Cut trading is the exchange of rooted clones (cuts) between growers, usually one keeper for another. It is how many clone-only cultivars spread and survived before any formal archive existed.
In practice
Trading carries two big risks. First, pests and pathogens: broad mites, russet mites and hop latent viroid travel inside cuts, so a new clone should be quarantined, inspected and, ideally, viroid-tested before it joins the garden. Second, identity: a traded cut's name is a claim, and the same plant circulates under many names while different plants share one name. Record where each cut came from and when.
The legality of giving or trading cannabis plants varies widely, including whether a trade counts as a sale. Check local rules. On GenetixBay, member-to-member exchange runs through the Swap only in the lanes the law allows where both members live.
Don't confuse with
- Clone sales: commercial supply of clones by a licensed nursery.
- Seed trading: lower pest risk, but offspring are new individuals rather than copies.
A clone-only is a cultivar that exists only as cuttings from one original plant, with no seed line that reliably reproduces it.Polyphagotarsonemus latus, a microscopic tarsonemid mite whose toxic feeding twists, glazes and stunts new growth; often mistaken for calcium deficiency or heat stress.Aculops cannabicola, a microscopic eriophyid mite specific to cannabis that causes upward leaf curl, bronzing and dull, greasy-looking trichomes.HLVd, a small infectious RNA that spreads through sap and tools, causing stunting, brittle stems, small loose buds and reduced resin in cannabis; called dudding.A cut is slang for a clone of one specific plant, used to mean that individual genotype, as in "the original cut".An elite cut is a famous, proven clone-only plant, often held by a few growers and traded rather than sold openly.The Swap is GenetixBay's pseudonymous, escrowed member-to-member exchange, reviving the Bay's 2009 peer-to-peer roots, running only in the modes local law allows.Holding incoming plants, clones or seeds apart from the main grow, under observation and sometimes treatment, until they are shown to be free of pests and disease.
