ALL ABOUT BONSAI moms/clones

ALL ABOUT BONSAI moms/clones

This article was originally written by OG member Oldtimer1,reposted by guerilla1018
on IC Mag, reposted on CB.com by BlueBear
Sorry I could not post the pics because they are linked to another sight and server.
Part 1
MAKING, MAINTAINING, AND RENOVATING BONSAI MOMS

This Article was originally published at overgrow.com 27/6/2000. Revised and archived 20/10/03 by Oldtimer1.
Now we will deal with every aspect of the care and maintenance of Mums including root and branch pruning as well as the renovation on an old mother well
past her sell by date.

"Tired of huge unwieldy mothers that take up too much space? As I've shown before, a fully established bonsai mum only takes 8 inches x 8 inches."

This bonsai mother, if well fed, produce 10 to 30 good cuttings every 14 days under an HID or every 20 days under fluorescent shop light. This means a 4
ft x 2 ft shoplight with 18 Mums, could produce an output of over 9500 cuttings a year.

Typical Bonsai Mum
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We are not talking about intensive production here but it shows just how flexible and efficient the system can be. What it does for the connoisseur is allow
them to keep a good selection of varieties in a relatively small space. If you don't fancy growing one for 6 months or a year it doesn't matter. All she
will need is regular maintenance.

Lets start with Mumming up a plant from a rooted cutting, once again this is simple. You will find that with every batch of cuttings a few will stand out,
being sturdier and generally looking better all round, pick one or two of these to make your Mums, not some wimpy left over reject. Remember this mum will
provide you with cuttings 4 to 18 times a year for the next 3 to 15 years, so only the best will do. Pick a fully rooted through cutting from the plug
tray and pot on into a 2.5 inch square pot. I find square pots much easier to deal with when it comes to root pruning, as you will see later.

Grow it on for a few days so it can start rooting through then trim its top back to leave 3 or 4 side shoots.

These little branches to be will make the main framework of your Mum. Ideally as they grow they should form an open cup shape. The top 2 will grow the fastest
and when they get to about 5 inches pinch or snip out their growing tips to just above a leaf node. This will allow the second pair to catch up in a day
or so, then pinch them out as well. This will encourage side shoots to form, any that grow into the central cup shaped space pinch out.

You will now have 6 to 8 leading shoots coming up. When they reach 4 to 6 inches they can be taken as your first set of cuttings. You cut them back to just
above the first leaf node of the new growth. So after the cuttings have been taken the mum is only a tiny bit larger than the last time she was cut back
but the main branches will be starting to get thicker.

Now is the time to move up to the next pot size and a 3 inch sq is ideal. The next set of leading shoots will tend to be 12 to 16, plus there will be others
coming up from lower nodes so in total there may be 30 or more. Any really thin ones or any growing into the centre either cut back to one node or remove
altogether.

In the picture above from the left:- [one], is the trimmed cutting from above. [two], Has had 2 sets of cuttings taken off and is more than ready to move
to a 3 inch pot. As you can see it is a little short of N showing its better to move after only taking one set of cuttings. [three] in a 3 inch pot 12
cuttings have been taken with 2 left on to show where to cut back to. [four] is a five year old Mum that has just had 32 cuttings taken off and could do
with some more small twiggy bits removed. She is in a 1 litre pot and has been since she was 3 months old.

Note how all have an open centre, this allows light to both the centre and the outside. It will fill in between taking cuttings but if pruned back to this
form, makes better and more even growth giving more good cuttings each time. Water only is used while forming the Mums and no fertiliser. It is not until
they are in their final 1 litre pots and a set or two of cuttings have been taken that feeding starts.

The general care and maintenance for fully formed mother plants.

The Mums need just enough fertiliser to keep them healthy. Feed of half strength fertiliser twice a month, using say a 6-2-4 fish mix as about right [its
not critical]! This keeps them in good general health but doesn't over feed them. If you want faster production at any point change to a full strength
feed once or twice. Every 2 to 4 weeks a new batch of cuttings are taken even if they are not needed and just put in the worm bin. You can think of it
as being like having to mow the lawn and keeps the mum the same size and form for years. Because so much is taken away they can get short of macro nutrients
so every month or so give them a foliar spray using maxicrop. Judge this by how the plants are looking not by a time table.

One of the main things that all growers need to learn is regular close observation. To know when they are healthy and need nothing to the first signs of
deficiencies appearing. The one thing they may run short of is magnesium even if dolomite lime is used in the compost, this is easily dealt with by one
watering plus a foliar spray, using 1 ounce of Epsom salts dissolved in a gallon of water.

They will need root pruning once or twice a year. This depends on how intensively they are fed and how good your water quality is. Despite what is normally
quoted it is virtually impossible to flush out salt build up from a root ball. A temporary over fertilisation yes but the gradual crystallisation of salts
and carbonate deposits no! If your water supply is heavily contaminated with minerals I recommend a small Reverse-Osmosis filter to clean your water for
both your Mums and your production plants.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Now root pruning and Mum renovation. "

The method of root pruning is the same for routine maintenance or renovation.

Here we are dealing with a 7 year-old mum that hasn't been root trimmed for nearly a year. I have deliberately neglected her for the last 10 weeks for purposes
of showing you the recovery. She has been on a diet of R/O water only, no other feed of any sort. This is to show you how tough Cannabis is and how far
you can let things slide and still get a mum back into productivity. Its not a recommended practice and continual abuse like this will eventually kill
a mum.

As you can see there is little residual fertiliser left in the compost. It is what we call spent (worn out). The first thing we do is trim back nearly all
the top growth back to the main framework branches. Leaving one or two tiny shoots at the tip of each branch to draw sap and keep the branch alive. If
all the shoots and buds are removed, 99 times out of a 100 die back sets in-- and once that starts the whole plant usually dies within a month or two.
It doesn't matter if the small shoots are yellow from lacking N, they will soon start to grow and green up as the new roots start forming!

Next the rootball should have 3/4 of an inch cut off each side and an inch off the bottom. This reduces the 4.5 x 4.5 x 4.5 inch rootball to 3 x 3 x 3.5
inches high after the loose compost is scraped from the top. This means that two-thirds of the soil is being replaced. A good full strength organic compost
is used when repotting and it only takes a day or two for the roots to really start growing into the new compost.

Set the bottom of the rootball on about 3/4 of an inch of compost then pack out the sides and finally cover the top with a 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch. This means
the mum is planted round a 1/4 inch deeper every time root pruning is done about 1/2 an inch a year. In a couple of years from now I will cut down vertically
and split the plant in two as the side branch will have a root system of its own. Using this method the roots are constantly being replaced and as well
the main trunk replaced slowly. This seems to keep the Mums healthy for many years.

The second mother of our selected "ES" line lasted for just over 15 years using this method. Interestingly if you want to hold a plant long term in a small
pot say a 2.5 inch sq this can be root pruned the same as the 1 litre plant but only taking off about 1/4 of an inch all round. I keep Dads in this pot
size and some are over 5 years old.

NOTE: it is very important to make sure there are no voids or air gaps left when packing the sides, use a pencil or small dibber, fill slowly and firm lightly.

The last picture is 12 days after the root and top pruning- It tells it's own story! Already there are enough nice leaders to make 10 good cuttings. I have
to admit to putting her under an sodium light to speed up her development and make this Issues deadline. Even so, the recovery wouldn't have taken much
longer in the mum box.

Thats it you should have all the info you need to make and root cuttings in compost the make and maintain bonsai mother plants, its easy, give it a go!
.
guerilla1018
TAKING CLONES FROM BONSAI MOMS

"A lot of interest has been shown in the methods we use to keep mother plants, how we make them, manage them and how we do our cuttings production." - Oldtimer1
1999.
Article originally published at overgrow.com April 30 2000 this article is revised and archived 5/8/03

This issue we will we will cover our soft tip cuttings system in detail and a brief outline about our mother plants! Every grower can get the same results
by imitating our easy organic system.

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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.

Clone, Mum and Dad box.
Its a double deck with 2 times 4ft x 2 ft lights each with 4 x 40w coolwhite fl lights Close up of tray top left
270 rooted cuttings, in plugs ready to go into pots. Close up of top tray right
100 cuttings at the start of rooting.
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One of the big advantages using bonsai mother plants, is that each only needs a maximum of 8 x 8 inches. So a 2 ft x 2 ft x 2 ft high box with a 4 tube
fluorescent shoplight can hold 9 mothers. We call the plants we keep Mums and Dads! Not to be confused with chrysanthemums (that bit is for you Cha Cal).

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.

I am going to start by showing you our largest mum, this time from above. She is in a 1-litre pot (the largest size used). With all the top growth pictured
she is about 13 inches tall and ready to take cuttings. Inset is a cutting being clipped out see below.

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The type we take are small soft tip cuttings, 2.5 to 3.5 inches long. It is important that there is no lignification at all. When I first discussed this
with friends on the net some 3 years ago was with some disbelief, and a lot of amusement at the idea of toothpick sized cuttings. How on earth was I going
to get a decent crop of buds? Well, soft tip cuttings have an unrestricted growth potential and grow much faster than semi hard or fully lignified hard
wood cuttings. At the end of the day we get a much higher crop weight using the soft tip cuttings.

I use fine point scissors for trimming the plants, they are fast and easy to use. Quick enough to do 2 to 3 cuttings a minute. Forget the stories that they
bruise the stem and cause rot, it's rubbish! They do need to be sharp, so buy a new pair and keep them just for this task. As far as hygiene is concerned,
providing all you Mums are free of virus, simply put them through the dishwasher after every session to get rid of the sap build up. This keeps them free
and easy to use.

How to prepare the cuttings
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Inserting cuttings and covering with bag
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To Summarize

Preparing the cutting:-

[one] - typical tip cutting ready to prepare.

[two] - snip off the side shoot and leaf the node you want to root.

[three] - cut just below the node you want to root.

[four] - dip the trimmed node in rooting hormone.

Inserting the cuttings:-

-3.5 inch square pots are used to root in

-Filled with half perlite and half universal compost or allmix

-The mix is pre-soaked with water dosed with 1 ml of 35% or 2ml per litre of 17.5% H2O2 and 5 ml of maxicrop

-Then the cuttings are dibbed in to the compost, 9 to 12 per pot

-The dibbed cuttings are then watered in using a fine rose same mix as above to settle them in.

-Cover with a plastic bag and put under constant 24-hour lighting

-Preferably cool-white fluorescent lighting at 20 w per sq foot and a temperature of 75 degrees fahrenheit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"There are a number of reasons for not rooting directly into plug trays."
Lets look at what we need from a rooted cutting... We want one that is suited to growing in a confined space i.e. a pot. They are as closely matched as
possible. To get good yields from a grow, uniformity is the rule. It is no good having one plant that produces 50 grams when its 2 neighbours only produce
15 grams each. They are identical stock but this is what is often seen in grow after grow. It is much better to try and get all the plants averaging 35
grams well within the capacity of the stock line of a plant that can make 50 grams.

Remember we are talking about growing in soil based or soilless compost mixes. The root type that the cutting produces is very important, lots of fine feeder
roots are the ideal, anchor and tap roots are totally unwanted when growing in a pot. Remember the amount feeder root mass directly effects the potential
crop weight

The 3.5-inch pots are 4 inches high; the rooting mix is very open with low nutrient content. This encourages early taproot development. Not all the cuttings
will have rooted at the same time, so when they are transferred to the plug trays the root balls are trimmed to the same size and the tap root is removed,
this goes a long way towards equalising the clones. Once they are transferred as below they tend to stay pretty even and grow on rapidly. To show what
we are looking for some equalised clones grown on and just put into flower. There are several varieties in this grow and there is not more than an inch
or so between plants in each variety. They are placed by variety to make a stadium effect and make maximum use of light.

Around ten days later the cuttings will have rooted through. The rootball is gently broken up, each cutting has its roots trimmed back to equalise the cuttings
and make them fit the plug tray! Full strength peat or coir compost using organic base fertilisers, are used for this.

Then they are put back in the Clone/Mother box for about 5/6 more days until thoroughly rooted through, this is very important at all stages of repotting!
Fully rooted plants just jump ahead when moved on-- we have found that plants moved into bigger pots too early typically produce 25% to 30% less final
crop weight!

Moving the rooted cuttings to plug trays.
-med.jpg Cuttings in plug trays a few days later ready to move on to their first pots.
-med.jpg Showing a cutting out of the plug tray, fully rooted out and ready to go.

Cutting like this can be taken from any plants in veg. That's it you are ready to grow!
Thank oldtimer for this well written article.

God Damn. Awesome. I'm going to do it. First cutting I take from my current plant ... bonsai.

Make sure you post your results for us.
Adieu

Bump, Bump. Just had to re read for my self and thought some others who hadn't read may find some ideas.
Adieu

this is really cool. im going to try this. i currently have some seeds germinating. thanks for the informative post... i would really like to see some pics if anyone has any.

i found this link trying to find more info
http://www.planetganja.com/article.p...eid=1#fromhome

pic: http://www.planetganja.com/highsocie...achmentid=1734

There is a full thread with pictures over on International Cannigraphic magazine under the "In Door/soil" The thread has grown to about 5 or more pages now and still open.
www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=31919 -131k
Adieu

that link is great! thanks a lot

No problem. Just let us know if you try it. I am doing something a little simular and I will post the results in a couple months when I have some documented notes on how the moms handle the smaller pots and how the clones produce.
I really like the idea of having smaller mother plants to take up less room. My girls are about 8 inches tall right now and I think that I can get about 10 clones off of them every 2 weeks right now, we will see if that can increase or decrease, they are only a little over a month right now, so I am satisfied at this point.
Adieu

Bumping this up for the new comers. Maybe I will get a picture of mine when she recovers from her last run.
Adieu

this is a crazy article...everyone is always talking about how careful to be with the roots and now this!just goes to show how much potetial this wonderful plant has.thank you for bumping this up as i may not have seen it otherwise:thumbsup:

Not a problem. The root information does add a new perspective to the thing, but at the same time, these cats no their stuff, so to newb's I still try to get them to treat roots like a soft spot on a baby's head for the fact that when doing first grows, so many things can go wrong that KISS is the best principle.
Adieu

.

Yeah, I've decided to go this way right now with one of my clones. I have 8, and I only need 4, so that should sort that out, barring any unexpected probs...

.

I have done the tech, and have been able to keep the mothers under 10 in, but I put them in flower for other reasons after a few months and now I have another that is doing good and can probably put off 10 too 15 cuttings every 2 or 3 weeks at this point. I have not needed to do any root trimming at this point either, and as the artical states it is something that is done on a annuall basis if I remember right.
Adieu

i made a bonsi mom back in october after reading this thread
its a great idea and works a treat
my ladys ready for clipping now i should get 10/14 decent clones this week

thanks blue

Glad to be a help. With this, folks can have 4 strains of mothers where they used to have 2 in the same space, so it is def nice and the mother/veg chambers are able to take up less space.
Adieu

Nice find Blubear...
I remember when that was written. I've followed this for sometime. Not to the exact T...slight change here and there, but just to acomidate(sp?) me, and my space.
I switched out from using MH for my mom's and went down to a pair of CFL's, and waiting till needed to be fed. It is an awsome thing to see such small plants, that are what I consider to be very woody...if ya catch my drift?
The trimming of the roots is spot on too!
I'll tell ya whats really amazing!....Just the fact that this plant is willing to take sooo much abuse and still be able to survive! Not to mention how good for the overall quality of life on earth.....really:D

Yeh, once you take the time to grow out a couple I think that it is def worth it. And as far as the abuse I totally agree, sometimes I am embarassed to show my wife the little things after I take a bunch of cuttings because they look like a monster truck ran over them or something and then a few days later they start puffing back up and are back to normal.
Adieu

how's this for stress,

i left 3 males outside overnight a few weeks ago, and it got down to 28 degrees!

males are all giving me pollen now, just as perdy.... one got a little frost bit, but they're all fine!

bonsai techniques deff work, i have a mom in a small gatorade bottle and she is doin great!

now i have to iron out the rooting process. beginners luck the first go round, but im finding that blueberry is a difficult strain to root... as long as you keep them healthy for a week they seem to be alright, but within 3 days of cutting, about a third dies off.

suggestions are most certainly welcome.

http://boards.cannabis.com/showthrea...t=88629&page=8
http://boards.cannabis.com/showthrea...t=85454&page=7

love, kp:p

They may need a heating pad under them, some strains need a little more TLC. As for them being out side, I hope that will never happen to me if I visit. LOL
Adieu

took a pic of my mum when i had her out for clonein shes under 11" and 65 days old took a couple of cuttins but shes good for a few more

Thanks, that is what we need some bonsai pics on here, will try to post some of my current one.
Adieu

what size light would you use for 3-4 moms? HID of course.

Ive got my bonzai mom under CFL. She seems to like it quite a bit. Get 3 two way splitters & 4 23Watt daylight spectrum cfls (about $30 for all), and you can make a nice lamp that spits out 10K or so lumens, good enough for a bonsai size mom.