Can I keep a mother plant in first flowers stage for cloning?

[gato]

I'm trying to figure the fastest method I can get from clone to buds. Have a C-99 grapefruit pheno as a mother plant.

The plant is a little older....forget when, but over 3 and closer to 4 months I'd guess. It went through some light stress by starting flowering and stopping flower cycle and also taking clones from it, both is veg and first flowers stage. It is very small, due to clone taking. I'd post a pic, but no camera.

The first clones were not used....for security concerns. So it is just the small mother plant showing first flowers. I just took 5 clones to root a couple of days ago. The plan was to put the clones in very small pots and force flower maturity very early. Yield is not so much concern for now as getting buds fast.

I saw some pictures here with extremely small plants with decent looking single colas. Can I keep the mother plant is a constant first flower stage and get clones to use in that manner, going direct from rooted clone to 12/? flowering? Is such a thing practical? Sort of like not having a veg cycle? Yield isn't so important if I can get many small ones to make up for some of the difference? Nutty or practical?

 

[Weaselcracker]

If I understand your question, which I think I don't, you can't keep the mother plant somehow stuck partway in flowering. She's usually either flowering or she's not. They can get stuck in between cycles sometimes when they are in a revegging process. That's not something you want though.
There's no way to keep a plant at 'week two of flowering' for example. If that's even what you are asking.
I've taken cuttings, potted them and put them into flowering immediately after they rooted. The result for mine anyway was tiny plants about 8" tall with small buds.
I believe you can root cuttings in 12/12 as well. I don't know if the plants would end up even smaller, or not.

 

[gato]

Yes that is sort of what I meant.

I saw drinking cups with plants in them on the forum and they had surprisingly large single stem buds on them. Think the person was fast flowering different seeds to compare though. The 42/6 hrs thread gave thought to possibly manipulating a mother plant to produce flower initiated clones. Guess not.

The mother plant was taking longer to reveg than I thought it would and was wondering if it was going to come out of flower cycle. Didn't know if it were possible for a plant to do that or not.

Guessing the fastest to buds I can do is veg the mother plant at 42/6, clone and put into 12/12 or maybe a week after rooting? Maybe a dozen or so small containers will give a modest harvest.

Thanks...sorry the question wasn't asked more clearly. You pretty much answered it and the info on your experiences with cloning. Guess this thread in answered.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Well - I've grown plants in solo cups from seed, on 12/12 from seed, and had good success. With clones it's a bit different as they don't have any veg period before they reach maturity, and they start to flower right away, so they don't gain as much size. I actually won the plant of the month contest with a solo cup plant grown 12/12 from seed.

Here is the size my rooted cuttings reached when put into 12/12 immediately. This was early flowering so they got fatter but not taller.

 

[callumc420]

Weasel cracker that is amazing what is the strain I never thought there wa any point in growing in anything less than atleast a 2 liter bottle bot that plant is awsome


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[Weaselcracker]

That's Critical Cheese. A great strain. I grew six different strains in that solo cup run and she was the happiest. Yielded just over 42 grams. There were taller ones and I think one yielded more, but this was the strain that was indestructible and shone the whole way through.

 

[callumc420]

Am currently growing moneymaker it get slated on reviews but best strain I ever grew so I have gone back to it is the critical cheese smelly or not to bad I was considering thc bomb for the crop


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[Weaselcracker]

Very smelly. Made me realize I need a new carbon filter. It's produced by Dianfem, by the way.

 

[gato]

Yes, that is exactly what is meant. Siuper looking plant there!

Ditto on the strain info. They look very chunky for so small.

That pot is about the size I was going to use. I picked them up for a dollar each at the dollar store. I'd never expect such a large production, but thought I could have many small pots in a plastic bin to compensate for size. I could set the opened bin in front of my balcony full length windows facing south and easily cover for security.

I know you said from seed, but maybe you could recommend how long after rooted...I should have 42/6, before putting 12/12 or less light for a fast harvest? Sort of anxious....cause not having any and wanting sucks.

Thanks for the answer and those great pics.

 

[callumc420]

Thanks man I try and stay away from smelly strains I have never had a problem just incase growing in the uk here haha


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[Weaselcracker]

I'll get back to this. Girlfriend is over. calling me, lol.

 

[gato]

Yeah...too bad it's stinky. That's why I got Cindy.
Thanks again

 

[Weaselcracker]

Yes, that is exactly what is meant. Siuper looking plant there!

Ditto on the strain info. They look very chunky for so small.

That pot is about the size I was going to use. I picked them up for a dollar each at the dollar store. I'd never expect such a large production, but thought I could have many small pots in a plastic bin to compensate for size. I could set the opened bin in front of my balcony full length windows facing south and easily cover for security.

I know you said from seed, but maybe you could recommend how long after rooted...I should have 42/6, before putting 12/12 or less light for a fast harvest? Sort of anxious....cause not having any and wanting sucks.

Thanks for the answer and those great pics.

You know, I've spent thousands of hours wandering around this forum and never heard of 42/6. Can you post a link? Most people seem to think that the plants do better with some dark time and any increased results of longer lights on times comes at an electrical price that isn't worth it. Of course that varies a lot depending on your power costs. Anyway- I've never tried 42/6 so can't speak to that.

I'm familiar mostly with 18/6 for veg. There's not as much difference between 12/12 from seed and 18/6 from seed as you would think. The plant is smaller because it gets less hours of light. 1/3 less. But it still has to veg till maturity before it can flower, so you may as well go for the 1/3 extra, if you know what I mean.

Here is a plant I vegged on 18/6 from seed. About 3 1/2 weeks of veg I think. I topped her at the fourth node.
Since growth happens exponentially, if I'd waited another couple weeks she could have been twice as big.
This one was in perlite and was originally a hempy pot, which I poked holes in to make a regular pot out of at one point. It's a bleach bottle that holds about 3/4 of a gallon. I have big hands.

I never got around to weighing this one but I'm guessing I got roughly an ounce. Less than the 12/12 solo cup one especially when you count the reduced pot size and shorter lighting hours, but that plant was special.
Maybe this gives you a rough baseline to go on. By the way - in the pics on my other post all three plants are Critical Cheese.

The solo cup (coco) and the perlite bleach bottle one were both grown drain-to waste hydro. Multiple light feedings per day, in the case of the solo cup. I hooked up an autowatering system for it. The larger plant only needed one watering a day. The super fluffy medium promotes fast growth, and it would probably be slightly more difficult to pull these off in soil. You can't really overwater coco and definitely not perlite. Roots are always oxygenated and a plant can increase its pot size limits and still be happy because it's frequently being flushed with fresh nutrients while never getting overwatered or compacted.

 

[gato]

SmokerJoe's 3rd Journal Featuring Unique 42/6 Light Cycle

here is the 42/6 cycle link. pretty interesting read.

That is pretty neat production for such a small grow. I grow in soil (not having the expertise). One ounce is sort of amazing. If i could get 1/4oz for each plant of C-99 and have a dozen of them? That would make up for limited size and get 3oz in one small grow plastic bin. It's just a large plastic bin from dollar store...not a grow bin.

Thanks for the pictures. It sort of gives hope of a decent production and still stay small. Thought maybe a nice autoflower, but have great ignorance on auto varieties to know what would deliver production and still kick butt.

Topping at 4th node sound like a good idea....force short side shoots and still kept small. No shading to be concerned about. Think small is the way to go for me. If they can be kept small...I can easily hide them from visitors with a simple put the lid on the bin.

btw... I tried an experiment with a very small plant. Instead of topping? I used a gardening technique I used for tomato plants (for trench planting tomato plants to increase rooting ) of laying the plant on it 's side. After a few days (I did not wait a few days---as soon as the tip started to angle up---I rotated in in another direction), the tomato plant growing tip starts growing up and puts a natural right angle bend without tipping.

I tried rotating the plant so that the growing tip had to change it's angle to grow up again. Noticed the side shoots started forming and it would have looked like a stick bud. May not be explaining it well, but rotating the tip downward caused the side shoots to try and take over as leading tip. Thought to use it to help increase very small plants to make more shoots and still have tight growth to stem. It was just an idea and may not be practical at all. I also picked off all the fan leaves and just left the growing tip. So any growth went into the tip and forcing side shoots. Sort of like putting it on a rotating spit...exposing side shoots to the light.

Your experience with 18/6 and 12/12 from seed is helpful also.

 

[FearThis]

If I understand your question, which I think I don't, you can't keep the mother plant somehow stuck partway in flowering. She's usually either flowering or she's not. They can get stuck in between cycles sometimes when they are in a revegging process. That's not something you want though.
There's no way to keep a plant at 'week two of flowering' for example. If that's even what you are asking.
I've taken cuttings, potted them and put them into flowering immediately after they rooted. The result for mine anyway was tiny plants about 8" tall with small buds.
I believe you can root cuttings in 12/12 as well. I don't know if the plants would end up even smaller, or not.

Hmm that is not exactly true you can indeed keep a mother mid way between veg and flower as I have done this many times as have many others. Do a quick search on here for the "gas lantern routine". Long story short you run 12 hours light 5 1/2 hours dark 1 hour light followed by 5 1/2 hours dark. Other than saving on electric it slows down the growth and also makes your plants show their sex. You will need a decent carbon filter as your mother plants/plants in veg will start to stink. Any females will start to flute on the tops as if they are flowering but so far I've never had one actually flower. If you had a strain that did start to flower simply add an extra hour to the 2nd light schedule.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Sounds like what you are saying is that the plants vegged under GLR will start flowering quicker after they're switched to 12/12? How much quicker?

 

[FearThis]

Sounds like what you are saying is that the plants vegged under GLR will start flowering quicker after they're switched to 12/12? How much quicker?

I would say the girls reach 5-7 days flower and then just hold there i have taken many clones from mothers in this state and they do seem to be very bushy.

 

[gato]

Hey, Fear This. I actually saw your gas lantern post. but didn't associate it with the question. I read about the utilities savings and that was not as issue (with mostly window light) Will have to check the thread again and try to understand it.

It's an interesting thing. The bin is only15wx15hx30l and was trying to figured clones in first flower and have a bunch, instead of a couple and increase production. Wanted to not take out of bin (like I do with the flowering mother and 3 clones). Thinking place the bin and tilt for good sunlight exposure. That way all I had to do was put the lid on for visitors. No scurrying to put them into the bin. Maybe I could veg the mother bushy and large enough for when she is put into flower and first flowers, I'd get enough to fill the bin with already flower induced clones. Even 7 to8 inch tall spike would be fine....doing C-99 now, but a chuckier yield might provide sufficient with the 2 bins.

Thanks for the response!

Thanks!

 

[Weaselcracker]

Thanks for the info on GLR. I've never tried it. Sounds interesting but I've usually got enough kinks in the grow to keep things confusing and it's hard to get around to funky new methods. Read this recently - something someone said about using GLR.

Stretch reduced to mere days, vs. weeks without, across the board. Some indicas show 0% - 5% stretch. Some leggy sativas still go up to 25%, but their normal stretch (lambsbread) is at about 40%, so........yeah....

 

[gato]

Read this recently - something someone said about using GLR. "Stretch reduced to mere days, vs. weeks without, across the board. Some indicas show 0% - 5% stretch. Some leggy sativas still go up to 25%, but their normal stretch (lambsbread) is at about 40%, so........yeah...."

Hmmm.that sounds interesting too. Haven't had time to recheck the GL thread...so thanks for the quote, Weaselcracker