That's how you clone "difficult to clone" plant species. Trees, even. And, yes, it works with cannabis. It's like using a howitzer to kill a fly, lmao, but it works fine.

I'm just jabbering, lol. It was either that or go poop, and I felt the need to run my (virtual) mouth more than I felt any other need. Now, however, I can feel my priorities... shifting . Gotta... run!

(A very quick) EDIT: I do not wish to give offense, but feel that this must be stated: I think that one reason why some people have trouble with this stuff is the same reason why newbies collectively manage to kill so many plants even though cannabis has been growing wild - often in deplorable conditions - for countless thousands of years. They "care" them to death, lol. How well do you think your wife would like giving birth if you were pestering her all the way through labor? Yeah, better wear your catcher's mask and cup for that :rolleyes3 . There's a reason why, if someone asks why their plants are drooping and I reply, "They're under-watered," I then add, "Wait, are you a NEW grower? In that case, they're probably over-watered." Because the new grower would never forget to water. He's in there every day, sometimes many times per day, just looking for something to do (here's a suggestion, bring your laptop and just sit there with your plants, reading here at the forum). He's thinking, IDK, "It's been TWO HOURS and I haven't bothered to tend to these plants once! I know, I bet they're thirsty. Why, I've had two glasses of iced tea and I could use another. I'll just give them a little drink, shall I?" So my vote is "take the cutting, stick the cutting, water the cutting, and leave the cutting alone!" (Water when it droops again - not before.)