"Purpureus" C#3

These were tiny cuttings taken back 1 week into the flowering of Caitlyn, kinda messed up and took the cuttings too early into flower and was far too small no bigger than a thumb, it really messed up the plant hormonally taking longer than expected to root, I put no stress on the cuts to grow and they were kept in a comfortable dimmed state for 6-7 weeks to allow full regeneration and under pure blue light with just enough ppfd to keep it alive once rooted yet keep growth to a minimum. I read some studies that indicated higher exposure to blue light decreases internodal spacing quite dramatically. 8 inches tall, with 12 internodes, crazy stuff. Very excited to see what we can do with these, given how much of a genetic standout the mother was. Cloning is different than growing a plant from seed because the seed contains slightly different genes than the plant from which it came. So if you take a seed from one plant, put it in the ground, and grow it to maturity, the new plant will be different from the original. The new plant may look different (or it may not), but the real change occurs at the genetic level. With cloning, on the other hand, you can compare the two separate plants down to the cellular level and not see any difference. Monster cropping is the process of cutting off a piece of a cannabis plant in its flowering stage, replanting it, and nurturing it until it grows on its own. and reverts back to vegetative growth. This definition sounds very similar — if not identical — to the definition for cloning mentioned above. That’s because monster cropping, at its most basic, is just creating clones of the mother plant. So why do it? And why do ganja growers call it monster cropping instead of cloning? We can answer both of those questions by examining the name itself. The formal definition of the word monster is: An imaginary creature that is typically large, ugly, and frightening. Over the years, that definition has evolved slightly into A thing or animal that is excessively or dauntingly large. With the exception of the word “frightening” in the first definition, both pretty much describe the clones you get from the mother plant: large and ugly. Once the clones take root, they can grow to be extremely large…possibly even larger than the mother plant. The clones will be ugly in many ways. You can expect single-finger leaves and possibly even some mutations. Don’t fret. That’s a normal response to all the stress you inflicted on the poor little cutting. If you nurture it correctly, the plant will get over it in no time.CroppingYounger, more tech-savvy readers may only be familiar with the word “crop” as it relates to cutting a picture down to a smaller size. That’s not what we’re talking about here. In this case, we’re talking about a much older definition: a cultivated plant. In the agricultural sense, “crop” also implies a large number of said cultivated plants. So you could have a corn crop, a wheat crop, and, yes, a cannabis crop. Taking it a step further, then, “cropping” is an informal word for growing a group of plants together. It’s not used very much anywhere other than the cannabis community, but you know how much we stoners like to invent new words! Putting It All TogetherWe’ve talked about “monster” and we’ve talked about “cropping” separately, so let’s put them together and see what we get. Big clones of the original plus an expansive group of plants: that’s monster cropping in a nutshell. Dissecting the name clues you into what it is exactly, but it also gives you an idea of why you would want to do it — monster yields. Why does monster cropping work? In a word, stress. Stress rejuvenates cannabis and triggers the development of desired traits, including Vigorous growth of leaves, branches, nodes, and bud sites (the monster part of the equation) Higher levels of THC Yes, you read that right. Monster cropping produces higher levels of THC. In a growing pot plant, cannabinoids act as a defense mechanism against predators (i.e., animals that eat the plant). So when you do what those predators do — remove pieces of the original plant — you cause both the mother plant and the cut piece to go into defense mode. In the wild, that means releasing more THC to deter future attacks. Or, in the case of monster cropping, it means high-quality, high-THC weed.