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Hey whats this business with keeping a mother plant for cloning. Can someone explain this to me? Do you keep the mother in Veg? Also how long can a good mother last??? Does it ever die or stop growing??? Would I have to keep trimming the roots of the mother in my system? becuase I figure If you keep a plant alive its roots must grow crazy long, how do people go about doing that mother/clone business, someone explain to me the process please.
Grow a plant as a mother. Leave her under 24 hour light, often just flourecents. Then on a regular basis take a bunch of clones. I have no difficulty taking a dozen a month; a large mother to fill a larger grow space could give 60 from what others have said.
It's my goal to have 3-4 mothers of different flavors currently I have a "church", and "power plant", however I had a freeze in January and lost much as far as veg, generations
What I've read is you could keep the same mother for 5-7 years, some strains long as 15 years. If you read the bonsai thread, that guy is genius and cuts the roots down to an 8x8 soil container and small plant. He's got all the info you want on that post...which I'm too lazy to find the link to , but it's under advanced techniques.
I always start with a plant I've already taken to harvest. Pick the best performer, the plant that best represents the strain, one that had the smell/flavor/effects you like, or the one that grew best. (each one of these is a different category of traits that you will have to determine for yourself)
From there, I prepare a smaller pot. Usually a two gallon one that roses come in.
When the plant(s) are all chopped, and all bud material is removed, (but leaving some leaves attached to promote photosynthesis) I then flush them well with properly ph'd water, and put 'em into veg, 18/6. I never use 24/0 lighting schedule. First ting you'll want from these bonsai's are the roots to start working again. If no roots grow, no no foliar growth will occur.
Takes about a week to start seeing new growth. Shoots (clones) can be harvested off of her in about three to four weeks. (time-adjusted for newbies...takes me about two and a half weeks)
Depending on your needs, your lighting angles and your growspace, you can either remove all the clones from around the outside of the mother (making your mother a tall-skinny stovepipe shaped plant, or remove the clones from the top/center of her, making a bowl-shaped canopy. (I prefer the bowl)
I have kept a mom for almost a year. But I don't strive to keep mom's any set ammount of time. Usually I'll take a few grow-cycles worth of clones, over a few month period...then flower her with the others.
I think I like straight re-vegging better, tho. No need to wait for clones to root. I have re-vegged individual plants over 7 or 8 grow/harvest cycles, with no strain degredation. I could go longer, but I have a dozen or so base-strains I play with. so when I tire of the two I'm currently playing with, I'll pick another couple strains, and start all over.
Likely I'm not the genius, but I do have a bonsai and a re-veg thread in my signature that may be helpful...:jointsmile:Quote:
Originally Posted by genuine
How do you "trim" a rather large plant that has grown too tall....Can you just chop it down a little?
ye just keep some nodes and fan leaves where new growth will grow. would be better to transplant too to trim down your roots a bit. i change my mom always grow a new mom and throw the old one when the new one grows big enough. i take all the clones i need from the old mom and kill it and keep the new one fresh and small. i do this every year or 15 months:stoned:Quote:
Originally Posted by ToPHeR31
I've seen a few great bonzai mom threads. Rusty is a very good source, the info he gives is great and he knows whats going on. What genuine said is also proven, I've seen plants (in threads, mind you) that are VERY old, 10+ years, that are still thriving. It kind of comes down to what you wanna do, just make sure you have someone like Rusty or Genuine who knows their stuff to get your info from.
http://boards.cannabis.com/advanced-...ms-clones.html
Here is the link with the crazy good info on having mothers but keeping the roots small. If you look it up on the sight it was originally posted there are good photos as well