AdirondackGreen
I read the same thing! I kept going, ‘no this can’t actually be happening! Everyone says it doesn’t happen!’ I was so confused what was happening at first - My first one was accidental & I repeated the actions done with a second plant which got the same result (from dark to light with nitrogen up the wazoo).
I will say it is not worth it. Not revenging or cloning, with the exception of bottom branches already chopped for the slaughter. The amount you get is minuscule in revegging them.
So here was my first one - there was life on the very bottom, in the younger shot you can clearly see the stump, and then it slowly sprouted out to be the size in the later photo. The other one grew a bit more normally and gave a few small real buds (however in that one I left tiny buds when I cut the original, & the new growth grew from those buds, while in this one photographed it grew more normally at first). After the long spindles and odd leaves formed that you can see in the pic I got pistols, which I pollinated. The weird thing is it crystallized along the stem and pistols, and the seeds grew fine, but that plant never produced true buds. However it did mature the seeds completely so I got about 2-3 dozen seeds. However at that point I was in it simply to keep the genetics, so that was fine by me!
I already have one plant from a seed of it, about a foot tall. They were Lamb’s Breath auto by I think Crop King. The cross turns it photogenic but I’m just glad to keep that strain in my garden. I’m excited to see how the F1 seeds progress!
It was weird! The one that gave bud yielded precious little, under a quarter ounce (They both grew very little & like freaks).
Picture of some dried second Lamb reveg, which had actual bud. This is what I mean by they both grew funny.
Same with quantity in auto cloning, you won’t get much but I only clone bottom branches so that was my justification in letting them keep growing out - a strain I only had 3 plants of (Critical + 2.0) let me get 3 clones out of it which turned pathetic branches into thickies. An extra three quarters ain’t bad, particularly when I’m trying to make variety boxes as Xmas gifts 😉 But growth-wise, they delayed. They do indeed stay on the same timeframe (grew clones beside their moms so it was easy to watch) but it’s funny - the clones got behind early on, obviously being cloned is a stressor but I assumed the flowering would carry on. Nope. They stalled for a few weeks as the mothers kept going, but then it’s like they came back with a vengeance! My fastest clone was finished before any mother was! Considering they were all bottom branches I’d otherwise view as disposable, I was content - you won’t get a big old new plant, but you will get more than what that branch could have given if it stayed on the plant. Definitely not worth doing often (haven’t done it since)
Cloning an auto is definitely not going to be the panacea to an empty mason jar, but it’s weirdly entertaining. If you’re the sort who only likes big buds, as many a small you can get, maybe don’t bother trying it - but if you enjoy playing I recommend it once for a laugh.
And my garden is all about fooling around - it’s cannabis, let’s have fun!
not topped, that’s one of the node-mutts