It seems there are varying opinions out there, I found a 'cut and paste' from overgrow posted by Mutt, I believe (on another forum). The article is about 'bonsai mothers' and is very long. I will post up a little snippet with the original authors name and a few lines about what he said about generation degredation.
'This Article was originally published at overgrow.com 27/6/2000. Revised and archived 20/10/03 by Oldtimer1.
Some of the quotes I have read in High Times saying that you get genetic degeneration by keeping mother plants long term, this is total rubbish!
Degeneration can certainly occur if a mother plant gets infected with a reversion virus. I will cover this later! The grass produced today from our mother
plants is just as potent and smells just as good as when it was first grown out from seed many years ago. In fact it is better now, we have better lighting
and superior growing techniques, allowing the clones to express their potential more fully.'
He also goes on to talk about a 15 year old mother!
'As an outline our mother plants are kept root restricted, i.e. using some standard bonsai methodology and techniques. It is an excellent method for keeping
mother plants long term and has proved a very reliable system since we developed this method some 24 years ago. The longest a mother has lived like this
without having to be replaced is just over 15 years. On average pure indicas need replacing every 3 years, hybrids every 4 to 5 years and pure sativas
every 6 to 7 years! Of course it depends on the care they are given! Male plants can be kept in the same way and in fact will stand more abuse than mother
plants.'
He also mentions something about 'making this issues deadline', must be afiliated with some magazine. Just food for thought, this is all pretty much over my head right now
![Eek! :eek: :eek:](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
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