Mother Plant Maintenance

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

 

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

 

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

 

Hello ,

The mum plants are unique beasts that require a special space. As such, I generally find it easiest to run her d2w, and to not use a recirc system at all. If you continue in 6-7" pots & use coir/perlite (what I'm used to), you can grow her to 2-3' and get away with nuting once per day,​