Monster Cropping Marijuana Plants

Monster Cropping is unique amongst training techniques in that it does not affect the plants you are currently growing. Rather, this technique involves taking clones from a mature plant during its flowering stage, producing offspring with numerous heads.

Monster Cropping works well with other training techniques, especially Lollipopping.

• Topping – An easy and minimally stressful pruning technique, Topping will encourage multiple kolas at each flowering site.
• Fimming – By taking Topping a step further, Fimming quickly multiplies your flowering heads from 1 to 4 at each site.
• Lollipopping – Trimming the base of your plants helps to focus their energy into the upper branches and future flower sites.
• Low Stress Training (LST) – Coupling Topping with a non-pruning stress technique can boost yields even higher.
• Super Cropping – Encourage lateral growth and bud production by stressing the branches of each plant.

For information to help you choose the best techniques for your grow, check out our Marijuana Growing Techniques page.

About Monster Cropping
Monster Cropping, also known as Flowering Clones, is a relatively new technique that has proven to be extremely productive, especially when used in conjunction with SCROG and Lollipopping techniques. It works on the phenomenon that comes from taking clones from a plant that is already in flower.

When you take a clone from a flowering marijuana plant and revert it to veg, you end up with an extremely bushy plant with profuse branching and tons of nodes. It is possible to use this phenomenon to your advantage to create plants with lots of heads, giving you great yields.

Take a look at the growth on this Monster Cropped marijuana plant.

Monster Cropping can be a successful technique for outdoor growers too.

Another great advantage of Monster Cropping is that it avoids the need to keep mother plants. By taking your cuttings during flowering you can create new clones every generation. You can put all your plants into flower, then take the next generation of clones from them. No need for a separate mother plant taking up precious space in your grow room.

How to Monster Crop

The basic technique involved in Monster Cropping is the same that you would use for all clones and is covered in detail on the cloning page.

Remember these points when taking clones:

• Take cuttings from green shoots with a sharp, clean blade or scissors;
• Place your fresh cuttings directly into clean water to prevent embolisms;
• If you prefer to, use a rooting hormone of your choice;
• Applying gentle heat from below will help to speed up the rooting process;

The main difference with Monster Cropping is that you will take the cuttings whilst your plant is flowering. You should select your cuttings at around 2 – 3 weeks after switching to 12/12. Tiny buds should have just started to form on your plant. Take your cuttings as normal.

Taking clones from flowering plants can mean that they will take longer to root. Have patience and hang on in there. If the clone still looks green and healthy then there’s still a chance it might take.

Not all flowering clones will take. The reverting process can sometimes be a bit hit and miss. It is advisable to take as many cuttings as possible to ensure that you get some success. Obviously you want to leave enough growth on the donor plant to still get a good yield.

Once your clone forms roots and starts to grow again it may put out weird, single fingered leaves that can seem a bit deformed. This is nothing to worry about. Once the plant has fully reverted and got into its vegetative growth stage it will begin to form normal leaves.

Vegetative growth, although slow at first, will soon begin to get very vigorous. This is the time to train your plant. Use LST methods to open up the centre and continue topping if you want it to be even bushier.

Using Monster Cropping With Other Methods

As we’ve suggested above, Monster Cropping works well when used in conjunction with other training techniques. Basically it supplies you with an extremely bushy plant with lots of lateral branching that can be easily adapted to any system.

Take a look at this Monster Cropped plant that has been Lollipopped.

Perhaps the most highly productive method involving Monster Cropping, indeed one of the most highly productive ways of growing marijuana period, is to use Monster Cropping to provide plants for SCROG set ups.

To prepare Monster Cropped plants for SCROG systems simply Monster Crop your plants as described above. Let them veg into large bushes, repeatedly topping or Super Cropping as you go to encourage lateral growth.

This plant has been Monster Cropped and Super Cropped before placing it under the screen.

It is a good idea to commence preliminary Lollipopping as your plant grows.

Once your plant is at the desired size, place your screen over the top of it and weave the branches through as detailed in the SCROG section. Lollipop everything below the screen and allow the plant to fill out the screen as required before switching to 12/12 lighting.