A cut is a rooted clone taken from a specific plant, and by extension that plant's genotype. Saying "I have the cut" means having a living copy of one selected individual, not seed of the line.
In practice
Growers trade, keep and argue about cuts. A famous clone-only is passed from garden to garden as cuts for decades. Because every cut of one plant is genetically identical (barring rare mutations), a cut is the only way to grow exactly the same plant again; seed from it, even selfed, gives new individuals.
The claim "this is the original cut" is only as good as its chain of custody. Two cuts with the same name may be different plants, and the same plant may circulate under many names. On GenetixBay a cut's identity is a claim with an evidence level until grow-outs or a DNA match back it up.
Take cuts from consistent positions on the plant: cuttings from different branches can behave a little differently (position effects), which is not the same as the genetics changing.
Don't confuse with
- Clone: the horticultural term; "cut" is the slang, with a strong sense of "this specific individual".
- Pheno: one plant from a seed lot. A pheno becomes a cut once it is kept and cloned.
Myth check
"Cuts drift and get weaker over time." GenetixBay position: no genetic drift beyond pathogens such as hop latent viroid. Decline in an old cut is almost always disease or care. See clone-only preservation.
The genotype is the set of alleles a plant actually carries, either at one locus or across its whole genome, as opposed to the traits you can see.A clone-only is a cultivar that exists only as cuttings from one original plant, with no seed line that reliably reproduces it.Selfing is pollinating a plant with its own pollen, in cannabis usually by reversing part of a female to make pollen; it is the most intense form of inbreeding.Topophysis is the tendency of cuttings to keep traits linked to the position on the mother plant they were taken from, so cuts from different parts can behave differently.In grower slang, a pheno is one individual plant from a seed lot, usually numbered during a hunt, as in "the #4 pheno".A seed run is a dedicated grow in which selected parents are crossed to produce a batch of seed, as opposed to growing for flower.Genetic drift is random change in allele frequencies between generations of a seed population, strongest in small populations; clones do not drift this way.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.Cloning is propagating a plant by rooting cuttings from it, producing new plants that are genetically identical to the donor.An elite cut is a famous, proven clone-only plant, often held by a few growers and traded rather than sold openly.A keeper is a plant from a seed hunt good enough to be kept alive as a clone or mother for future runs or breeding.A renamed cut is a known clone sold or shared under a new name, so one genotype circulates under many labels and lineage records get muddied.
