Mother Plant Maintenance

[BudBill]

Hi Subcool!

Couple of questions regarding the care and maintenance of mother plants (indoors):

How long can a plant be used as a mother?

What care and maintence would a "long term" mother require?

Such as: Periodic Soil flushing? Root trimming? Assuming there is a limit to size of the containers used for transplanting.

If using clones as progressive mothers (ie: mothers go into flowering and clones become the new mothers) have you experienced genetic drift or is it urban legend?

What would you consider to be the telltale signs that a mother plant has "had its day" and fresh genetics should be started?

Thanks my man!!!!
Bill

[subcool]

Lets see if I can help.
We do not use mother plants for many reasons mainly space and plant numbers.
I find the best method is to clone your best strain each time it is budded meaning take cuttings while the plant is in veg before placing in 12/12.
We dont even wait till it roots these days our system works so well.

If your keeping a mother plant here are some tricks to keep her healthy.
Once plant is root bound lift and trim the root ball and place her into fresh soil.

Genetic drift is a myth lets look at whats were doing.
Were not cloning the plant thats a bogus pot term.

Were simply Rooting a piece of the mother plant meaning all DNA info is in tact.
The one exception is always use fresh healthy plant matter for rooting a sick barky plant may not transfew the healthy DNA code and thats when genetics shift can occur.

I also do not recommned cloning from a regenerated plant.

A mother plant has had its day every 60 days IMO :)

Fresh is best.

Sub

[BudBill]

That makes sense and explains some of the shifts the mutliple generation clones had. It was over a period of years but the health and growth just tapered off - as if tired. The resin production on "the trim" even appeared to lessen. They were at times from a regenerated mother -> sometimes to get rid of pests everything would go bye bye for cleaning.

Thanks for the info!
Bill