Why bother keeping mother plants?

Mudraya · May 13, 2017

The point is what about genetics you don't plan on using for let's say...a year? For instance I've kept a cut of pre 98 Bubba among others for 11 years alive in the form of a mom. Sure I would take another clone of her every so often when she wasn't looking good for another copy of her. There were times when I didn't flower her for close to a year but I still wanted her around. Can you keep a clone in the fridge for a year? There were no dispensaries to get them from again, there were no friends to get them from, there were no friends to hold them for me, there was simply no other option. I've been doing this for over 15 years so let's not talk about experience please.

I'm curious what you do in that situation?

Stonehedge · May 13, 2017

Just my .02 worth dont want to start issues with any mastergrowers lol.

I'll run clones from clones without issue in most cases but i did have issue doing this with a favorite Cherry Pie i had yrs ago after third yr makeing clones from clones and getting killer purpley seedless tastey fire my cuts started to have herm issue. Imo cloneing from clones is cool but somewhere around ten generations you may start seeing issues.

I keep a few bonsai moms on strain i like nowadays.

Happy gardening :tiphat:

DJXX · May 13, 2017

i take at least 2 good copies of everything i put in flower...like backing up your files...DJXX

DocTim420 · May 13, 2017

Mudraya said:
...I'm curious what you do in that situation?

That being the exception rather than the norm, one could easily Bonzai the plant in a rootbound container for a while (1-2 gallon size)--then snip the top and start over again after 6 months or so (dedicating about 1 sq foot of space).

Of course, about a month or so before her hibernation is over, I would transplant the plant to much larger container (5-7 gallon size) and anticipate having a jumbo harvest of cuttings when to choose from.

But that's just me and that's just the way I would do it. LOL, its like asking a mathematician, "how many ways are there to add or subtract two numbers and have the product equal 100?".

And he answers, "as many as you want".

Guy Brush · May 13, 2017

Peripheral said:
Since you are new and asking questions like this, it tells me you are thinking.. Never be afraid to try something regardless of how unorthodox it may seem.

Your suspicions have paid off in this case, as many growers including myself do not keep mothers, rather, I clone my veg plants just before I throw em into bloom.. Its a rotation.. The clones will be vegged and prepared for bloom and before they go into bloom, cuts are taken from the plants... Voila! No moms . I also take backup clones and store them in the fridge for up to a month, and they will root faster out of the fridge after some time.

Someone will inevitably come in here talking about genetic drift and what not but in the last ten years its never been an issue..

How do you store them in the fridge?

Peripheral · May 14, 2017

Guy Brush said:
How do you store them in the fridge?

You take your clones, put them in zip lock bag with about a tablespoon of water or so and put them in the fridge. Position the bag so the ends of the cuttings stay moist or somewhat submerged.

You can keep them there for a month or so, ive gone longer but I dont recommend it.

Just make a new cut when you use your rooting powder or cloning gel.

Its called keeping cuts in stasis... and its a pretty effective technique for managing clones, or even mailing them and even then they dont have to be cold..

Guy Brush · May 15, 2017

Peripheral said:
You take your clones, put them in zip lock bag with about a tablespoon of water or so and put them in the fridge. Position the bag so the ends of the cuttings stay moist or somewhat submerged.

You can keep them there for a month or so, ive gone longer but I dont recommend it.

Just make a new cut when you use your rooting powder or cloning gel.

Its called keeping cuts in stasis... and its a pretty effective technique for managing clones, or even mailing them and even then they dont have to be cold..

I think you don't need the extra water in the zip lock bags. If they are fresh they only have to be sealed from air exchange so they can't dry out.

Peripheral · May 15, 2017

Guy Brush said:
I think you don't need the extra water in the zip lock bags. If they are fresh they only have to be sealed from air exchange so they can't dry out.

Ive never tried it without water to be honest so I dont know. When I mail clones, I just wrap the bottom of the stem with a damp paper towel, never had an issue..

The cold temps from fridge would immediately cause transpiration to come to a grinding halt, so perhaps they wouldnt draw air into the stems even without water.

Ill certainly try your idea to find out though, because water in the bags after a month can get pretty cloudy depending on how clean the cuts were taken and put into stasis.

Dropped Cat · May 16, 2017

Good to know about the fridge stasis process.

As I root cuttings in plain water, I often wonder
if some growers put fresh cuttings in plain water
to hold them, so to speak.

good thread

DocTim420 · May 16, 2017

I got backed up on cuttings a few years ago with 2 trays (about 50 each) that just sat in tap water for about 2 weeks. Most sprouted roots by the time I was able to work em.

nksv · May 17, 2017

great thread! been trying to work out best way to keep my collection. developing 'mums' takes ages so I think flowering out the mum, after a successful clone, is the way. at least for my micro set up. big mums are good for needing large sog style ops.

TOKING TOKOLOSH · Sep 22, 2017

Starting a new grow, wanna do a perpetual harvest of 12 plants every 2 weeks!
Gonna use a combination of systems..
Follow my journal - " The Toking Tokoloshe's combi grow - Dinafem Blue Widow.

Germinated seed as per usual..
Potted into 2 l hempy bucket in coco-peat/perlite feeding hydro A & B(linctified salts)

These 2 seeds are what i have to work with...
They will be the mothers(or at least genetics for the 1 final mother strain)

Gonna keep vegging them in bigger and bigger hempy's, when final mothers are chosen they will be potted in supersoil.

Any hints will be appreciated

brown_thumb · Sep 22, 2017

This thread has 'almost' convinced me to build my small grow room to be solely for mother plants. I could have a mom room and a baby clone room and move healthy plants outside to finish.

I've bought lots of seeds as insurance against loss of availability but I think cloning will soon be my primary method of reproduction.

mushroombrew · Sep 22, 2017

I am perpetual also. But I do keep a stash of "reserve" mothers. Taking clones from clones works fine. I lost a cut to that method as vigor diminished at around the 6yr mark. By 8 yrs
I had to make a hybrid or lose it.

So now I take clones from clones but got a mom somewhere. So I can freshen up the clones genetics. Drift does occur. Maybe its the rooting hormones? But drift sucks when it happens to you. I would at the very least make S1 seed. To keep the cut in seed form.

Dropped Cat · Sep 23, 2017

Drift happens, entirely environmental. The code is there, but the
shift occurs through poor maintenance.

i have cuts that survive solely by chance and testing.

Mums for the win.

MJPassion · Sep 24, 2017

brown_thumb said:
This thread has 'almost' convinced me to build my small grow room to be solely for mother plants. I could have a mom room and a baby clone room and move healthy plants outside to finish.

I've bought lots of seeds as insurance against loss of availability but I think cloning will soon be my primary method of reproduction.

Just an FYI,
mothers, clones & veg production can all be done in the same area, under the same light/s.

I'm kind of tired of keeping mothers through the winter just so I can grow the same cuts year after year after year after...

There's an awesome tutorial, somewhere here on IC, on how to keep a shit load of moms in a relatively tiny space... Like a 2ftx4ftx6ft tent or smaller... I'll see if I can find it.

This isn't it but it may do the job...
I've not seen this thread.
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=90460

Another one that's not what I was looking for.
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=31919

Here's another thread like this one.
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=311812

The thread I'm thinking of is over at MNS Forums for sure. I don't think I'm supposed to post a link from there though.

DocTim420 · Sep 24, 2017

I originally planned to have a mom room, but after spec'ing everything out, I placed those ideas on the back burner (in a few years it will be 2 decades or so ago).

Then I realized the cannabis industry reflects certain quirks that exist in the fashion industry. Just as there are "cannabis breeders"--there are also "fashion designers"...each producing "new lines" of their wares several times each year.

In the fashion world new lines are released at fashion shows at New York, Paris, Barcelona, Milan, Rome, London, Los Angeles...and expect to pay about the average price of a new American car for a dress from this year's "new line". A few years later, that very same dress design will be available for a few thousand and hanging on racks at all the major department stores. And then about half a dozen or so years after being debuted in New York, the same dress design will be selling at Walmart for $100 or so. Hmmm, went from the price of a car to $100 in less than 10 years, how can this be? One word answer: Consumers.

Breeders release new lines each year and this year's "must have" seeds are impossible to find and when/if you do, it will cost you dearly. After a few years...those very same seeds are available everywhere; discounted too. And for some reason, the prices of the flowers sourced to those "hard to get" seeds seem to behave the same way. Prices start in the stratosphere and after a few years (when everyone else is growing the same strain) they steady decline until they are priced with "everything else" (price equalization).

Moral of the story: Running new lines every couple of years might be a good idea (fresh blood over old blood). Hence, my current genetics will probably be replaced in a few years...so concerns of potential genetic degeneration (which I have not experienced) is something that I don't worry about. But if I were planning to run my current genetics forever, then I would probably figure a way to have "mom rooms" at multiple locations.

mushroombrew · Sep 24, 2017

DocTim420 said:
I originally planned to have a mom room, but after spec'ing everything out, I placed those ideas on the back burner (in a few years it will be 2 decades or so ago).

Then I realized the cannabis industry reflects certain quirks that exist in the fashion industry. Just as there are "cannabis breeders"--there are also "fashion designers"...each producing "new lines" of their wares several times each year.

In the fashion world new lines are released at fashion shows at New York, Paris, Barcelona, Milan, Rome, London, Los Angeles...and expect to pay about the average price of a new American car for a dress from this year's "new line". A few years later, that very same dress design will be available for a few thousand and hanging on racks at all the major department stores. And then about half a dozen or so years after being debuted in New York, the same dress design will be selling at Walmart for $100 or so. Hmmm, went from the price of a car to $100 in less than 10 years, how can this be? One word answer: Consumers.

Breeders release new lines each year and this year's "must have" seeds are impossible to find and when/if you do, it will cost you dearly. After a few years...those very same seeds are available everywhere; discounted too. And for some reason, the prices of the flowers sourced to those "hard to get" seeds seem to behave the same way. Prices start in the stratosphere and after a few years (when everyone else is growing the same strain) they steady decline until they are priced with "everything else" (price equalization).

Moral of the story: Running new lines every couple of years might be a good idea (fresh blood over old blood). Hence, my current genetics will probably be replaced in a few years...so concerns of potential genetic degeneration (which I have not experienced) is something that I don't worry about. But if I were planning to run my current genetics forever, then I would probably figure a way to have "mom rooms" at multiple locations.

I like how you put that.

I recently gave my entire seed collection away. The chap was very happy.
I had crosses of crosses. Some stable ibl some pollen chucks.
But it was all getting a bit "samey"
I have since collected about 20 elite west coast cuts. Will be making a good 30 new lines. I fully expect some new elite cuts to show up.

Which will need to become mothers. As the F1's will probably be quite unstable.

So stabilize your line and keep seeds. Or keep a mother if she is unstable.

Chevy cHaze · Sep 24, 2017

If you want to keep an exact genetic copy of a plant, a clone is the only solution. Seeds, even when selfed, will all be different. And most will keep either the plant from seed or a clone as a mother, to be able to hold on to those genetics.
Moms don't necessarily take up much space, I've had lots of moms in containers little bigger than a party cup, if you don't require lots of clones and merely want to preserve a certain plant.
BTW if a plant produces outstanding results, you can always re veg her while the buds are drying and curing to take a clone if you missed it earlier.

Besides, keeping moms is fun and nothing greater than a nice "clone only" portfolio ;-)
Good luck !
CC

nksv · Sep 24, 2017

anyone have issues with mums starting to flower out? Is she just showing she's ready or is it best to let her into the flower room to do her thing?

Why bother keeping mother plants?

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