From seed to mother

[348montesa]

Hi all.

I will be starting seeds in the next few weeks and I want to select my mothers out of them. I will be needing around 180 clones/month for a SOG growth and I have been thinking about the optimal and more efficient way (time-wise) to make it from seeds to enough mothers to supply the clones on a monthly basis.

I would very much appreciate if you could give me some suggestions from the start in a way to be able to start the SOG in the least time possible.

This will be a SOG type of grow that is new for me and which will be done away from the place I actually have a smallish grow.

 

[TheTommyK]

Clone more than you need, groom your moms for maximum clone cuts, keep a good calender if you intend to sog perpetually.
That has been my experience with small sog grows.

In starting up, your first go around will be less than you'd hope..... Things smooth out with time and experience.

 

[348montesa]

hI was thinking of taking the seeds and germinate and veg. for 4 weeks, pass to pre-flowering 12/12, take clones after 7 days, 4 from each (1 for mother 3 for crop), determine sex of the plants, discard males (and associated clones). Starting with 100 regular seeds I should crop around 50 plants in 3 months time and a second 150 (75% of clones) crop one month after (first clones left for 4 week root/veg, rest of clones will go directly after rooting (14 days) to 12/12). By the time finishing the first crop, mothers would be 1.5 months old; two weeks after this they will be already 2 months old and mature. Taking three from each then I would have enough (150) for a third crop 2 months after the second. Perhaps I could reclone the first clones too.

 

[mayonnaise]

The main problem I see with your plan is that you are going to be taking cuttings from a ton of different plants from seed. The myriad of different phenos you are gonna get will make it hard to keep an even canopy in a sog setup. not to mention the money you will leave on the table from growing out a bunch of weak/inferior phenos. If you dont have time to search for " keepers" maybe you can try and find another grower in your area that will sell you some good cuttings. People rarely part with their true fire cuts, but you might be able to get a good enough for starters cut! Your plan will work but it is far from optimal. Either way I wish you luck.

 

[348montesa]

Mayonnaise, thanks. I am aware it is far from optimal. At least in the beginning the room will not be so full as in a SOG (around 60 plants, when the SOG dictates 150). On the second crop I might be able to move the 150 plants after the first month of flowering to the second room to avoid space issues (as they will be vegetating some time they will be big, later the clones will go directly to 12/12 after rooting). At least this procedure will let me pick good phenos as I should have around enough females to choose from.

 

[TheTommyK]

here is my 2 cents.

I clone 55 cuts monthly, of which I need 24 (choose the best, $ the rest). I have 5 mothers that I take cuts to clone. I average 25 cuts from any one of the mothers. So if you double what you need in clones you will need about 360. this will require about 15 mothers (15 X 25= 375 and hopefully you would get those from 7 of the 15 mothers .... that is a lot of variation. This is all after you have got to 15 moms, which has already been identified as less than optimal cloning situation.

 

[TheTommyK]

Sorry I had typed more .... but apparently there are gremlins in my 'puter.

you have laid out a good plan to get there .... the next step would be to then further clone the strong moms, trying to get to 5 of 3 phenos. growing them to a size that you could take 36 cuts instead of 25. IMAO

for me (and it sounds like you) space is always an issue. remember to plan for the monthly overlap of veging and rooting plants. if you are vegging for more than 4 week. My BK veg slow so I veg 5 Weeks min. with a minimum of 1 week overlap of rooting clones and vegging plants. What you are planning and what I do are similar. I find a need to have a good calendar with notes to keep things timed properly. With the scale of what you are planning, I would strongly suggest the same.