Originally Posted by Sureshot

Cloning, it only SOUNDS complicated cos you N.Am's went and called it CLONING!! Which sounds all posh and scientific like.

If you call it taking a cutting it suddenly becomes a whole load less daunting!

Taking a cutting by Shot:

• Go to the flourist.
• Ask for some of the material they use to arrange dried flowers (in the UK it is called Oasis). Buy some.
• Go to the garden centre.
• Buy some rooting hormone, any will do, I like gel rather than powder but whatever.
• Grab some new small scissors while here.
• Go home.
• Smoke a doob. That was hard work.
• Prepare your Oasis cubes by cutting them into inch by 2" cubes.
• Wash these cubes to remove any fire retardent.
• Break a biro pen and use the centre bit to make 1 1/2" hole in the cut blocks down the long end. I make these holes slightly angled so the cutting slides in /, this allows for greater surface area to root.
• Prepare your rooting hormone, powder or gel, seperate some from the main container so if it gets infected your whole supply isn't.
• Get your potential mum out, any girl with a branch with a node that regrowth can occur from, then another node that can be buried, then another node an another.
• Cut the branch between the first and second node.
• Strip off any growth at the now lowest node of your cut.
• Do the same for the next.
• And the next.
• You should have two medium sized leaves and a growing tip left.
• Recut the stem at the bottom at a 45 degree angle and wound the lowest inch and a bit by scraping the outer surface lightly.
• Dip the lower 1 1/2" into the rooting hormone. If you are using powder be sure to spreadit on the sides but do not cover the bottom of your 45 degree cut. Covering this may stop the cut branch taking water.
• Put the cutting into the hole in your oasis cube.
• Put the Oasis cube onto a warm surface. I use a cheap heated propagator (http://www.growell.co.uk/p/0960/Hi_Top_Propagators.html) and keep the cubes moist for teh first few days but allow them to dry almost all the way through (look at the colour of the cube) before re wetting. Don't bother with misting or a dome.
• 7 -9 days later pot these cubes into a small pot of your final medium and leave this in the propogator for a further 7 - 10 days before potting on.
• Smoke a celebratory doob.

Regarding cuttings and mothers, when I grow from seed I generally am looking for a mother (or indeed father) so I will take cuttings off all potential mothers and fathers before flowering, root them and keep these labelled, evaluate the seed plants and ditch those that don't spec up.

But that's just how I do it.

Some stuff always slips through the net though and you CAN root and reveg a cutting off a flowering plant, the furtehr it is into flowering the harder it becomes, but it is not impossible. The attached images are from cuttings taken just 3 weeks before the mother plant was harvested. They've taken a long time to reveg, about 40 days so far, but are finally reverting to veg growth. It's not best practise though as it is pretty stressful.

Talking of good practise, it's equally not recommended but you CAN keep cuts in the fridge for a little while before rooting them, just be sure to recut the ends before rooting.