Harleyrider64
420 Member
Is it neccessary to maintain a mother plant, or can you take cuttings from each successive generation without diluting the gene pool?
Mother plants
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Jackalope
Well-Known Member
Better to have a mother plant. In time the gene pool will degrade. How long that takes and how bad it will be might vary strain to strain. In the end you have to do what you have to do.
Like I mentioned you have to do what works for your grow situation. Real easy for people to say do this or don't do that when its not them. You have to do what works for you for you. If taking clones from clones is the only way for you to do it. Don't worry about what people say.
Like I mentioned you have to do what works for your grow situation. Real easy for people to say do this or don't do that when its not them. You have to do what works for you for you. If taking clones from clones is the only way for you to do it. Don't worry about what people say.
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Harleyrider64
420 Member
Thanks. I'll try the mother plant
Greenlizard
Well-Known Member
Good question. I was wondering what way to go as well. So it looks like we now need a little more room and light to keep the mother/'s going…?
Jackalope
Well-Known Member
I have been growing for over 30 years and have never had a mother plant. I don't have the room. Yes there will always be some difference in the plants grown from seeds. Still if you stick with known genetics you can still plenty of good smoke. Some strains all the pheno's are good. Some are just great.
Lots more room for the feminized seed market to grow. They are getting better at them all the time. Like I mentioned there are ways around the mother plant thing.
Lots more room for the feminized seed market to grow. They are getting better at them all the time. Like I mentioned there are ways around the mother plant thing.
PurpleGunRack
Well-Known Member
You can keep mother plants in quite small pots, 2L is fine, and they don't need a lot of light.
Make sure you ''top'' them everytime you take a clone so that branch becomes 2, this way you get a lot of potential clones and keeps the plant low.
Make sure you ''top'' them everytime you take a clone so that branch becomes 2, this way you get a lot of potential clones and keeps the plant low.
The gene pool won't degrade as long as you take cuts from healthy plants. Keeping mother plants around is great if you have space. But, over time you're more likely to need that space. Just my thoughts.
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Harleyrider64
420 Member
Thanks man.
My opinion is that a mother plant maintained in the best of conditions isn't likely to become significantly mutated in any reasonable period of time. If you keep one for five+ years, a plant geneticist - with a lab - might be able to determine minor differences, assuming he/she had an early sample in stasis to compare it to. But the chances of those differences being significant... Not real likely (again, this is just my opinion).
It's probably somewhat likelier that you'll end up with a plant that just doesn't seem to want to remain in the vegetative period after such a period of time passes, and that you'll end up letting it finish up in the flowering room and serve one final purpose.
If someone really wishes to push the concept, they can keep one in a six-ounce Styrofoam coffee cup, at least for a bit longer than a year (I sort of lost interest in the second year, lol). But I would - and did - look at that kind of setup as being more about maintaining ready access to the line instead of something I'd be actively harvesting lots of cuttings from on a regular basis. I kept my three "testers" on top of the medicine cabinet with only two little CFLs supporting them. They received little water, hardly any nutrients, and practically no care. The strains were Royal Flush (wish I'd kept that one going), AK-48, and Snow White (all from Nirvana) and Strawberry Cough (Dutch Passion). It started out as a temporary thing, which became three months, which became six - and then I thought, "Gee, I wonder if I could keep them going until past their birthday?"
I don't consider the above to be an example of "maintaining them in the best of conditions," though; had I planned to keep one or more of them around long-term, I'd have felt the need to provide them with a much better home. But it was... just one of those things you do when you're younger, I suppose. . . .
It's probably somewhat likelier that you'll end up with a plant that just doesn't seem to want to remain in the vegetative period after such a period of time passes, and that you'll end up letting it finish up in the flowering room and serve one final purpose.
If someone really wishes to push the concept, they can keep one in a six-ounce Styrofoam coffee cup, at least for a bit longer than a year (I sort of lost interest in the second year, lol). But I would - and did - look at that kind of setup as being more about maintaining ready access to the line instead of something I'd be actively harvesting lots of cuttings from on a regular basis. I kept my three "testers" on top of the medicine cabinet with only two little CFLs supporting them. They received little water, hardly any nutrients, and practically no care. The strains were Royal Flush (wish I'd kept that one going), AK-48, and Snow White (all from Nirvana) and Strawberry Cough (Dutch Passion). It started out as a temporary thing, which became three months, which became six - and then I thought, "Gee, I wonder if I could keep them going until past their birthday?"
I don't consider the above to be an example of "maintaining them in the best of conditions," though; had I planned to keep one or more of them around long-term, I'd have felt the need to provide them with a much better home. But it was... just one of those things you do when you're younger, I suppose. . . .
