A cutting is a section of stem removed from a donor plant for rooting. In cannabis it is almost always a softwood tip cutting: the growing tip plus two or three nodes, 8-15 cm (3-6 in) long. Once rooted, it is a clone.
In practice
Take cuttings from firm, vegetative, well-fed shoots, ideally from the lower and middle canopy at a consistent position on the plant. Cut at a 45° angle just below a node with a sterile blade, drop it straight into clean water or onto a damp surface so air does not enter the stem, then remove the lowest leaves and trim large fan leaves by about half to cut water loss. Cuttings from flowering plants root slowly and often re-veg with odd, single-blade leaves.
Unrooted cuttings carry pests and pathogens from the donor. Inspect and quarantine anything brought in.
Don't confuse with
- Clone: a rooted cutting; growers use both words loosely.
- Cut (slang): shorthand for a specific clonal line ("the original cut"), covered as slang.
A mother plant is a female kept permanently in vegetative growth to supply cuttings, so a selected genotype can be propagated as clones indefinitely.The zone of dividing cells at the very tip of a shoot (or root) that produces new leaves, nodes and stem; removing it is what topping does.A large palmate cannabis leaf with several long leaflets on a long petiole; fan leaves do most of the plant's photosynthesis and carry few trichomes.Re-veg is returning a flowering or harvested plant to vegetative growth by putting it back under long days, often to save a genotype after harvest.Cloning is propagating a plant by rooting cuttings from it, producing new plants that are genetically identical to the donor.Rooting hormone is an auxin preparation, usually indole-3-butyric acid (IBA), applied to a cutting's base to speed and increase root formation.A cloning dome is a clear lid over a tray that keeps humidity high around unrooted cuttings or seedlings, reducing water loss until roots form.The point on a stem where a leaf (petiole) and its axillary bud attach; branches, flowers and clone roots all originate at nodes.
