Germinate and clone in parallel

I am going to receive fresh clone cuts from a friend and care for them while they route. I want to run these in a grow tent with some seeds I plan to germinate.

My basic newbie assumption is that the clones will be a little more viable and ahead of the seeds. Should I start seeds earlier to compensate? If so, how much earlier? Any other special care instructions, do's, don'ts, etc?

Based on the size of most clones I’ve seen I think planting seeds two weeks ahead of time should get them pretty even in size.

But they still won’t be able to flower for another month after that.

Dosidude said:

I am going to receive fresh clone cuts from a friend and care for them while they route. I want to run these in a grow tent with some seeds I plan to germinate.

My basic newbie assumption is that the clones will be a little more viable and ahead of the seeds. Should I start seeds earlier to compensate? If so, how much earlier? Any other special care instructions, do's, don'ts, etc?

Click to expand...

It depends on how fast the clones root for you. If they're quick to root then they could be ahead of seed starts.
Plants grown from seed have "hybrid vigor" and are supposed to grow up to 25% faster/bigger than a clone.
Clones are usually guaranteed female but seeds can be male, so that matters.
I also have a book that says a seed start can produce up to 26 pounds, while a clone will produce 3-5 pounds. But I haven't been able to verify that in my own grow.
Outside I grow from seed. Inside I use clones.

MustGro said:

It depends on how fast the clones root for you. If they're quick to root then they could be ahead of seed starts.
Plants grown from seed have "hybrid vigor" and are supposed to grow up to 25% faster/bigger than a clone.
Clones are usually guaranteed female but seeds can be male, so that matters.
I also have a book that says a seed start can produce up to 26 pounds, while a clone will produce 3-5 pounds. But I haven't been able to verify that in my own grow.
Outside I grow from seed. Inside I use clones.

Click to expand...

The real thing that makes seed-grown plants so vigorous is that they have a taproot. Given enough time and room to grow, seed-grown plants will be at a disadvantage early on but make it up by growing a larger root mass and eventually outpacing the clones.

The other aspect of this is that clones can carry diseases, not all of which will significantly impact the plant, especially if you're not taking cuttings off of the clone and keeping them going. But by keeping a copy of the same tissue alive for a long time, it creates more opportunity for the plant to become infected during growth or during propagation.

This can be mitigated by growing in clean areas with clean soil/media/hydroponic systems and good aseptic technique, but not everyone grows that way and diseased cuttings are grown all the time, and people may never even know because the infection isn't significant enough affect their plant that year and they don't propagate it. This is one of the reasons for the fancy tissue culture services, where an uninfected bit of tissue is propagated in a sterile environment to create clean stock for further cuttings.

Just to clarify this is female seeds. Indoor grow.

Dosidude said:

Just to clarify this is female seeds. Indoor grow.

Click to expand...

It really depends on the size of your clones but (going off industry standards) I would start the seeds no less than 2 weeks before you plan on transplanting a standard 5" clone in 1.5" rockwool, or 3-4 weeks ahead of a larger one 8" tall in 2" rockwool. Pic from a commercial nursery in Oregon.

GlassJoe said:

It really depends on the size of your clones but (going off industry standards) I would start the seeds no less than 2 weeks before you plan on transplanting a standard 5" clone in 1.5" rockwool, or 3-4 weeks ahead of a larger one 8" tall in 2" rockwool. Pic from a commercial nursery in Oregon.

View attachment 4950411

Click to expand...

I have seen the plant we are clipping and I'm imaging standard. This is helpful and has interesting timing decisions bc the branches I would target today as standard could be tall sized by the time my seeds germ. Will have to be on the lookout for other nodes that can supply me two weeks out.