The SCIENCE of Cloning

I use sunshine and/or lights if needed.
I find it pretty easy to reveg and clone flowering females, males are much harder to reveg once flowered for more then a few days.
But I referred to keeping vegetative males alive by cloning.
I guess not so many people have 20+ year old male clones, like I have?
Does anyone have any male clones that are old? I have dozens.
-SamS

shroomyshroom said:

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=159201

if you cant make it work with this method... just give up

Click to expand...

i haven't had a chance to read through the thread yet but it looks like a variation of the Walmart cloner pictured below.




you can find a link to the original 'Walmart' thread in the first posting of my 'clone factory' thread linked in my sig.

btw, i agree that this is an almost foolproof method of mastering cloning.

peace, and stay safe, SOG

Sam_Skunkman said:

I use sunshine and/or lights if needed.
I find it pretty easy to reveg and clone flowering females, males are much harder to reveg once flowered for more then a few days.
But I referred to keeping vegetative males alive by cloning.
I guess not so many people have 20+ year old male clones, like I have?
Does anyone have any male clones that are old? I have dozens.
-SamS

Click to expand...

Well, many seed sellers offer seedlines that originated in the 80s and claim their seeds are still being made from the original parental stock.
Unless they're blatant liars, there must be dozens of 20+ year old male clones in Amsterdam alone.

My oldest is in his 17th year now, dunno if he'll make 18, doesn't look so hot for months now. Looks like senescence set in.

Most seeds sold in Amsterdam are all female and did not even use a male.
So it is easy to claim the lines are made with original parental stock, if the female clone is in fact original as stated. My experience is that few if any growers keep many different female clones alive for 20+ years, and much, much less in the case of male clones. Almost every seed company I talked to have admitted they have lost important females or males for many many reasons, and then replaced them with something even "better" but not original. I also do know many people that do have 20+ year old clones, so I do know I am not the only one being successful.
About your male clone, I think you can re-clone the most vigorous parts grow perfect and re-clone the best parts again, repeat several times and this will often restore vigor, I like to grow them in the ground big and clone them while still veg..
-SamS

Got 4 clones rooted 3 weeks ago... so far so good, not much new growth yet, though.
Is rejuvenation happening in cannabis clones like it happens with clones of woody perennials?
Ideas on how to keep pre-flowering in check?

In all the discussions concerning possible loss of vitality in mother plants and long repetitions of clone lines, I have never encountered the mention of teleomeres. Teleomeres stabilize the ends of chromosomes. In many organisms, including humans, teleomeres are associated with aging. The idea is that every time a cell divides, it replicates it's chromosomes, resulting in a loss of some of that chromosome's teleomeres. After enough cell divisions the teleomeres get used up and the cell line has reached the end of it's lifespan. How this relates to cannabis is uncertain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere

How many years plants can live?

Eizi Suzuki, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences,Faculty of Science, Kagoshima University, Kagoshima 890-0065 Japan
Some conifer trees can live nearly 5000 years though animals do only 150 years. Why the difference occurs? Dead cells compose the most part of tree body, though living cells do in animals. The longest lifespan of cells in trees, and animals are about 30, and 150 years, respectively. In this point of view, it may be said that animals can live longer than trees though some cells in palm can live as long as animals. The longevity of trees are not related with the lifespan of cells. Plants can live much longer than 5000 years if it is propageted vegetatively. Meristem of plants will not be aged, it can live forever. It is because the sexual and vegetative organs are made in the same meristem in plants, though in different ones in animals. Then the cloning is very easy in plants. Most long living trees are conifers, which are more primitive group than angiosperm trees. The environment in the Mesozoic when the conifers dominated might be suitable for long living plants than the Cenozoic when the angiosperms dominated.

Click to expand...

---

Potentially immortal?
Josep Peñuelas, Sergi Munné-Bosch

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2010.03360.x/full

---

Plants 'defy effects of ageing'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8859000/8859375.stm

Potential immortality

Often cells age as they accumulate genetic mutations over time.
But writing in the journal, the researchers describe how such mutations do not appear to damage a plant's meristem, the part that is actively growing via cell division, which usually occurs at the tip of a shoot or root.
For example, one study found no evidence of accumulation in somatic mutations in the meristems of bristlecone pines (Pinus longaeva), regardless of whether the pine was 23 years old or up to 4713 years old.

Click to expand...

True for cannabis?

I've read that the oldest living plant in the world might be a "bermuda" grass growing in South American valley bottoms which has been propagating vegetatively through runners for many thousands of years.

In researching this issue in Cannabis, it might be worthwhile to examine the long term propagation of hop varieties which are grown from cuttings.

Plants can live much longer than 5000 years if it is propageted vegetatively. Meristem of plants will not be aged, it can live forever. It is because the sexual and vegetative organs are made in the same meristem in plants, though in different ones in animals.

Click to expand...

- Very interesting if true for Cannabis, and could help a lot with the "clone of a clone" speculation..

highonmt said:

Leave it to moo U! Cal Davis lives up to it's ag roots with this brief history of propagation. http://www.plantsciences.ucdavis.ed.../hrt298/topics_pdf/preece_propagation2003.pdfIt is an interesting read. The plant physiology of tissue differentiation during the rooting of a vegetative plant cutting is quite complex and although I've read some papers on the subject; time, as always quite cruel, has erased the details. I'll look up some of my notes on the subject.
Regards,
HM

Click to expand...

Thanks, HighonMt. That's a great link ...

Eatatjoes said:

Check out jjscorpio's thread:
Cloning with JJScorpio

Click to expand...

Thank you, thank you, EatatJoes.

This is a great thread ...

FreezerBoy said:

Perhaps this isn't the "science" you're looking for but if successful cloning is the goal: CLONERS- a collection of various methods

Pick a method... any method.

Click to expand...

Very nice compilation, FreezerBoy. Thanks ...

thank you

thank you

FreezerBoy said:

Perhaps this isn't the "science" you're looking for but if successful cloning is the goal: CLONERS- a collection of various methods

Pick a method... any method.

Click to expand...

awesome post, and thread Freezer...

- I ran a crappy experiment to try and garner some information on a few particular claims and observations in terms of cloning I have heard and made over the years.

- Lower and higher branches, with soft and woodier stems, were used as cuttings, representatives of each applied with either clonex or olivia’s cloning gel and rooted in rockwool.

- High humidity has always seemed to be a mitigating factor, as well as high temps. I seem to notice temps of 80-90 degrees is good, with the higher end of 85 probably being better. Humidity should be a constant 90% or higher.

-The lower branch cutting with soft stem rooted with clonex gel rooted fastest, 7 days with strong visible roots from initial cutting. The rest that survived had roots in 11-12 days. 3 died from drying out.
- The drying out issue is another problem with cloning I have encountered, the initial cutting medium you want wet, but not too wet (though rockwool cubes seem fine to soak and maintain enough aeration). Then, you want the medium to dry somewhat, but not too much, to encourage rooting, too wet will slow the rooting process, but too dry and you lose your cutting.

- In a separate tray, a number of other cuttings were placed in a Styrofoam cup hempy buckets, with 1:3 ratio perlite to vermiculite, and an organic hybrid of the mostly 1:3 ratio perlite:vermiculite, with small amount with earth worm castings added and mixed. They were taken at random sites with either clonex or olivia’s gel. The organic hybrid hempy outperformed the traditional hempy in rooting time and root growth. I also feel the ones rooted with clonex rooted faster and had more root development. Using small Styrofoam cups converted to mini hempy buckets for cloning was a very effective way to maintain a good moisture level for the medium without it drying out.

- Of course maintaining a high humidity was(is) quite important, but can also be difficult to maintain with proper high temperatures as heat can build up under your humidity catcher.

- My preliminary study suggests that studying the differentiation in rooting time of lower branches with either soft or woody stems (and softer stems are more difficult to find on lower branches, and must be cut from newer shoots on those older stems), and higher stems of either soft or woody quality may be worthwhile, as well as investigating the different qualities of brands of rooting hormone. Personally I am favoring Clonex greatly.