Apical dominance in clones

[Sinbad91]

Hi guys, quick question:

if my mother plant was topped at some point to remove its apical dominance, would my clones taken from that mother also need to be topped at some point in their lives or will their apical dominance already be broken due to them coming from this mother?

I feel like there’s something i’m not quite getting

 

[013]

Clones taken from low on the plant generally retain even pairs of nodes, clones taken from up top generally have alternating nodes, alternating nodes is considered sign of sexual maturity. My understanding is apical dominance is on a plant by plant basis and that trait is not adapted or inherited from its mom. It’s a training method so there is nothing for a clone to inherit, plants don’t know about cloning it’s a horticultural gift allowing us to cultivate duplicate plants without seed. Can you imagine if we could clone or graft animals like we do plants? So yes in the raw any / every cut clone is going to try to run one main shoot and focus on the apical top, that’s part of nature, if this were not true then all plants, trees etc would be short and wide.

this could change if that trait were cross bred into cannabis lines but for now I believe it’s fairly well set in stone, obviously I can’t speak with any authority on the 20,000 known cannabis crosses but my thoughts go to Bradford pear trees, they run up a main trunk and sprout a whole bunch of fairly even tops

BTW’s killer question you have there ^^ No science here to back it up, just a newbie grunt gardener with no edumacation, my 2 cents but I’m interested to see what else comes in on the subject

 

[bobrown14]

All plants have an apical meister. Cut it off they stop doing what they are doing and grow a new one.

Taking cuts from mother plants is SOP. take your cuts from wherever you like. Keep in mind the apical meristem is where the growth hormones go to and come from.
I like to leave the apical meristem in place, take my cust from down low and cut off the old woody parts on the cuts. Then put that plant into flower. And repeat.

Keeping mothers around is a pain... they get ugly take up a lot of room and get root bound. Eventually they can be a source of pests too since they old and tired.

 

[Sinbad91]

Clones taken from low on the plant generally retain even pairs of nodes, clones taken from up top generally have alternating nodes, alternating nodes is considered sign of sexual maturity. My understanding is apical dominance is on a plant by plant basis and that trait is not adapted or inherited from its mom. It’s a training method so there is nothing for a clone to inherit, plants don’t know about cloning it’s a horticultural gift allowing us to cultivate duplicate plants without seed. Can you imagine if we could clone or graft animals like we do plants? So yes in the raw any / every cut clone is going to try to run one main shoot and focus on the apical top, that’s part of nature, if this were not true then all plants, trees etc would be short and wide.

this could change if that trait were cross bred into cannabis lines but for now I believe it’s fairly well set in stone, obviously I can’t speak with any authority on the 20,000 known cannabis crosses but my thoughts go to Bradford pear trees, they run up a main trunk and sprout a whole bunch of fairly even tops

BTW’s killer question you have there ^^ No science here to back it up, just a newbie grunt gardener with no edumacation, my 2 cents but I’m interested to see what else comes in on the subject

Awesome response 013, this makes total sense.

In my mind, 2 things happen when a plant is topped. 1: 2 main tops are created from the original apical, and 2: plant growth is then focussed across all other nodes as well.

it is this 2nd attribute that I am specifically interested in w.r.t clones. Your answer confirms my suspicions though, that in the end if I want bushy plants then I should consider topping my clones as well.

I tend to grow my mothers out for at least 2 months, by which time the entire plant has lost it’s symmetry. If I’m not keeping the mom I tend to focus my cuttings on the upper nodes as this is where most of the growth hormones are concentrated, and the plant’s age and lower Nitrogen feed has resulted in nice and thick stems even at the tops.