Photos: Freebie
Step 14. Six days later, clean up / strip area 2 (the vegetative room). Remove the lower leaves and vegetation, as well as any unhealthy leaves and material unsuitable for clones, as in Step 3 above.
Step 15. Eight days later, harvest all plants from flowering area 3 and immediately clean and decontaminate the room in preparation for reinstallation.
Step 16. One day later, transfer area 2 vegetative plants to the empty flowering area, changing the light schedule to 12/12. Transfer all area one clones to the area 2 vegetative area. All of this should be done only after a thorough cleaning and decontamination of all empty rooms and systems.
Step 17. Two days later, take the clones from flowering area 3 that have been on 12/12 cycle for 2 days and place them in area 1 for rooting.
Step 18. Fourteen days later, strip / clean up stage two vegetation room. Clean off any unwanted / unhealthy material, as in Step 3 above.
Step 19. Seven days later, harvest flowering room two, immediately clean and decontaminate the area in preparation for reinstallation, and transfer stage two vegetative plants from area 2 to flowering area 4.
Step 20. One day later, transfer area 1 clones to area 2 vegetative area and turn light to a 12/12 cycle.
Step 21. Two days later, take clones from flowering area 4.
Step 22. Eighteen days later, clean up / strip vegetative area 2.
Step 23. Four days later, harvest flowering area 1.
Step 24. Two days later, take clones from flowering area one.
Step 25. Sixteen days later, clean up / strip area 2 of any unwanted / unusable material.
Step 26. Six days later, harvest area 4, transfer area 2 vegetative to area 4 flowering, and turn lights to 12/12.
Step 27. One day later, transfer area 1 clones to area 2 vegetative area.
Step 28. One day later, take clones from flowering area 2.
Step 29. Twenty days later, clean up / strip area 2 vegetative of any unwanted / unusable material.
Step 30. Four days later, harvest flowering area 3 and transfer area 2 vegetative to flowering area 3, leaving the lights at 18/6.
Step 31. One day later, turn flowering area 3’s light cycle to 12/12.
Step 32. Two days later, clean up / strip area 2 vegetative of any unwanted / unusable material.
Step 33. Fourteen days later, clean up / strip area 2.
Step 34. Seven days later, harvest flowering area 4 and transfer area 2 vegetative to flowering area 4. Transfer area 1 clones to area 2 vegetative area.
Step 35. Two days later, take clones from area 2.
Repeat this scheduling process over and over again—it is cyclical.
Every step of this schedule was dictated by growing methodologies, environmental conditions, and genetics. We used four different cultivars, all indica / sativa hybrids yet each rooted at different times. Each had a different growth rate and pattern, and each finished / matured at slightly different rates also.
Compact fluorescent lights used in a cloning chamber.
Photo: Freebie
All of these factors must be considered when creating a working symbiotic rotation. The same symbiotic rotation cycle can be used for three room rotations or by using mother plants instead of constantly rotating clones and vegetative plants, but in my experience, the above schedule is much more efficient than any other method, period!
The Eleven Steps of Symbiotic Rotation
The detailed instructions above can be boiled down to the following eleven steps. You might not understand every step that follows yet, but by the end of this book, you will. In practice, a symbiotic rotation works as follows:
1. Take clones or start seeds for donor plants.
2. Grow donor plants to a height of 12 inches.
3. Strip off all available clones.
Make sure to have good lights in the flowering chamber.
Photo: Freebie
4. Transfer donor plants to flowering room. Clones will take 7 to 14 days to root.
5. After clones root, hold them in the clone room for approximately 21 more days.
6. Install the rooted clones in the vegetative room for 14 days.
7. On day 12, induce vegetative plants into flowering (with 12 hours of light and 12 hours of complete darkness).
8. Two days later (day 14), take clones from new flowering plants.
9. Move new flowering plants into the flowering room. (The original donor plants will by now have already finished, so the room will be empty.)
10. After approximately 46 to 53 days into the flowering stage, turn the lights to 10 or 11 hours of light, eliminate CO2, and slightly increase the potassium and phosphorus levels.
11. Eliminate ammonium nitrogen and dramatically decrease nitrate nitrogen or eliminate entirely.
Steps 10 and 11 sound complicated, but they basically have to do with aiding the flowering plants to finish in approximately 50 days, allowing you to install the vegetative plants in the flowering room sooner, thus allowing the installation of clones and the beginning of the process again. They are covered later in this book.
No schedule is set in stone; it is flexible and you must refine it. If you clone and it takes 15 days for them to root, then hold them for 21 days, and vegetate for 14 days; that equals 50 days of vegetative growth and allows the flowering plants to finish in approximately 50 to 55 days. You must experiment and practice to achieve a perfect symbiotic rotation. All the while, make sure you’re harvesting your buds at peak potency, and not before.
The same rotation cycle can be achieved by using mother plants. Simply follow the same principles, except take clones from mother plants instead of the vegetative plants. It can sometimes be difficult to get large numbers of clones rapidly from small numbers of mother plants, so it makes more sense to simply clone from the vegetative plants (unless, again, you are only growing a small number of plants with limited space).
As stated above, it is necessary to refine the variables and understand the limitations of your chosen cultivar. Working backwards, examine the flowering cycle length. Most cannabis indica and cannabis indica / sativa hybrids finish flowering in approximately 60 days. But, as explained in the cloning section of this book, you can induce flowering in your vegetative plants two days before you clone. You can run lights for ten or 11 hours a day during the last one or one-and-a-half weeks of flowering. Both practices are meant to shorten the flowering cycle. Finishing these plants earlier means being able to induce the vegetative plants into flowering sooner, thus enabling the clones to be transferred to the vegetative room earlier.
After clones have been rooted and installed in the vegetative room, they will grow for approximately seven to ten days (depending