Science on loss of vigor over generations of clones?

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Ne Obliviscaris

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I've been taught, and it seems like the science on general horticulture suggests, that each generation of clones--meaning clones of clones, not rounds of clones taken sequentially off of the same mother--reduces the vigor of the stock. Does anyone know of any well done mapping of the timeline of degeneration? I've got a really nice Kush lineage that I've been running for about a year now. Initially a friend of mine had a mother that I could always get cuts off, but a few months ago he lost it, so I mother'd out a cut. At this point its becoming a pain in the ass to keep the mother, due mostly to space constraints. If I stop keeping a mother, and start doing cuts off cuts, how many generations do you think I have before the genetics accrue enough issues that I will want to switch?

I've run cuts off cuts for four or five generations before and I never saw a uniform loss of vigor, is this even realistically an issue if you're going for single digit numbers of generations? I don't think I've ever know anyone to have 'run out' a particular lineage.
 
N

Ne Obliviscaris

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Let me clarify, Beezie, because I think what I said was a little ambiguous. The situation I'm talking about is when you take a cut off of a plant from seed, then you take your next rounds of cut off of the cut, rather than the plant from seed. The more generations you get away from the seed, in theory, the more your genetics deteriorate. This is why I was taught to keep mother plants, because you are always the same number of generations from seed, an so you dont loose vigor over time.

However keeping mothers takes up space and uses nuts that could be used for bud production, so i'm curious if anyone has done the math about how many generations you can run a lineage for before it starts to loose vigor and you need to start from new seed.

Does this make sense?
 
C

CannaKings

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I think the stress the plant is submitted to in each generation has more to do with degradation than the amount of times its been subsequently cloned. Stress can come from the plant being sick, diseased, environmental changes, having to reveg, or many other factors. Genetics and general vigor from seed also play a part. Some plants don't mind being cloned, while others get woody easily, such as OG Kush.

I know of many clones that have been around for many many generations that are just as good as the first time they were bloomed.

Willow water used on clones has shown, after subsequent generations, to strengthen vigor and help clones build resistance to pythium and powdery mildew.
 
Seamaiden

Seamaiden

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NCGA has found that vigor declines, I'd say he's got a couple of decades experience on the matter. Seems counterintuitive, if the clone is an exact replica of the parent, but it's what he's found. I haven't done it long enough to really know.
 
N

Ne Obliviscaris

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If it vigor doesn't decline, or declines at a very slow rate, what's the use of keeping mothers, instead of just taking clones from your plants before you flip them? This would save me a lot of space as my mother is taking up a chunk of my (very small) veg room.
 
xX Kid Twist Xx

xX Kid Twist Xx

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if you keep mothers and keep them healthy , when you take cuts they all are healthy and more uniform as they are coming from one plant. but say u take 20+ cuts from differnt plants they may not all be at the same level of health. I read something that said shanti would take his mothers and put them outside in the beginning of the season before they would go into bloom he would take cuts and use them as his new mothers.

The Chemdog D cut has been floating around for 20 years and its a cut from a cut many times over. It has very weak stems, takes long to clone, needs a ton of cal-mag and spits bananas at the slightest problem but they are sterile for the most part. Once it gets going and has a great root system and grows with much vigor.
 
J

Jsän

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A lot of growers, myself included, use "no moms" and just take cuts before you flip.
Some Breeders (TGA) claim that they dont keep Moms either.

I simply do not have the space to keep a mom when all i need from her is 2-3 cuts every 2 months. If i had the square footage and the multiple K's of light that i needed to fill?, Moms would be the way to go.

as far as vigor is concerned: EDIT: There are Fruit Cultivars that have been cloned for HUNDREDS of years. ('bartlett pears >1800's). Some Tulips are said to go back to the 1620's. Even still, some plants 'clone' as a means of procreation. Aspens come to mind, which are thought to be "millions of years old. The Guinness Book of World Records has the oldest wild plant clone listed as the 'Kings Holly' (Lomatia tasmanica) at 43,600 years old. Comparative studies find that fossils are identical to modern samples.

It seems to reason that at the very least, that a Well-Kept, 'perpetual cloning cycle' would be on par, if not better with a 'mom plant' that has to be trimmed, root pruned, bonsai'd etc etc.
The 'Red Delicious' apple will occasionally
produce mutant branches (called sporting) that can give rise to new and
superior cultivars.
 
motherlode

motherlode

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If it vigor doesn't decline, or declines at a very slow rate, what's the use of keeping mothers, instead of just taking clones from your plants before you flip them? This would save me a lot of space as my mother is taking up a chunk of my (very small) veg room.


yeah man - I been doing this for years now and no problems

I do have some moms as well but only becasue I dont have room to flower everything - shit I have one strain I been holding onto for over a year I havent had a chance to flower yet - lol
 
Blaze

Blaze

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Interesting topic! I have yet to see any solid science or data on this subject but clones do seem to loose vigor after being cloned multiple generations. I don't know why but many people have had this same experience and many people I know who have done this a lot longer than I have insist that keeping mother plants is the only way to go. Seems like it is some what strain dependent too- some seem to lose vigor faster than others.

I have always wondered why cannabis is more prone to these issues. Maybe because it is an annual and not really genetically wired to be kept alive like a perennial? As Jsan pointed out there are many fruit cultivars that have been cloned for hundreds of years. In the case of bananas it has been almost 10,000 years. So why is this not possible with cannabis?
 
J

Jsän

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Blaze!

I think it has to do with the way we do the perpetual cloning instead of moms.

What i mean to say is, Notice i bring up 'sporting' .. there is also "rogues" and all kinds of cute names for Mutations. So we need to be 'selective' even when cloning, because some deviations will/do occur.

More so with cannabis i theorize, because of its "local flowering" capabilities. (that what allows us to flower part of a plant, sorry dont know its tech name)
Each branch has the ability to express genes differently.... again a stoned thought, not theory.

Mom plants dont need as much selection. they are chosen once, and all their cuts are flowered. Sometimes replenished from its cuts. But even then, the best is chosen.

Where as, choose a 'rogue mutation' in your perpetual cycle and well, then you have clone degradation over time.
 
N

Ne Obliviscaris

82
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The science behind the loss of vigor over time has to do with mutations accruing without a chance for them to be selected out (this is not coming from my knowledge of cannabis specificaly, but rather my knowledge of genetics and evolution). All DNA aquires mutations over time, due to various environmental factors,free radicals, toxins etc. When reproduction is asexual ie. cloning, these mutations get automatically passed down across the generations. When you have sexual reproduction then the mutation only has a 50% chance of being passed down, and then isnt necesarily expressed if its recessive, etc. (incidently, this is one of the primary explanations given for the evolution of sexual reproduction in general). So, all clone lines should deteriorate over time, as the various mutations occur. Just to be clear, the vast majority of these mutations wont have any effect on phenotype, and a very, very tiny minority might be beneficial (the rouges and sporting Jsan is referring to), but on average you are going to start introducing negative traits over time. This is simply the nature of asexual reproduction, and most *naturally* asexually reproducing organisms have developed strategies to deal with the issue. So I think its basically irrefutable that, given enough time, your clone lines will deteriorate, the question is the timing.

It makes a lot of sense to me that this would depend a lot upon the strain, different genotypes might be differentially sensitive to environmental stress and so have different base rates of mutation.

Having said that, I have zero intuition about what a raealistic rate is, a couple generations, 10, 100? As several people have pointed out there are strains that have only existed as cuts for many years, so, at least some must do pretty well over years/decades.

Thanks for everyones input, theres a lot of knowledge on this site.
 
crom

crom

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Maybe we should get someone to comment on a mom that they have had for a very extended period. Old school breeders probably still have some super old genetics kept around. I have heard that doing tissue culture can revive the vigor that the seed mother had. Not sure as I haven't done this before, but it makes sense if your regenerating your plant from the DNA of the mother rather than just a cutting. Interesting topic for sure!

Cheers,
Crom
 
motherlode

motherlode

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The science behind the loss of vigor over time has to do with mutations accruing without a chance for them to be selected out (this is not coming from my knowledge of cannabis specificaly, but rather my knowledge of genetics and evolution). All DNA aquires mutations over time, due to various environmental factors,free radicals, toxins etc. When reproduction is asexual ie. cloning, these mutations get automatically passed down across the generations. When you have sexual reproduction then the mutation only has a 50% chance of being passed down, and then isnt necesarily expressed if its recessive, etc. (incidently, this is one of the primary explanations given for the evolution of sexual reproduction in general). So, all clone lines should deteriorate over time, as the various mutations occur. Just to be clear, the vast majority of these mutations wont have any effect on phenotype, and a very, very tiny minority might be beneficial (the rouges and sporting Jsan is referring to), but on average you are going to start introducing negative traits over time. This is simply the nature of asexual reproduction, and most *naturally* asexually reproducing organisms have developed strategies to deal with the issue. So I think its basically irrefutable that, given enough time, your clone lines will deteriorate, the question is the timing.

It makes a lot of sense to me that this would depend a lot upon the strain, different genotypes might be differentially sensitive to environmental stress and so have different base rates of mutation.

Having said that, I have zero intuition about what a raealistic rate is, a couple generations, 10, 100? As several people have pointed out there are strains that have only existed as cuts for many years, so, at least some must do pretty well over years/decades.

Thanks for everyones input, theres a lot of knowledge on this site.


so if this is the case then keeping moms for about a year would drastically cut down on the "generations" (as opposed to cloning your clones) and extend the amount of time you keep your vigor
 
N

Ne Obliviscaris

82
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so if this is the case then keeping moms for about a year would drastically cut down on the "generations" (as opposed to cloning your clones) and extend the amount of time you keep your vigor


Depending on the time line of degeneration, yes. But it seems like there are a lot of different opinions about how many generations of clones vigor can be maintained across. I mean if its 100 generations, you should get 25 or 30 years of vigor, but If its five generations, your looking at a year and a half, so we need more data on this.
 
budboy299

budboy299

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I have a strain that is running on 8 yrs now. clone after clone, so if you take 3 months as a running time...that should be 28 generations. It still is a killer strain that all my buddies constantly ask for each spring.

I do not know if it has any bearing or not but I do run a couple gals out in the outdoors in the summer to get nice and healthy before I bring them indoors before they go to bud in the fall.
Maybe the increased vigor in the natural sun helps??
 
homebrew420

homebrew420

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I grew a strain, believed to be old mango haze from 20+ years ago, still stands up to any of the herb today. I have ran roughly 50 different cuts over the last 2 years, and that particular girl was as strong as any and more vigorous than some grown from seed. Given the same conditions the mango grew faster than most.
Though I too have heard this time and again, I am not sure I buy it. at least not with cannabis. Seamaiden said it, if they are genetic duplicates why should it loose vigor. I do understand about genetic drift and sports I, nor anyone I know, haven't witnessed this taking place. Some strains are slow, some hard to clone, some take forever to flower. These are just genetic traits usually originally part of the plant not a mutation, I think this to be true.

Have been doing cuts of cuts for many, many generations. Works great takes up alot less space and are easier to care for.
 
S

smokestack23

438
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This is crazy. I was wondering the exact same thing today.

Over the past 3 decades I have avoided cloning a clone...and have kept mothers going for years. BUT...I HAVE taken clones from clones..maybe 3 generations and haven't noticed any loss of vigor.

But yeah, today I was thinking..man..dispensaries must get a clone from a grower. They grow it into a mother and sell clones from that. Dude buys a clone and gives his buddy a clone off that clone. No problem I'm assuming.

From this thread though it appears that there is some science saying that multiple clone generations will eventually be detrimental.
I was thinking for a minute that perhaps whoever started this urban legend may just have had successive failures and pinned it on too many generations of clones from clones and that somehow it has remained and is taken as truth.

For those of you who need to clone their clones, let us know how many gens it takes for things to go south..in the meantime, whip-up a batch of silver and make some femmed seeds of your genetics so that when the day DOES (?) come that your line starts showing defects/mutations/loss of vigor...you can let us all know how many generations it took and plant a seed and start over.

GREAT thread. It's only hours old and some great info. Hopefully a few people will chime-in with conclusive evidence that cannabis does deteriorate and how many generations some strains take to burn-out....or not.

PEACE.
 

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