Here's my pc for bonsai mums

Hi fellas, sorry for my english, I'm Italian.
I show you Creative, my pc for bonsai mothers. It has accomodated even 5 strains at the same time in the last 3 years, they gave me clones for my outdoors/guerrillas. Now it's empty because I want to change strains, I planted my mothers in soil in guerrilla and now they are waiting august to flower. They are together with other plants from wich I will take cuttings for making new mums.
New strains will be:
-Mandala Papaya and Satori
-de Sijaman Purple Widow
-Greenhouse Green o' Matic (it should be fem and autoflowering, but had some genetic issues, she's only fem...better for me 'cause I love Gom's smell, taste and stone, now I will keep her 24/0 as a mother without autoflowering )
-Greenhouse Church
They're mold and pest resistant strains, wich here in the north of Italy is essential (mould is guaranteed if not pre-fighted).
Now in the pc there are only 2 cuttings of Gom and 2 of papaya, all rooting...they surely are ladies (taken off by the plants after they showed me preflowers)...soon there will be also the others, for a total of 10 cuttings rooting (5 strains, will keep the best one for each after they'll root).
In the next months they will grow in the pc and once they are ready I will try to graft each strain on another, until I'll have a single bonsai mother with 5 strains on its branches...a Frankenstein plant....sacrilegious??


Let's see their future home:
It's a pc tower, dimension 60x40x18 (cm), 2 places for cfl lights (I can light with a single 15w when I want them only to survive, with 2x 25w when i need new branches for cuttings).





Totally light proof (none a ray of light enters or comes out).
It has a DIY vented reflector with 2 pc fans on it (one pushes in, the other pulls out directing hot air to the other 2 fans mounted in the upper-behinder part of the pc). The lower part of the reflector has a sheet of plexiglass.







Reflector and lights are adjustable in height thanks to the chains (wich are just clips, one in the other).
The other 2 fans mounted on the pc pushes hot air out of it, passing through a DIY carbon filter.



DIY carbon filter built with wood, mosquito's wire and glue, now it's empty because cuttings are rooting and they don't smell.
The filter has a quick opening to change or remove carbon.



Interiors are covered with balled mylar (from a car sun-protection)
Double closure to prevent light leaks, so there's a mylar panel befor the pc panel.
Optional secuity locking with hidden screws.





Noiseless, just the noise of a pc fan (and since it comes from a pc, where is the problem?)
Max temp in summer with 2x25w cfl on: 28°
Min temp in winter with a single 15w cfl on: 13°
I keep it in my room.
I use as pots plastic beer cups (0,5l) or normal plastic cups (0,2l).
This pc-grow room costs me more or less 20€ (activated carbon+sheet of black plastic+glue+ something else)...I took the pc, fans and wiring from the damping, other things were around and inside my house, nothing special...It costed me nothing in money, but a lot in time and thinking...and has passed an evolution in these 3 years, at the beginning was very simple and very non-effective.
Here's a pic of it now, with Gom and Papaya cuttings that are rooting in 0,2l cups, single 15w cfl on 24/0.



Do you think it's better to give 'em some dark period (20/4 or 18/6) while they're rooting?
Hope you'll understand my rusty english, if you have critics, opinions, questions...just write and I'll answer as I can.
Ciao

Only 2 CLF?

Now that looks cool, I like cfl grows.

dope. i love it. i'll be watchin this.

@No1Kaczy: Yes, only 2 cfls.
I try to explain better the setup and the goal: in the period that I don't need cuttings (sept-march) I cut back the mums to a pair of nodes and use a single cfl (15w or 25w) to make growth less fast, I want them only to survive...from march two august I need more new branches to make cuttings, so I use varied combinations of 2cfls (15+15 or 15+25 or 25+25), according to my and plants' needs, outside temp, ecc.
Anyway, even with this little light, I have to gift or throw away for the whole year the majority of cuttings, because they produce more than my needs...and pruning (branches and roots) is a must in such little spaces.
I mean, if I take 6 cuttings today, leaving a small plant without branches, it takes 3 weeks to form other 6 branches (or more than 6, 'cause it's like topping) ready to be cut again (this with 2x25w)...and even if you calculate 6 clones (female) from 3 strains, every month...well, 18 clones a month, one every two days, that's a lot for me (I use them only for my annual outdoor, max 15 plants that make me feel good for the next year or more).
From sept to march it's colder and I use only one cfl, so they produce less than half clones, (also because I prune roots and transplant in smaller pots) but I don't need them at all.
I have to say that the clones I take are small, with a pair of nodes, but they root the same.
I learned this micro cloning reading DrBud's 3ds.
It's a setup for bonsai mothers, a "database" for max 5-6 strains, they don't need the same amount of lights of flowering plants. Only once I finished a cicle in there (i mean veg+flower+harvest), but it was a long time ago, with only one plant (ultra-tied, she liked bondage) and with a 70w hps.
@ High Country and Got Dank: thank you guys.

great DIY job! i love the hood!

Cool setup. Your English is better than mine.

very cool I love the diy air cooled reflector

.

thats a really neat pc, nice work.

think i may even have all the bits to make myself one.

cheers

Wow, very nice diy skills. Going to follow for sure!!

very nice, clean design

AMD!!! Sempron whooping some Intel Pentium 4 ass.

Seriously that is clean mother veg box.

/jealous

Frankenstein. Great idea! I am going to look more into grafting. I remember reading about it in a couple of my bonsai books. Never even considered it for the ganja. Thanks!

Yeah, let's hear more about this grafting plan! I can't wait, if it works I'm going to have to take a shot at it!

Well executed. Nice.

I've had issues trying to keep bonsai mums in less than 1L of soil,...

Mainly, they will root bind from rooted clone to bound up and locking out in about a month, then root pruning them is really traumatic, since they are so small, unless you only take about 4mm or 3/16" from the sides and around 6mm or slightly better than 1/4" from the bottom,.... but if you do that little root pruning, you can bank on doing it again in 2-3 weeks.

This has been my experience with trying to keep moms in .5L square pots,... while they're considerably larger in 1L squares, they are MUCH happier! and only require root pruning every other month since you can take a larger section of root mass without risking the health of the plant. There's the added benefit of gathering 4-10 viable cuttings per trim every 2-3 weeks too!

Nice work how are they coming along?

I've kept mine in 0.4l pots for a good few months then potted them on to 0.6l pots. Root triming was only done on a monthly basis and i normaly took about 1 - 1.5cm off each side and the bottom.
I always had way too many clones than i could ever use.



Good luck and keep us posted.

Eggy

very creative setup

Hi guys, thank you all for the comments!
I have to correct my mistake in the first post, the bigger cups are not 0,4l but 0,5l (16oz), the smaller ones are something less than 0,2 (maybe 6oz?)...they're just the normal size plastic cups findable everywhere. Here's a pic comparing the two sizes, sorry for the bad quality (phone camera):



@Secretweapon: ahah, I went to the damping and saw it, it was love at first sight.
@ItGrows and MrJay: it will be the first time I try to graft cannabis, so I can't tell you my experience now, but I know it's possible 'cause I saw people doing it...I serarched on the web and this is the best video that shows how to do:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Vy_NFZwkcs

Before i start grafting there will pass some months, to let all the cuttings root and grow a nice structure (I have also to decide wich strain will be the base for the others, what do you suggest?)

@Canniwhatsis: for the last 3 years I've worked with these pots (0,5 and 0,2 litres) without having problems, except some rare yellowing leave...I prune roots and repot with new soil 3 or 4 times a year, keeping a veg feeding according to my needs.
I think the key is maintaining them small and under low wattage so they grow slower.
Here's the link of DrBud's 3d from wich I learned a lot (btw, thank you doc):

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=90460&highlight=Bonsai+Mum%27s

Check also Eggy's signature, lot of precious info's drops about bonsai mothers, really.

@Big Eggy: they have no roots yet, I'm waiting also the other outdoor plants to put out more lateral branches, I've planted them later than Gom and Papaya so they're smaller and still not much branched.
Your mums are very beautiful, nice work!
I think square pots are better than cups 'cause they optimize space and make simpler the root pruning.

I'm sorry I have no pics of my previous mums when they were in the pc, but I've won only recently my fears in posting these pics on the web (we risk from 6 to 20 years of jail if caught growing mj, shitty laws and politicians), so I hadn't reasons to take photos before...

There will be few updates while they rooting 'cause the situation changes slowly...but after that I will try to update weekly.
Thank you again, mates!