Questions about clones

[BigTrap22]

Hello, I’m new here to the site and have a few questions about clones.
Right now I have a 3x3x6 grow tent which I plan to use as a veg tent for 9 plants. Then in flower I’ll be purchasing a 5x9 grow tent.
I have never cloned before and am curious if I would need another tent running just for the mothers, or can I just take clippings from clones in the veg tent? I want to do 2 months veg then 2 months flower, so I’d be harvesting every 2 months when it gets going. My other question is how would I go about timing so that clones are ready to veg the exact time I move my 9 plants to flower? Or would there most likely be a gap since there’s no strict deadline on when clones can be done? My main fear would be having clones ready and the flower tent instead ready for harvest yet to move new plants in.
Thanks for any help on this!

 

[Old Salt]

to the forum...

You can pull clones from the plants in your veg tent. This is the usual way to start. You keep ALL the original plants as mothers until you have harvested and cured your harvest. You then keep one or two of the best as mothers.

Two months in veg is OK. Two months may not be long enough for flowering. I've had some that took over twelve weeks.

 

[BigTrap22]

to the forum...

You can pull clones from the plants in your veg tent. This is the usual way to start. You keep ALL the original plants as mothers until you have harvested and cured your harvest. You then keep one or two of the best as mothers.

Two months in veg is OK. Two months may not be long enough for flowering. I've had some that took over twelve weeks.

How would I keep one or two mothers without a third tent though? Because I plan on vegging 9 plants, 3 different strains. So 3 mothers would take up way too much room without another tent. Im picking GSC, GDP, and Blue cheese which all claim to be around 2 month flower.

 

[Old Salt]

You could keep them out in the open as houseplants. Just add some light and a timer so they get 14+ hrs of light / day.

 

[BigTrap22]

You could keep them out in the open as houseplants. Just add some light and a timer so they get 14+ hrs of light / day.

So they aren’t treated as regular plants? I’m growing in the basement so I could hang a light from the ceiling no problem. How much light would 3 need? And do they need constant nutrients too? And a fan?

 

[MassMedMan]

I keep my "mom's" in a spare closet in a spare room. Nothing fancy. I have two mom's, each in three gallon smart pots. Mine are in Doc's kit - reused kit, so there's something in it, so I just feed them water only. I hang a 50 watt CFL over them, with a small fan. I'll cut clones and then those will be the first plants I put outside next spring. I don't keep mom's long term. But, when I do keep them I don't use much on them. Just really need to keep them alive,, much like a house plant.

 

[BigTrap22]

I keep my "mom's" in a spare closet in a spare room. Nothing fancy. I have two mom's, each in three gallon smart pots. Mine are in Doc's kit - reused kit, so there's something in it, so I just feed them water only. I hang a 50 watt CFL over them, with a small fan. I'll cut clones and then those will be the first plants I put outside next spring. I don't keep mom's long term. But, when I do keep them I don't use much on them. Just really need to keep them alive,, much like a house plant.

What’s a docs kit? Don’t they need nutes to survive?

 

[MassMedMan]

Doc Buds Hi Brix kit. You can find info on it here. Plenty of folks here use it. It's kind of like LOS or living organic soil. The nutrients are already in the medium so I just feed water. It's pro mix based, so technically soiless and it's easier for me to keep mom's then straight coco. Coco I'd have to water weekly, whatever,, with the pro mix I go once a month or so. Low maintenance.

 

[Remystemple]

Lots of people are saying that you can do it without keeping a mother by just taking clones before flowering. I'm kind of in the same situation where i don't know what to do with them, took 3 clones from 2 plants i wanna keep going, but don't really wanna mess around with mother plants. having a veg tent and a flower tent is really enough for me. I'm gonna try just take 2 or 3 clones of each then flower them and just regrow the clones and rinse and repeat. Just hope that they don't degrade over time like the other half claims.

 

[MassMedMan]

Genetics don't degrade. Keeping mom's is not practical. Not for me. If your cloning game is strong, you can take your cuts before you flower, then put them in your veg tent as your, "in the hole plants" while the plants you have further along in veg, are "on deck"

 

[Bigjake8]

What I do is use a 20 gallon tote with a little 2 foot t5 light in it for clones works good so far I tried keeping a mother under some t8s but found the cuts out of the veg tent rooted faster maybe just luck but the only advantage I find about keeping a mother is if there's problems with them rooting and you already flipped to flower and need a cut when you root a flowering branch takes forever but can be done get some ugly growth out of it

 

[TorturedSoul]

How would I keep one or two mothers without a third tent though? Because I plan on vegging 9 plants, 3 different strains. So 3 mothers would take up way too much room without another tent.

Depends on the size of your mother plants, lol. If you're not actively harvesting cuttings from them, they only need to be large enough to stay alive (which is to say, tiny works ), and if you are actively harvesting cuttings, or are in the run-up to same, then they only need to be large enough to produce that many cuttings in a reasonable amount of time - after which, you can "go small" once again.

 

[BigTrap22]

Thanks for all the answers. So I’m basically stuck between taking cuttings from future clones or from running 3 mother plants. It seems the best and easiest option would be to take from other clones, but I don’t wanna take that risk if it’ll degrade over time. And I’ve found mixed reviews on that lol.

 

[Emilya Green]

Having a big mother plant is cool, but really not that necessary, and it certainly is a pain to maintain and keep going through several different grows just considering her eventual size and feeding needs, height the lights have to be to accommodate her... etc. . I found it much easier to just grow clones out for 2 months and then about a week before going to flower, take more clones from them to start the process over again. It takes a week for the new clone to root, and then during the 2 months I grow them out, the flower tent is allowed to complete. I found that with this timing, I was able to keep a perpetual grow going, just using two tents, a veg and a flowering tent. The only flaw in my system was that eventually I needed a third tent just for drying the finished product and/or conducting pollination experiments.

 

[Remystemple]

Thanks for all the answers. So I’m basically stuck between taking cuttings from future clones or from running 3 mother plants. It seems the best and easiest option would be to take from other clones, but I don’t wanna take that risk if it’ll degrade over time. And I’ve found mixed reviews on that lol.

Same boat here, but i've decided to clone from clones and save the space. if they should start to degrade i'll buy more seeds. I'll keep doing journals here so i'll have some info to contribute in a few months lol.

 

[Emilya Green]

Just keep track of your generations of clones.... after 5 or 6 the quality does start to go down. Then ask yourself, was it worth keeping a mother alive for those 2 years to get the same quality and the same old smoke, or are you better off buying a new strain to play with every couple of runs?
If I decide that I like something well enough to keep around, I will create seeds to keep around for when I need them. The only use I see for a huge mother plant is if you have a need to create 50 or 60 clones often enough to justify keeping her going in her own mother space. For a large grow op, a mother plant or two could really speed things up.

 

[vyserage]

So what i have found that works best for me is having this:
CoolGrows 2x2x4 Feet Small Indoor Mylar Hydroponics Grow Tent (24"x 24"x 48")
and i placed a viparspectra 600 ($180 light with 100w veg, 232w veg/blm). If i'd known about quantum boards back then, i would have purchased 4x qb132 for $133 on amazon as a single board can put out 75w (and greater from what ive experienced), plus i would only need 2 boards for great coverage but could get away with 1 since its only veg/mother plants. You could easily run this for a 3rd tent option and get away with a very nice easy setup that works great. A 100w light is what you could easily get away with for mother plants in a small tent like this. When i grow out a single seed for a bit over a month or so (i dont remember how old these mother plants were, easily 45 days), ill have PLENTY of stems to take clippings from. Those mother plants were topped twice for 8 main cola's. All the limbs below are what i took off for the 3 clones of each plant in the humidity dome.


Another option is to keep your mother plants in party cup's and continually take clippings from them when they get far too big for the party cup and start your mother plant all over again. I've kept a plant in a party cup as long as a month in veg so far, also flowered that same party cup for 2 more months (got 8g from it lol). I would just make a hole in the cup and hang a bungee cord to anywhere you can (i hung mine from the light lol). They're easily move-able and dont take up too much room or block too much light. I wouldnt worry about degradation, in fact the best way to tell is to try it for yourself! You should notice if the same bud harvest after harvest from different generations of clones is less potent when grown in the exact same environment (same nutes and conditions as that first generation).





I use a single tent for veg/flower cause i dont want to spent a lot of money for electricity as it would put me over my tier for cost of energy into a new double the price tier. 2nd tent (the 2x2x4) i use for starting a temporary mother plant for clones of next grow, rather than going through so many seeds.

 

[Chris Scorpio]

I'll be doing some clones, well I am now
Then after a few cuts I'm making Fem seeds to keep the lines going of the ones I like