Mother Plant Help - Please

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ChangeofIdea

New Member
I am trying to get my plant to become my mother plant, and after careful thought I have been debating if I can take it right from being sprouted and transfer it into a growing medium like lava rock, clay pellets, etc.. something which will allow me to water it from the base and not overwater or underwater it. I would rather ask other experienced growers as I do not wish to spend the next year doing trial and error to get this right.
 
Thank You both for your answers, I have been doing a lot of reading and researching for a couple of days on this topic, and it seems like everyone has their own ideas of how to handle the Mother-plant. I have read about some people use various forms of hydro/aeroponics so they can pull it out and do some root pruning. I read about how some people use soil or soil-less mixtures and even how still others continue to feed the other every other watering, and still in other cases moving it up to 20+ gallon pots over the years as transplanting. All I have been able to think is "OMG how?" But everything everyone has said up to this point has always left so many questions, until I just read that article "Bonsai Mothers".

Funny thing is I used to have a Bonsai Tree for a few years, until well I lost every plant in my entire house all at once... So I do know a couple of things about the Bonsai, and I was just starting to understand them after I finally broke down and bought a book on them too when I lost it. I just never knew you could handle the Mother-plant like that. I had my questions about it as I have done so much research and reading about Mothers, but I was constantly left with so many questions and so few answers. I mean seriously who wants a Mother taking up a 20-50 Gallon pot like I'd heard some people doing, and it left me with so many questions.

Thank You for sharing that article with me, that is exactly what I needed to know,
 
In short this is exactly what I am looking for, my experience thus far has been with running my own indoor greenhouse inside of my house of a wide variety of plants which filled my house, which in turn got me invited to others grow rooms when they needed a hand and advice. I know a lot of basic things which some growers may not understand or know about which then lead to problems, and lead to me being invited over. Its easy to say I know about growing plants, and spotting an issue like to high of water temps, room temps, nutrient problems, bug issues, etc... but to start from complete scratch with these plants I am at a total loss, I've never grown these types of plants start to finish, and so I am doing a whole complete refresher course to learn everything I can about them as more and more States legalize it. Even my State and the one bordering State have now legalized it, so I am learning everything I can, about everything, so I can come out the gate as a seasoned grower (I hope).
 
Cool link on the bonsai mothers JoJo thanks. I usually don't keep mothers around so long anymore. I grow a clone up to become a mother for a couple rounds of flowering, then grow up and use another clone, etc. Also I reveg once in awhile too. As the mothers get older they seem to be harder to root cuttings from. Also they get rootbound and I got lazy in the past about trying to take proper care of them and keep their roots healthy. I eventually came around to realize what I read many times- you should take good care of your mothers because healthy clones come from healthy mothers.
Awesome name PiggySquishy! I've been trying it out on my girlfriend as a new nickname. Luckily she's got a great sense of humor and hasn't smacked me!
 
PiggySquishy said:
In short this is exactly what I am looking for, my experience thus far has been with running my own indoor greenhouse inside of my house of a wide variety of plants which filled my house, which in turn got me invited to others grow rooms when they needed a hand and advice. I know a lot of basic things which some growers may not understand or know about which then lead to problems, and lead to me being invited over. Its easy to say I know about growing plants, and spotting an issue like to high of water temps, room temps, nutrient problems, bug issues, etc... but to start from complete scratch with these plants I am at a total loss, I've never grown these types of plants start to finish, and so I am doing a whole complete refresher course to learn everything I can about them as more and more States legalize it. Even my State and the one bordering State have now legalized it, so I am learning everything I can, about everything, so I can come out the gate as a seasoned grower (I hope).
Click to expand...

Moms are useful if you have a really fast plant turn over. It helpfull to have a big plant to take lots of cuttings from when you are planning on growing lots of little plants. I have kept bonsai moms for all of my strains for years, but I replace them every couple of months with the strongest clone of that strain. Sometimes I end up cutting a 3 foot tall plant down to 6-8 inches after I take a round of cuttings and don't plan to need any for another month or two. I keep them in 1liter pots to keep the roots small. For me, it comes down to convenience in planning. Basically, I can chop the mom down most of the way and not have to worry about keeping it from hitting the light or getting too wide and have all new healthy growth when I come back to take cuttings in a month. I agree wholeheartedly with weaslecracker that healthy moms equal healthy (and quick rooting) clones.
 
Correct me here if I am wrong, but a clone coming from a Mother-plant will never be as strong as a Mother-plant and if you want the strongest Mother-plants of all I'd have to take two female Mother's and then flip one to be a male, then pollinating the other mother, with the flipped male, to get more seeds, then grow the seeds into another Mother-plant and keep doing it to get a stronger more potent strain... Is this correct? I mean isn't this why I want to take great care of a Mother-plant?
 
PiggySquishy said:
Correct me here if I am wrong, but a clone coming from a Mother-plant will never be as strong as a Mother-plant and if you want the strongest Mother-plants of all I'd have to take two female Mother's and then flip one to be a male, then pollinating the other mother, with the flipped male, to get more seeds, then grow the seeds into another Mother-plant and keep doing it to get a stronger more potent strain... Is this correct? I mean isn't this why I want to take great care of a Mother-plant?
Click to expand...

If you bought a strain from a decent breeder, then they should have already done that to stabilize their own strain. If it's bag seed, then you could try and stabilize a specific strain that you happen upon, but it's going to take lots of time. Probably years. It's better just to buy a strain from a reputable breeder that has already back crossed enough times to make the strain more stable.

In terms of cutting clones of moms: I'm sure there are other opinions about this floating around here at 420, but I know some people that have been cloning a strain for decades and the clones still produce very well.
There were several clone-only strains out there for a while (before all these new breeders showed up), that would still produce perfectly weighty and stony product even though they had to be hundreds of generations away from the original mom.
 
PiggySquishy said:
Correct me here if I am wrong, but a clone coming from a Mother-plant will never be as strong as a Mother-plant and if you want the strongest Mother-plants of all I'd have to take two female Mother's and then flip one to be a male, then pollinating the other mother, with the flipped male, to get more seeds, then grow the seeds into another Mother-plant and keep doing it to get a stronger more potent strain... Is this correct? I mean isn't this why I want to take great care of a Mother-plant?
Click to expand...


I'm pretty sure the answer to this is no. Especially about the idea of crossing two mothers to make the plant more potent. A clone is
the plant it came from. There is no difference in genetics at all, because all you've done is taken a branch and grown roots on it. That's why it's called a clone. So- no. Clones aren't weaker versions of their parents and should be capable of being just as potent.

And as for the thing you mentioned about pollination- that would be something you'd want to do if you are trying to produce feminized seed from a plant. Unlike with cloning, your seeds would still show genetic variation, known as different phenotypes, even though there is no male. Breeders spend lots of time trying to make strains stable, so that the variations aren't extreme. Or at least good breeders do this, other ones don't and say they did.

As far as keeping the mother healthy- it's because diseases and problems that affect the mother will affect the clones. Then the clones will take a long time to root, and/or lack health and vigor.
In my case I had a mothers that became very rootbound and got root rot problems. Peat moss based medium is only effective for so long before it gets compacted and doesn't perform as it should.
A mother should be treated as the most important plant in the grow. I treated mine as the least important- I would just throw water in the mother's pot and not give it much love. I regularly flooded the pot with water - not paying any attention to the proper wet- dry cycle. After a lot of this treatment the mother wasn't looking too healthy but I figured that every time I took a cutting I was starting fresh so it didn't matter what shape the mother was in. But my plant's health went downhill fast and it became nearly impossible for me to root cuttings.



One person to ask about this stuff would be Auggie. He's a cloning expert and does it for a living. He doesn't have a journal but you could get his attention by posting on here.
The Mountain - Grow Support From The Over 50 Club
There are also many super smart people on this forum who actually know a lot about breeding and plant genetics, unlike me :)
 
Well Weaselcracker , I can honestly say I have enjoyed things for many years, and going to help out a friend here and there, set up equipment, and even keep a grow room of plants I have up and going and healthy... But the whole 'cloning' and strains is some what new to me, I mean sure I have enjoyed a wide range of strains, but growing them is another story. I'd have to say I've been more like a plant babysitter, give me the seeds or the babies and tell me what they need and if I have questions give someone a call... The whole idea of starting from scratch with no outside help well this is a whole new thing for me, I thought all the plants came from seeds or that the plants didn't get killed off at the end, so while I feel stupid for admitting that I know I have a lot to learn... Not as much as some people perhaps, but all the same I'm totally lost as to some aspects of things. I have grown all kinds of various plants and I love a good challenge I have to take everything I know from other areas of gardening and suddenly see what I can or can not do with yet another plant. So I really appreciate the information and will have to post a question over there as I really dig my heels in to learn everything I can.
 

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