Need input

[MulberrysMeds]

New to the site....

I need advice....If my friends methods for feeding his moms seem questionable to me, granted I know very little about keeping a "MOM", I have always purchased clones from a reliable vendor, Will his clones be questionable also?

His mom's are all clones that were bought from Harborside and vendor is unknown. We give his moms ph'd 6.0 r/o water with Pureblend, nitrozime, superthrive, and sometimes roots exel.

I have noticed that he doesn't really have a schedule for them, feeding/watering wise.... He just picks them up every now and again and if they are light he will hit them with a quart or plus of his nutrient mix or water. No real schedule for feeding/watering, that i can tell. What should we be giving them? What is a recommended feeding schedule for keeping a "mom"? Does his methods of keeping a mom make you guys feel comfortable with filling a whole room with his cuts?

Here is what he does when he takes cuts....

1.Cut clones
2.let clones sit in nitrozime, superthrive, and clone x, overnight
3. dips in clone gel, places in starter plugs, places in domes and they do their thing....
They always end up looking great by the time the dome comes off, nice and clean white roots, healthy looking clones, before we do first TP.

They are very green, they are also growing tall, leaves all look good. Our previous project were all clones from his "Mom" room. We didnt do very good this last time.... we did have cold temperatures. Part of me thinks that it also might be because his methods of keeping moms. I have faith his clones are good based on seeing the roots when they emerge but.....we did terrible last run. I'm worried about coming up short and that the clones we take for this next project will not be maximum potential because of how the moms are taken care of. I'm used to getting dark heart/oak clones and those have never done me wrong.

Any advice? My gut says just buy reliable cuts from vendor but i'm uneducated when it comes to cloning and maybe his will be good cuts.... We would also be saving $$$ by using his, and that is also a major goal.

sorry if this all over the place or....Blackberry Soda is the truth.....any input is appreciated

Cheers

 

[UNITEDGROOVES]

Hey MulberryMeds... Welcome to the farm..
Keeping moms is not an easy task.. You need to keep them healthy in order to produce healthy clones... The feed depends on how your moms are kept,the medium, grow style, the light, pot size, environment.. The best thing to do is look at your plants and give them what they need.... But your clone process seems like a good one, and as long as the moms are healthy the clones should do great with the step you mentioned... For me I keep Bonsai style mothers, it works great with the space i have, and i can take up to 30+ cuts every week with this method under T5 in coco and 5x5 square pots.... IMO buying cuts is a waste of $$ and is a gamble when u can keep mothers in a small place and take reliable bug free cuts at your disposal... Tell us more about your setup style and pics.. Peace...

 

[PButter]

Are there specific deficiencies you are seeing?

It seems if you guys had no problems with your cuts before you should give em another try. You could also run ole' dude's cuts along side to see whats up...

I kept a mom around way too long once upon a time. I think it was just shy of two years... I know you can successfully keep moms around for a long time but size is an issue and was in this case. After the first few months I 'felt' we had some sort of connection and I never really kept a particular schedule for her. DOn't get me wrong, she was on the same 'schedule' for the teas and stuff but I wouldn't do anything in particular and knew in my head when to water when to feed, ect... She ended up really big and the last cuts I took off her were not the same as a year prior. Maybe I did something wrong to those cuts as a group, maybe I had done something to the mother. I will never know. I do think as a general rule that as soon as you stop being on your toes, you will slip up.

PB

 

[UNITEDGROOVES]

It is also good to make new moms every once an a while or put them out in the sun.. I usually replace moms about every 6 months, i do this just to keep moms fresh... But you can easily keep mothers for much longer by pruning the root ball and transplanting to bigger pots.. I know exactly what ya mean PButter, once you've been taking care of the same plant for years you get to know her and develop a natural connection....

 

[GanjaAL]

Hey UNITEDGROOVES do you have a tutorial or did you use the one floating around? I know the one floating around the net is in soil I believe as I plan to run coco moms myself. I wasted alot of money on cuts as all they had were bugs and disease.... so I do seeds and soon I hope to have moms from those. Great question MulberryMeds.....

 

[SuperCan]

I also keep bonsai moms and don't use any kind of schedule. I just watch for deficiencies and water them along with my vegging plants, typically I'll reserve a bit of the water I'm using on the veg plants and I'll cut it by 50% (double the volume with fresh water), so that I end up basically feeding the moms 50% of what my veggers get.

This works well for the bonsai method because they don't really need full strength nutes really because you don't allow a ton of vertical growth.

Also I've found that in playing with different methods cuts actually root faster/better when they come from slightly 'hungry' moms.

 

[Bannacis]

It sounds like the cloning technic is spot on, healthy clones, green and growing normally.
So it could be a few diff reasons your are not getting your stated better results.
For one the Strain type, parentage, S/I ratio. that will help dial in a grow environment.
Your grow set up. veg specs and flower. as in size of room, lights, temps, air, water, medium, nutrients.
Your light time schedule, and of course pictures.

Have you had better results from this strain?

I find keeping mothers simple, they don't require much, the key is to feed them sparingly.
Prune,LST, or FIM and starve a little before cutting, and every couple months grow one of your cuttings out as a mother replacement. Then put your retired mother into flower.

 

[woodsmaneh]

Sounds kind of like what I do with my mom's and I have kept a few mom's for 7+ years. The only thing I would change in your cloning is feeding them as they soak. That's not what you want to do as that feeds them so they can grow leaf and you want roots not nice green leaves. Your leaves should be a little yellow when you pull them out to plant. The end result is it could take longer to root and slower to grow.

How having said that, your description says why change anything? It's all working great so carry on. I could go into a long winded bla bla bla science bla bla but the fact is if it works for you and your happy why change it.

peace

 

[UNITEDGROOVES]

Hey UNITEDGROOVES do you have a tutorial or did you use the one floating around? I know the one floating around the net is in soil I believe as I plan to run coco moms myself. I wasted alot of money on cuts as all they had were bugs and disease.... so I do seeds and soon I hope to have moms from those. Great question MulberryMeds.....

GanjaAL, I did see the thread you're talking about its a good reference point, do a google search for "bonsai mums" and you'll find a few threads.. Best thing to do is chop off the head early right after transplant, don't wait too long... You should see 3-4 main heads in a few weeks.. Then all you need to do is keeping trimming/take cuts from the top... Keep the mom short, by pruning weekly/biweekly.... Also its best to go smaller on your pot size... This will work for coco or soil.... In coco you'll be able to take more cuts as the growth rate is much faster... Peace..

 

[GanjaAL]

Yup yup... that is the one I was thinking of doing however running mine in coco. Thanks for the confirmation brother as there is just some much info out there. That is why I try to stick to this forum only so I do not get confused... not that I am not anyways...LOL.

 

[MulberrysMeds]

update...... I decided to save money and give my buddies cuts a try. We will be doing half SkywalkerOG and half White Fire with 4 Grapefruit cuts that are from seed. Thanks for the input!

 

[midwestdensies]

For moms i keep sterile (physan and never use teas)with dm nutes and zone between 7-900 pp
With a feed water feed in peat. Im setting up a flood drain for them really soon but for that will be coco smartys.

 

[homebrew420]

If they are growing and you see no deficiencies your good. For moms your lack of schedule would apear to be exacty right. Dont over think it. Posting pict will help others with your questions like this. In general. Good luck brother

Peace