Should I start my grow from clones or seeds?

I believe this is a terrific topic for the newbie section! For myself I have only grown from seed, but I am doing some clones right now(finally) and I am also re-vegging some plants that I missed the opportunity to clone.

I do believe in growing a known strain, as it's all in the genes, or if your horny, it's all in the jeans. Moving on both present certain benefits to you.
seeds are a great place to start, as you know what you are getting, but as you start to fine tune things, cloning will most certainly become a part of your grow cycle.

Should I start my grow from clones or seeds?
Introduction:
Growers face the decision to start a grow from either seeds or rooted clones. The decision is not obvious, as both growing options have their respective advantages and disadvantages. Growers may have to weigh growing space, crop risk and turn around time.

Clones

Advantages:
Clones are much faster to veg up and flower than starting from seed, resulting in a quick harvest and a much shorter turnaround time.
Clones can be quickly grown into moms and re-cloned, for an instant vegetative and flowering crop Clones are genetically identical, but some differences will still be evident in the phenotype. In general, clones will exhibit even growth and growing characteristics.
Rooted clones can be flowered immediately if space or time is a problem.
Clones can quickly provide the grower with a strain’s characteristics (smell, vigor, branching pattern, sativa/indica dominance, rooting quality, etc).

Disadvantages:
Clones can be difficult to find, as opposed to available seed banks. Clones from unknown sources are of suspect quality and genetics.
I have to add my own personal preference, only deal with your own clones, dont go out and buy, and take your new clones home. You will be bringing home any problems the previous grower had, like maybe some nasty pests.
Growers run a high risk of inheriting problems from the last grower: Root rot, spider mites, powdery mildew, etc. If these problems are not identified and treated, they can quickly spread to an entire crop.
Unhealthy clones may die or remain in shock for an extended period
Shipped clones may be in shock and take weeks of TLC to recover. There are many stories of medical clones shipped without any protection and arrived flat!
Clones are more light-sensitive than seeds. Clones take time to become established, and are easily burned by excessive light (and nutrients)
As clones are almost always female, breeding options are limited. Hermies are possible with unstable clone crosses.

seeds:

Advantages
seeds obtained from reputable seed banks are of known lineage and genetics. You should have a reasonable idea of what the strain will do in terms of yield, quality and flowering time.
Breeding and crossing options are possible with male seeds. (Feminized seeds produce a higher % of female seeds, but 100% female is never guaranteed).
Hybrid vigor. Females grown from seed are often higher yielding than clones. Strains can lose their vigor over time; growers may want to 'rejuvinate' their grow with the same successful strain
Your seeds should produce healthy plants, free of disease and pests.

Disadvantages:
Cost. seeds can be expensive, not only per seed pack, but in the time they take to produce a flowered crop.
Problems with ripoffs, shipping/customs seizing seed bank deliveries, switched seeds.
Unstable hybrid strains
Not all seeds will be viable (germinate) and only 60% of the unfeminized seeds will be female (feminized seeds may produce up to 90% females). Only female seeds will produce female mothers, from which productive clones can be taken and flowered.
It may take many seed packs to discover an excellent mother.
seeds take a long time (and there is more labor, money and time involved) before a harvest can occur.
The seeds need to be:
-germinated
-grown into mothers
-clones taken from each mother, labeled, then sexed to tell which mother is female or male
-the best mothers are selected (males may be optionally discarded).
-mothers are mass cloned
-clones are vegetatively grown and then flowered

Originally Posted by mogie

Because you can make so many mistakes as a beginner, you should consider starting with bagseed. They're free, and you know ahead of time what the final product should be like.

So if you are wise you will save some seed from buds which you consider to be good and learn from your experiences as you grow them to maturity.

On the other hand...
Having invested in expensive growing equipment and supplies, buying good quality proven genetics can be considered a worthy cause, when you consider the time you are about to invest growing them.

That's what i've been doing.. since i don't want to mess up my good strain i thought i'd try it first on bagseeds. they seems to be good.. and i just got a bit that had a ton of seeds and it's a really good high. so i'm gonna try to sprout a few of those and play with those.. i bouth some white widow seeds i hope i get them soon and not get fucked! lol