# Mother plants



## DonJones (Feb 6, 2010)

I know these questions have been answered some where before but I can't find them, so I'll ask them again.  I'm trying to keep mother plants for the first time now that I have some good genetics available -- I finally got cuttings from plants with known genetics rather than just what some one said they thought the plants were.

1.  How big should I let the mother plant get before cutting potential clones from it?

2.  Am I better off to grow out the mother and harvest it, keeping one of the clones for the new mother plant after I see what the original one produces or should I just keep the original plant in veg and grow out the clones and then decide whether or not I want to keep the variety?

3.  Once I decide which plant to keep as a mother, how do I keep the mother from getting too large?

4.  What kind of light do I need to use on the mother, the cool/bluish white florescents, MH or HPS and how much light?

5.  To limit the amount of light, do I want to use higher output lights from a distance or lower output closer to the plants in order to limit the stretch I get?

6.  Do I keep the mothers on a short light cycle like 16/8 or on a 24/7 schedule where I don't want the plants to grow fast and large?

7.  What feeding routine do I use on the mother, just hte same as if I was growing it out only never switch it to the flower schedule or what?

If there is anything else that I need to know, please feel free to give it to me too.

Thank you all for sharing your information.

Great smoking.


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## FA$TCA$H (Feb 6, 2010)

DON, i found answers to most of your questions right here on the MP site.   took me 2 clicks!?? 
may i suggest that you do some reading? and research, on your own! :aok: 
to give out freely, the info that you want would deny you the opportunity to learn first hand.
as i'm sure you know, there are no 'shortcuts' to a succesful harvest.
after you have read and researched, maybe you will not need to ask.
but if you still have questions, :confused2:  then i'm sure they will be answered.
rest assured that none of the fine members of MP, would purposly give false or misleading information, to anyone. :farm: 

good reading!

and happy growing!


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## DonJones (Feb 7, 2010)

FA$TCA$H,

Don't answer the questions, just point me in the right direction, please.  I never have any problem with being told where to find information.

Just give me the 2 clicks and I'll be happy to read and research on my own.  I have repeatedly admitted that I'm almost totally helpless when it comes to using our seach engine because I can never seem to use the right key words or something.

Great smoking.


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## Heemhoff17 (Feb 7, 2010)

this is a pretty good posting...I've been wondering the same exact thing.


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## surreptitious (Feb 7, 2010)

DonJones said:
			
		

> I know these questions have been answered some where before but I can't find them, so I'll ask them again.  I'm trying to keep mother plants for the first time now that I have some good genetics available -- I finally got cuttings from plants with known genetics rather than just what some one said they thought the plants were.
> 
> 1.  How big should I let the mother plant get before cutting potential clones from it?
> 
> ...



don,
this is just my personal experience trying to grow and maintain mothers. so, i'll try to answer your questions.

1.  since the mothers are from clones, you know that they should be pretty close to maturity already.  so, you can start taking clones once you get a couple of nodes with new growth.  depending on the plant, it could be 5 inches tall or more when you can take clones off of it.  but after you take clones you still want plenty of new growth tips to continue to grow (ie, you dont want to take so much that you kill the plant)

2. you'll have to figure out what works best for you.  i grew my mothers from seed, cloned them, veg'd the clones for 2 weeks, and then flowered some of the clones for 2 weeks.  this allowed me to determine sex.  but you dont have to worry about males.  so, what i would do, is clone all your plants...so that you have 3-4 clones per mother.  then veg and flower as many of them that you can.  then you can pick what genetics you like the best. 

3.  if cloning her does not keep her the size you want, then you'll have to prune her.  my first batch of mothers got over 5 feet tall and i was running out of vertical room.  i was timid to prune them, but after vegging clones, i have become more comfortable pruning the plants.  depending on the light you are using will tell you how big you want your plants.  HID lights have deeper penetration of the canopy than flourescent lights.  but i've found that even HIDs have a point in which they do not penetrate any more.  if you were growing outdoors this would be a moot point.  the sun has no problem penetrating the canopy.  on my new batch of mothers.  i'm going to try and keep the plants around 12" - 18" tall. 

4.  personally, i use HO t-5 flouros for my mothers.  i also use these lights to veg.  but i'm sure you will have success keeping mothers with MH...you'll want to stay away from HPS as it's a yellow light that is better for flowering.

5.  i use High Output T-5 lamps around 5-6 inches away from the tops. i wouldnt worry about stretch, just keep them pruned and you should be good.

6.  i keep my light schedule for all my vegging plants at 18/6.  i have no idea if they grow more in 24/0 or less.  i've never vegged plants at 24/0.  read somewhere that it's a point of diminishing returns to run 24/0, but i dont have any source to back that up with.

7.  i use the same feeding schedule as if i was growing out the other plants.  start light and then work your way up to medium strength.  you want them to be healthy to clone.

hope this helps a little.  again, this is all from personal experience.  i've gone through this once and am regrowing my mothers right now to make them better to maintain.

happy growing

serrupt.


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## kaotik (Feb 7, 2010)

they're kind of tough questions to answer don, most don't really have an answer and just depond on you/your setup/your financial situation..


1. How big should I let the mother plant get before cutting potential clones from it?
i'd say that depends on the size of the room you're going to house them.

2. Am I better off to grow out the mother and harvest it, keeping one of the clones for the new mother plant after I see what the original one produces or should I just keep the original plant in veg and grow out the clones and then decide whether or not I want to keep the variety?
your choice (might be a little quicker to flower mom though. that's what i'm doing, i have more seedlings than room, so am going to flower seedlings quickly for space reasons)

3. Once I decide which plant to keep as a mother, how do I keep the mother from getting too large?
trim her/train her.. if you really want to keep it small, you could look into the bonzai mom threads (though i maybe wouldn't try that for the first time without having a clone, just incase  )

4. What kind of light do I need to use on the mother, the cool/bluish white florescents, MH or HPS and how much light?
once again, your call.. i'm sure they wouldn't mind a halide, but they'll survive fine with flouro's. 
depends on how big you want to veg your plants too.. if you're going for only a few monsters, you'll probably want some good lighting right? but for a SOG they don't need much veg, so no point in spending for big lighting IMO.

5. To limit the amount of light, do I want to use higher output lights from a distance or lower output closer to the plants in order to limit the stretch I get?
your call, and depends on above  (i'm ghetto, so i obviously go the low+close )

6. Do I keep the mothers on a short light cycle like 16/8 or on a 24/7 schedule where I don't want the plants to grow fast and large?
see the pattern forming here?.. your call, but IMO 18/6 works just fine so why waste power?

7. What feeding routine do I use on the mother, just the same as if I was growing it out only never switch it to the flower schedule or what?
just keep her on veg food.

If there is anything else that I need to know, please feel free to give it to me too.
like i said man, most of the answers to your questions depend on room size, finances, and just personal preference.
only other thing i'll add is if you have room, it never hurts to have an extra clone or two around just incase


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## Locked (Feb 7, 2010)

DJ I was going to go the same route and keep some moms from my awesome genetics from seed bay. But reality set in and I will now be keeping clones and growing them out and then flowering them after i clone the clone...it is a lot easier for me to keep clones in my veg tent then moms...even with training and pruning the moms just get messy and take up space.


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## DonJones (Feb 7, 2010)

Thanks everyone.

I think I'm going to grow out and harvest the mothers that I have revegging after being harvested and just take cuttings from the ones I want to keep before they go into flower since I already know which one of them I want to keep.

On the new varieties that I'm getting, I think I may just do the clone then harvest it  with each generation/crop rather than trying to keep mothers.  Actually I will probably have 2 sets of clones for each generation cut about 3 to 4 weeks apart so that I alsways have 3 plants of any given variety at once in case something should happen ot one of them.

Thanks everyone.

Great smoking.


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## surreptitious (Feb 7, 2010)

DonJones said:
			
		

> Thanks everyone.
> 
> I think I'm going to grow out and harvest the mothers that I have revegging after being harvested and just take cuttings from the ones I want to keep before they go into flower since I already know which one of them I want to keep.
> 
> ...



sounds good man.  it begs the question though, how many generations can you clone a clone?


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## kaotik (Feb 7, 2010)

yeah that's the easiest method IMO don.


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## DonJones (Feb 8, 2010)

Thanks everybody for the input.

surreptitious,

There seems to be 2 strongly held contradictory views on that.  

Some experienced and senior members hold that each time you clone a clone you loose a little something and others say you don't loose anything.

Likewise some say that each time you cut a clone from a mother you weaken her a little and others say not.

Still others say neither practice changes the the variety but after a while they take cuttings from an old mother, flower and harvest her and pick a new mother from one of the clones simply because the old mother gets too big and unruly.

I do know that I have heard of many generations and thousands of cuttings per generation being used in producing grafted fruit trees from one donor tree.  So I guess theoretically you could do it nearly perpetually.

I do know that it stands to reason that if you have any mutations in a clone, for whatever reason, that each time you you clone a clone, you increase the chances that the mutation will express it self.

I have seen personally where out of a crop of sister clones taken at the same time from the same donor plant and grown as closely to the same way as practical, the yield from the different plants will vary somewhat, which *to my way of thinking,* _suggests_ that the genetics can express differently within individual sister clones so MAYBE you could get different phenos over a time from cloning clones, in which case having the same mother for several "generations" of clones *could* stabilize that drift.

I will leave that question to smarter people than I am, but will close on the advice I got from a botanist, which was that he personally mothers for several generations, then grows a clone for a new mother and that he hasn't had any discernible changes.  Incidentally, he is a grower and was talking aoout MJ.


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## DonJones (Mar 1, 2010)

Thanks for the information. It seems like you all pretty much agree and that was pretty much what I was thinking too.

Thanks again.


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