What's new
  • Happy Birthday ICMag! Been 20 years since Gypsy Nirvana created the forum! We are celebrating with a 4/20 Giveaway and by launching a new Patreon tier called "420club". You can read more here.
  • Important notice: ICMag's T.O.U. has been updated. Please review it here. For your convenience, it is also available in the main forum menu, under 'Quick Links"!

Input needed! Clones of clones or mothers?

eastbeast

Member
Mother plants can be a bit of a pain but it's always nice to have some genetic backup in case something bad happens to your clones. Sort of like a genetic external hard drive.
 

BullDogUK

Member
I think tissue culture is the answer?

If you have the set up for sterile cell culturing :p

On Mad Hatter's point, I do think there's something to the accumulation of more negative epigenetic changes. I've been looking at plant epigenetics for a bit for the Biochemistry thread but it's a pretty fucking big and not at all understood area.

It seems possible that meristematic regions may also be regions of epigenetic variation due to the pluripotent nature of the cells found there. But as has been said, this shouldn't really be a concern unless you're stressing the mother or repeatedly breeding from shitty-ass cuts for 10's of generations at a time.
 
Hey guys glad I checked back in here.

Been super busy with the new setup.

Luckily I have tons of room dedicated to about 30 -50 mothers all in 10 gallon pots. About 40-50 unique strains all in all. At my last place it was about 25. My work buddy has realized how nice it is to have mothers around because he needs about 100-150 clones every mother plus my 100-150. Each mother is a tree, well groomed every 2 weeks whether or not they are cloned that round. Feed - water - feed - water is what they are on. They each give off anywhere from 40-75 clones when need be, all root in 10-20 days.

That being said this discussion of clones of clones or mothers has brought me to the educated conclusion that its the health of the plant that dictates how well it roots, vegetates and ultimately flowers.

Everyone also needs to understand that the generation of growers from basements and hillsides do hear wives tales of how genetics works with marijuana. Depending on which old man you had to teach you how to grow, you could clone from clone or keep mothers. That being said, I am on the keep mothers end. Did it for years while running small 12 plant medical grow, harvesting 3 plants every month, 3 start flower, 3 veg, 1 mother.

You have to understand how hearing something from a mentor for years can make anyone believe something, especially with no real science to disprove or approve the topic. Now with a community of like minded people trying to achieve a similar goal of cultivating great cannabis, we can discuss said topics.

Thanks for input guys, always appreciated. I have another co2 topic starting check it out!

T
 

vStagger Leev

Cannaseur
Veteran
I've been cloning clones from clones for 5 to 7 years now on some plants. No change what so ever :tree: Always growin dank trees with the clones from clones! I've never had the room to keep mothers, so this is what has worked for me. :2cents: SL
 

BullDogUK

Member
It would be interesting to compare clones of clones taken from repeated generations of unhealthy or strained plants to those of repeated generations of healthy plants. Quite a long term thing though... You're talking potentially hundreds of generations after all.

It also sounds a lot like Lamarkian inheritance (acquired traits) which is uncomfortable ground haha
 

Aardwolf

Member
For me it would depend on the cultivation situation. I will always keep mother plants but if a particular grows specifications allowed me to use the quick grown meristematic tissue for cuttings and I had the space I would not keep designated mothers I would just cycle the shit out of it.

Comparing clones is nonsense unless the genetics or environment are different, the type of cutting method used will make a difference only to the amount of cuttings obtainable per plant.
 

hereigrow

Member
Genetic drift from clones is psuedo science. Keep a couple clones in veg for one cycle for an emergency pest problem or pump failure, some catstrophy...clone from clones otherwise.

A side note I have witnessed genetic drift in finches but never in cannabis..
 

EclipseFour20

aka "Doc"
Veteran
Genetic Drift....hmmm, is that like someone with a "vertical family tree"? LOL. Glad my mother is not my sister! Quality in---quality out.
 
C

Carlos Danger

Jesus wept, I am so happy to see the day the "genetic drift" nonsense has been put back where it belongs. For a long time here on ic there were many vocal maroons shouting down reality, but it seems experience speaks louder.
 

Snype

Active member
Veteran
Eclipse pretty much nailed it. The problem with some growers thinking that clones will lose Potency, Vigor, Trichomes, etc, is they or their friends don't treat their MOMs right 365 days a year. I too have seen clones from MOMs go down hill too and it was because of those days that my Moms saw stress over a period of time. Just like Eclipse said about cancer in humans. Environmental factors play a roll and that's why Phenotype = Genotype + Environment. I treat my moms better than I treat anything else in life. Just messing up your MOMS 1 or a few times can mess up your future clones for life and send the genetics down hill. That seems to be a big problem with a lot of growers. A lot of growers treat their plants as a piggy bank and don't put 100% of themselves into the grow and MOMs. If you ask them though they will tell you that they do.
 

MileHighGuy

Active member
Veteran
Quick read.

Re: Will sucessive plant clones show genetic degradation?

Date: Thu Nov 8 00:07:40 2001
Posted By: David Hershey, Faculty, Botany, NA
Area of science: Botany
ID: 1005191948.Bt
Message:

Apparently not if some discretion is used and any obviously inferior plants
that occasionally appear in the cloned population due to mutation are rogued
out. In fact, some clones, such as 'Red Delicious' apple will occasionally
produce mutant branches (called sporting) that can give rise to new and
superior cultivars.

Many fruit tree, rose, and flower bulb clones are well over 100 years old. I'm
not sure which plant is the oldest clone in cultivation. Several fruit
cultivars from the 1600s still exist. The 'Barlett' pear is said to have
originated in 1765 under the name 'Williams' Bon Chretien' but some think that
the 'Barlett' pear may have even originated before 1600. Tulips 'Zomerschoon'
and 'Duc van Tol' supposedly date back to 1620.

According to Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest wild plant clone is the
triploid kings lomatia or kings holly (Lomatia tasmanica) at 43,600 years. It
is not known for sure if the plant has remained genetically identical all those
years but a 43,600 year old fossil leaf appears identical to living specimens.
Quaking aspen clones are thought have survived over one million years (Mitton
and Grant, 1996).


References


Apple Sports


Concerning Trees and their Fruit


THE HISTORY OF BARTLETTS


Tulips 'Zomerschoon' and 'Duc van Tol'


Kings lomatia (Lomatia tasmanica)

Mitton, J.B. and Grant, M.C. 1996. Genetic variation and natural history of
quaking aspen. BioScience 46:25-31.
 
Top