What Is Monster Cropping? A Simple “How To”

Luke Sumpter

Cannabis Journalist & Health Science Researcher

Luke Sumpter

Last updated: February 4th, 2018

BUD-FILLED BUSHES VS GANJA TREES

Bushy marijuana plants with an abundance of branches are far more discreet and usually more productive than stretchy vines. Plus, they can be cloned many times without compromising the yield of the donor mother. Whether you prefer to grow your cannabis indoors or out, the primary objective is always to crop the heaviest, healthiest harvest of your strain of choice.

Pruning and training plants for maximum yield is virtually a necessity. Unless you’ve got the space and the privacy for the SOG method. When you do have winning genetics in the cannabis garden, you want to hold onto them.

Unfortunately, most home growers don’t have the space for a dedicated mother room and thus, killer phenotypes are lost. Keep reading to find out how to increase your yield and take cuttings from your best female in bloom.

WHAT IS MONSTER CROPPING?

In succinct, ordinary decent stoner terms, monster cropping is when you take a cutting from a donor mother during the flowering stage and then re-veg the clones. OK, this sounds pretty crazy, but just go with it.

The clones will take longer to root. Some will refuse to take root for no good reason at all. Moreover, the successful clones will be the ugliest little plants you have ever seen. Expect single finger leaves. Maybe even a few mutations. But once they take root and revert back to the vegetative stage, in a few weeks they will become monsters.

ADVANTAGES OF MONSTER CROPPING

The two best reasons to monster crop, as mentioned in brief above, are to maximise yield and to produce killer clones. All without necessarily retaining mother plants. When you re-veg rooted clones, they will develop a monstrous appearance. In time, they will become cannabis bushes that better fill out lateral grow space.

Combine monster cropping with other pruning-for-yield techniques like LST, topping, or fimming for huge yields. You can fill out a typical 1m grow tent with a single monster plant. Furthermore, if you want to push production to the absolute limit and keep an even canopy, drop a ScrOG on your green monsters.

Provided you have a basic understanding of cloning, you can easily transfer the skill to monster cropping. This will help you better evaluate which plant is the keeper to take cuttings from. Best of all, you don’t need to maintain a mother room as you can repeat the process next grow cycle.

In fact, taking a cutting during flowering is the same process as doing it in vegetative growth. Here’s a brief recap just in case:

Use sterile, sharp scissors or a scalpel. Make a clean cut between branch and stem. Then, dunk the branch in rooting gel before you pop the cutting in a rooting cube. Finally, trim the fan leaves in half and remove the early bud material.

DISADVANTAGES OF MONSTER CROPPING

The biggest disadvantage with monster cropping is that you cannot apply the technique to autoflowering cannabis strains. This should be no surprise since you can’t meaningfully clone autos the normal way. Given the popularity of autoflowering cannabis, we felt obliged to mention it. We don’t want you hacking budding branches away and actually decreasing your yield.

Success rates are typically lower when you take cuttings from flowering cannabis plants. Nobody really has a good explanation why. Most growers, even the top pro’s in the game that have mastered the practice of cloning during vegetative growth, will get a few kills with monster cropping. We recommend taking a few extra cuttings as backups.

Time is always a factor when cultivating cannabis. Monster cropping is very efficient, but it will take perhaps a week longer for the clones to root. Also, they will need to be re-vegged for at least 2-3 weeks further. A second grow space will be required to pull off monster cropping. Although a CFL and micro tent is not much of an investment and won’t take up a lot of space.

ACCIDENTAL RE-VEGGING

Light pollution can cause photoperiod cannabis to re-veg or worse, turn hermie. This can be a real problem for urban outdoor growers as street lights can easily cause this to occur after sundown. Similarly, indoor growers can run afoul of this unintended re-vegging if the grow space is not light tight. That means no light leaks and no outside source can penetrate.

Another cause of accidental re-vegging can be a faulty timer plug. Check the settings regularly to make sure the correct hours are set. Then physically inspect the grow room routinely to make sure again.

HOW TO MONSTER CROP

STEP 1: Select your best female plant at about 28 days into the 12/12 bloom cycle.

STEP 2: Take cuttings as outlined earlier in the text. Start with the bottom branches and work up without butchering the donor mother.

STEP 3: Re-veg clones under your preferred light cycle (18/6, 20/4, 24/0) until they branch profusely and leaf growth begins to return to normal. In about 30 days from taking the cuttings, you should have some monsters on your hands.

IS MONSTER CROPPING WORTH IT?

Yes absolutely, provided you’ve got the grow skills. Monster cropping is not exclusive to grand master growers. But you do need at least an intermediate level of experience to get the most from the technique. As a standalone method, monster cropping is a good two-for-one combo, facilitating another run of your favourite female plant. And, by increasing the branching, the monster cropped clone usually benefits from a boost in yield. Not to mention more branches to clone from next time.

If you have the green fingers to keep pruning and training, monster cropping can take your yield into unchartered, scale-tipping territory again and again.