Taking clones from your cannabis plants can be a daunting task if you've never done it before. With just a few practices you could be growing even better cannabis plants. This article teaches you about monster cropping and why it is so good for massive yields.
What Is Monster Cropping?
Monster cropping is a method of cloning that doesn't involve keeping a mother plant. In case you didn't know, mother plants are healthy cannabis cultivars that are kept in their vegetative stage for the purpose of taking clones. With monster cropping, cuttings are taken directly from a maturing cannabis plant in flower and trained back into their vegetative state.
Monster cropping gets its name for the monster results it produces. It refers to taking a crop's worth of heavy producing plants. This is the main reason growers choose to clone their cannabis plants using this method. Monster cropping can eventually help you achieve stronger plants, more harvests per year, and leave you with fatter buds.
The Pros and Cons of Monster Cropping
Depending on your setup, monster cropping may or may not be a wise idea. Cloning undoubtedly causes stress, both to the cutting and the plant itself. However, as we have seen, stressing a cannabis plant with the right training can actually make it stronger in the long run. Done correctly, this tends to result in hardier plants that produce larger yields than plants that are not trained.
Make sure you consider the pros and cons of performing high stress techniques before doing anything. Monster cropping cannabis successfully depends on many factors, like the strain and environment it is being grown in. Autoflowers, for example, are not well suited to monster cropping. Let's take a closer look at the advantages and disadvantages:
Pros of Monster Cropping:
- Continuous grow cycles - Taking cuttings from a healthy plant means you can have many copies of the same genetic. These can be ready to put into flower by the time you harvest the cloned plant, allowing you to keep the cycles consistently going in the flowering room.
- No mother plants required - Mother plants take up space and often need their own room to grow in. No mother means you can make better use of your space or equipment.
- Resilient, bushy, high-yielding plants - Monster cropping results in strong, compact plants with thick branching, especially when combined with other stress techniques.
Cons of Monster Cropping:
- Rooting cuttings isn't 100% guaranteed - The heavy stress can be too much for a clone to handle.
- Conditions need to be exact - Without an optimal, stable environment it can be tricky to get cuttings to root successfully.
- Only works for photoperiodic plants - Autoflowers cannot be reverted back into their vegetative stage.
- Requires patience - It takes time for cuttings to root and be fully converted back to their vegetative rhythm.
- Not for beginners - Monster cropping requires some experience in growing cannabis.
Should I Monster Crop My Cannabis Plants?
Monster cropping is relatively easy if you understand how cloning works. It does help to have some growing experience behind your back otherwise you may end up with a few unhealthy, slow clones that do not produce decent yields.
Although it won't necessarily hurt to try monster cropping, it is recommended you practice cloning with vegging or mother plants before moving onto monster cropping. This way you don't risk damaging your plants during flowering and potentially waste time/energy at the same time.
If you are already comfortable with growing weed and have the right space available, it is definitely worth trying monster cropping.
How To Perform Monster Cropping
Monster cropping can take place 2-3 weeks after your cannabis plants start flowering. Make sure you use the right equipment and keep the process as hygienic as possible. Before getting started, sterilise your tools and growing space.
For cuttings you will need:
- Sharp knife or scalpel
- Rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol
- Paper towels
- Non-transparent cup with water
For rooting:
- Rooting cubes
- Rooting gel/hormone
- Propagator or cloning system.
Choosing a plant
The first step is to choose the healthiest, tallest and most vigorous plant in your garden. Growers with multiple strains may want to take cuttings from each of their best plants.
Monster cropped Red Sky clones by MG2009 from GrowDiaries.
Avoid choosing plants that are undergoing any health problems such as nutrient deficiency or pests otherwise you may create difficulties for yourself later on.
Cuttings
After disinfecting your cutting tool with alcohol, you can begin selecting small branches that would make good clones. Look low down on the plant and find healthy branches that have at least 2-3 nodes. The branches should look strong but not have a hard outer membrane. Woody branches make it harder for the cutting to develop roots.
Cut at a 45° angle just below the bottom node of your selected branch. The nodes have a higher concentration of growth hormones, so when we cut around this area the probability of rooting increases.
Immediately place the cutting into a cup of water (at room temperature). The stem should be submerged in at least 5 - 6cm of water. The cup can be placed into a propagator to keep moisture from escaping. Keeping a high humidity at this stage allows plants to 'drink' through the leaves until the roots are developed enough to take over.
Rooting
Getting your cuttings to root can be achieved in different ways. The first method is to leave them in the cup of water (in the propagator), making sure you change the water every 2 days and misting regularly to maintain humidity. Remember to not expose the cut zone. If air gets absorbed through the wound it can kill the cutting.
As an alternative to a propagator, you may be interested in building a hydroponic cloning system to host your freshly cut cuttings. These systems can provide a reliable, stable and sterile environment in which clones can root and grow successfully. On that note, clones are best kept under cool CFL lights set to be on 24 hours a day.
The second way to root clones is by using a rooting gel. These supplements contain hormones which encourage new root growth. They also provide a protective layer around the cut, preventing oxygen from entering. Cuttings can be taken, dipped straight into rooting gel, and planted in rooting cubes such as Rapid Rooters. These can then be kept in a propagator until roots emerge.
Growth Stage Reversal
Re-vegging your cannabis starts once roots begin to show. The sudden change in light forces the plant to realise it is no longer meant to flower. In order to survive it must focus its energy on growing new roots and foliage. Once cuttings have established new roots and have begun growing, the light schedule can be changed to 18 hours of light, 6 of dark.
The stress caused during this shift initially results in fairly deformed looking plants. The first few weeks of development tend to be this way, with leaves and branches growing in a twisted and curled fashion, but the plants eventually grow out of it.
All the stress means the plants have to work extremely hard to survive, but it is the reason they end up producing more bud.
Training
Monster cropped clones do particularly well when they're trained. Once the little ladies have rooted and are growing normally again, they will have already become slightly accustomed to heavy stress. That means further stress techniques can easily be applied. Your already robust clones can be encouraged to make more efficient use of the light, which results in even larger amounts of bud per square meter.
Conclusion
Monster cropping might not be for everyone, but it can certainly improve bud production for a cannabis grower. Once you have a system in place for keeping clones, maintaining a rotative grow cycle becomes a breeze. You'll have monster harvests all year round and more weed to show at the end of it.
If you found this article useful or have any experience with monster cropping, please feel free to leave a comment down below!
External References
Modified Nodal Cuttings and Shoot Tips Protocol for Rapid Regeneration of Cannabis sativa L.. Journal of Natural Fibers. - Wróbel, Tomasz & Dreger, Mariola & Wielgus, Karolina & Slomski, Ryszard. (2020).
This article was updated October 2020.
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