Who keeps a mother plant at all times for clones?

[dj00140]

Is it possible to keep a mother plant in a seperate closet with a couple cfl's and just use her for clones? how would u stop vert growth? and also How long can you store clones?

[palerider7777]

Is it possible to keep a mother plant in a seperate closet with a couple cfl's and just use her for clones? how would u stop vert growth? and also How long can you store clones?

u can't stop vert growth as it's in the veg stage all the time u have to keep bending or chop off the top when it gets to close to the lights and when i had mine i had it under 2 150watt cfls and it grew like crazy and when i cut it down the stalk was 2inches thick i had to cut her down as i had to move

ps i like the 150w cfl as it only uses 43w and what do u mean store clones?

[carinia]

Thats really pretty common practice Dj00140. Bonsai mums are the way to go! Ive never very sccessfully stored clones, Ive only cut em and used em when I needed em. Some peeps have had good success in the frigdge tho. Either way, theres a great sticky on this somewhere... but the key to keeping mums is all in the pruning. :)

[stinkyattic]

Here's a pic of my old clone closet from last year.
The mothers are on top under a couple shop lights.
The clones are below, waiting for room to open up in the flower area. They are under a fixture that only has 1 40w T12 bulb in it, and being watered very little, so that they grow very slowly.

Shit I just realized that's the wrong pic- that one is even older, lol but it is my mom closet anyway. That's a low-wattage MH lamp. The clones are on the little table, and under the rack on the floor.

[Wobster]

Another point that people forget when keeping a mother plant is that aswell as pruning the leaves to keep the growth above grounds in check, you will also have to prune the roots periodically. If she gets pot bound... she won't be happy.

You can either do this by physicallly removing her from the pot and trimming the roots - this will slow her down for a couple a weeks but she'll soon start flourishing or you can use a chemical root pruner - This is smeared around the inside of the pot and rather than touch it, the roots will double back and keep growing.

[grey1223]

Don't forget it's a weed. Trimming down root ball is no problem at all. I don't trim leaves as my moms finish at the correct height for their home.

[dj00140]

Thanks, now i just got to get the cloning thing down... how many clones can you take from a plant at one time?

[stinkyattic]

Up to 1/3 of the plant's total mass is okay to remove at any one time for clones. There is no set number.

[grey1223]

Only 1/3? I cut the you know what out of them. I leave only enough behind for it to start over. Maybe I missunderstood.

[stinkyattic]

I'm sure you've got enough experience behind you to get the sense for what your plant can suffer and still survive- certainly we've seen plants come back AFTER HARVEST even from just a couple new growth tips so indeed you can cut yoru plants back much more than 1/3, but I think that for a newer grower, leaving behind more plant material is a good insurance against losing the plant entirely because of over-zealous hacking up. I'm not saying you're worng by any means, only that newcomers to the hobby should be conservative.

[grey1223]

Sorry, sometimes I forget how it was in the begining. You're absolutely right about being conservative for new growers.