Mother Plants

[Jbellsmoke]

So I've been growing now for couple years now and feel been doing well. Getting great yields and quality from every plant. Now I'm looking to learn about cloning. So I'm here to ask the experienced about mother plants. What to look for in mother, how old should it be when I take cuttings. Do I look for the most vigorous growth. How do u pick a plant with traits/phenos u want if u never flowered the strain. Also I'm looking for the easiest cloning process. Tried couple times by taking cuttings dipping in root hormone and into soil with no success. Have some rock wool cubes I'm trying next.

 

[JWM2]

You select mothers by taking clones, rooting them and then flowering the mother or the clone. Keep one in veg so you can get more clones from it. Otherwise there’s no way of telling the quality of end product you’ll get. Once you select a mother you can cull the others of that strain that didn’t make the cut.

To clone I like using the water method. Just take your cut and trim off the lower leaves at the nodes and put it in a solo cup (or any cup) of water. Change out the water every couple of days. Put the cup in an area that gets light but not much of it. You just want it to stay in that vegging mode so they root. In about 5-9 days you’ll see small bumps on the stalk. From there put it into your growing medium, rapid rooter, or peat pellet.

I like to put a little dome over them for a day or two and then remove it and grow as normal. I don’t dome it while in the cup of water just when I put the cutting into a grow medium. Just be sure you don’t knock off the bumps or roots when doing so.

 

[Smoking Gun]

JWM2 covered most of the basics. I have found the key to cloning in any medium (soil, rockwool, or rapid rooters) is to have a dome over the plants. The new cuttings have no roots and must take any water from the air around the leaves. This is much easier for the plant to do when relative humidity is high.

I also get rid of pretty much all but the top two or three leaves when I take cuttings.

There are a few options for cloning cycles. You can keep a mother and take clones from her at just about any time. You could also take cuttings from your plants just before or just after inducing flowering. This allows you to never have a mother but you always have the same clone every harvest.

 

[1diesel1]

Your mother plant is the key to success with each strain. Picking a mother plant from a clone. The clone must be stout and strong. Pick clones from the center of the plant Stouter strong tips of branches. I would not suggest pulling clones from the top of the plant if your just starting out cloning. As far as taking cuttings anytime is a good time. As long as she’s healthy and growing. Always flower a strain before deciding to go full bore on a serious cloning mission. I find the easiest way to clone is with these 2 devices

left is Clone X machine entails a sprinkler inside the machine to keep clones constantly wet while rooting is taking place. I find this has more success rate then the traditional cloner on the left. But it is more finicky as far as operating and cleaning. The other cloner keeps humidity and moisture in an enclosed environment for rooting. I find I get 80-90% success with it.

these are my mothers. They are on the way out. I have cloned these mothers for the last year.

these are clones from one of the mothers. Back left is a new mother I choose out of all these clones. She was the healthiest when transplanting pay attention to the root structure when choosing a mother and flowering plants.

this is the next generation replacement for 4 strains. Flowering clones in the front. New mothers in the back. Hope that helps.

 

[Jbellsmoke]

Is it best to keep original mother then cloned mom. Is the any draw backs to making clone of a clone of clone ect. I figured keeping mother plants from clones may lose something the further down the line u go. I don't no. Thanks guys for quick reply. This sites a fucking great pool of info people. Thanks again.

 

[1diesel1]

I’ve had a clone of a clone of a clone etc..... for 6 years now.

 

[Jbellsmoke]

I’ve had a clone of a clone of a clone etc..... for 6 years now.

That's pretty cool. So u say clones of clones of clone will always be the same, just really relies on how good u are at picking out the strongest of the bunch?

 

[1diesel1]

Definitely Helps immensely.

 

[Madmax]

Is it true its best to use regular seeds than femmed seeds..

 

[JWM2]

There is a theory about genetic drift but that’s really something most of us don’t have to worry about. Clones are the same age as the plants they were taken from. So if you’ve kept a strain going for several years the cuttings you take are the same age as the original had it kept growing. Not that it matters. Just a fun fact.

 

[JWM2]

Is it true its best to use regular seeds than femmed seeds..

It’s mostly growers preference. But f1 vigor comes from true f1 seeds which are never selfed or feminized. But selfed seeds do retain most of the mothers genetics so your chances of finding a good copy are pretty high. It’s just depends on why you are growing them. For breeding you might want to take a different route. For general production selfed seeds might be just fine.

 

[Madmax]

Thanks JWM2 ..id like some regulars from dinafems range but they dont sell them

 

[Smoking Gun]

One issue with selfed (feminized) seeds is that the intersex trait can be passed through the generations. Therefore it is much more prominent in plants from selfed seeds. Often when keeping a mother that is a trait that is often selected against.