this all remains a little unclear.. you definitely left out a few details along the way, which is why I worded my very first post like I did.
but let's look again here.. you said you cut clones from your F2 mother on
Sept 25.. so then it would be
impossible for you to have seeded those, grown out the subsequent F3 generation seeds, and now to be looking at clones of your "selected F3 mother" only a month later..
from your new explanation, it sounds like you are sitting on a pile of clones of an F2 mama.. but again it just isn't entirely clear.
just to describe the potential scenario a bit..
if you selected a male and female from an initial pack of seeds and did a cross between them, you would have ended up with F2 seeds. doesn't matter how many generations you cloned the mama.. those clones are all identical to the original F1 mama.
so now you've taken those F2 seeds and germed a bunch, and you should see quite a bit of deviation in the results unless your initial F1 seedstock is from an inbred or heirloom line (ie not really F1s
) or of course if one of the parents happens to be especially recessive..
getting to F3, the idea would usually be to more narrowly define the gene pool.. but it must involve breeding two F2 candidates together to be a true F3. if you haven't made a new male selection or done a second run of seeds from your F2 candidates, then I'm not sure where you are exactly.
if, however, you crossed an F2 female to her male parent plant, you are crossing an F2 with an F1 plant, and the results would not be the same as F3s because the genetic code to be donated by the male F1 is likely to be far more open-ended.
hopefully after a day of browsing around info, you feel confident again about what you are working on.. i really don't mean to cast any negative light onto your project! just looking for clarification & only spent time replying at all because i've seen you problem-solve (still got your calmag?) & follow through with beautiful work in the past..
so regardless of all the details involved, cheers buddy! keep on grinding...