Indiegurl

Ive decided to grow a couple mothers for the first time and would appreciate any tips and opinions for keeping them.

Should I cut off the top now to keep them smaller or cut off the top when i take the rest of my cuttings?

How long do you guys usually keep your mothers? One round of cutting or many?

Mr.NiceGuy

You want to take your cuttings off the bottom of your plants , dont save the mother flower her. Use the next batch of clones to to cut more off the bottom just before you flower them.. remove all branches on first 10 inches of plant or how ever long you want or as many clones as you need. just flower that mother no need and keeping it around a clone of a clone is identical to its mother..

Dr. Funkenstein

Hello Indiegurl, there are many ways you can keep mums. It depends on your space, are you keeping a designated mum cab, or will they be running in your usual enviroment.

I've got a couple of bonzai mums I've had for 3 months now in hydroton in 16oz tumbler cups. They grow well, but I'm running out of space and need to place them somewhere else within my cab, possibly the cloning chamber. Which means I would need to water by hand, and they would lose the benefits of the timed feeding schedule of the E&F system they are now sitting in, which produces good growth.

The idea behind keeping mums is to preserve the genetics. Most people keep them for a year or two, sometimes longer depending how you keep them and how well you treat them.

If I ever decide to move my mums to the cloning chamber, I will most likely have to start them in soil, as to ensure proper nutrition, since watering by hand in hempy cups can be a pain and not so cost effective.

Since you asked about topping, I would check out OT1's tutorial on icmag.com about bonsai mums. They may be your best bet if you need to keep them compact and productive.


EDIT: You can also do what MrNiceGuy suggests, which does work, but if you fail to root what you need, you may be SOL. Plus, from what I've heard, many growers have spoke of taking cuttings from a single mum and coming up with many different variations of the same strain. Which means you may not be able to carry over the original genetics, everytime. Keeping a mum may ballance this out. I'm sure this is debatable, but this is what I've read and why I keep mums.

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Indiegurl

Ok thanks. That's what i've done the first few times around but i've heard about keeping them. In one of the Jorge Cervantes Ultimate Grow DVDs he mentions that one of the rooms he was in was started 9 years ago and is still cloning from the same genetics. I take it you can clone from clones for a long time without any loss of quality?

bobbooty

the answer is inconclusive, at best. the jury is still out on this one. i have had only one strain that had a noticeable loss of quality over many years of cloning from the mother plant. i haven't had that issue since. i have cloned from a mother plant for many years, and haven't noticed a appreciable loss of quality in product.

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Indiegurl

Thanks Funk.

I have one room with a closet. I use the main area of the room for flowering and the closet for vegging clones. I have put four clones into 10" (2.3 gal) pots in the veg room. I just cant decide if i want to take cuttings and then flower them or take cuttings more than once, including topping them so they stay shorter and more manageable.

Dr. Funkenstein

I would go with keeping mums. You could always add a small shelf in your veg space, up above or on the side. I know I am a little biased on the subject, considering I have mums as well.

I'm currently waiting on my second round of cuttings ever, to root. The first time I tried I got 2 out of 5 to root. If those 2 did not root, and I went to flower with the mum, I may have been atleast 2-3 weeks in before discovering they did not take. Then I might have been forced to reveg an unrooted cutting, which I have no clue if that would even work within a normal 2 week time frame. Might end up being more trouble than it's worth.

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Indiegurl

I must be doing pretty good then. My first clone cuttings, about 5 per original plant, i rooted 27 out of 29 or 30. gave 2 away, 4 mums (different strains) and flowering 20 with the original 7 from seeds. yeehaw.

Lou Cypher

Indiegurl, that is excellent cloning % for first try.

I'll go on and agree with the Dr, I like keeping moms also and replace them every three months or so.

Clones to be moms are always tops of main stems only for me.

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CamperDon

Good morning,

As Lou stated removing the top of a plant to keep as a mother retains the genetic bloodline if you will of the plant while cuttings taken from any other location, lower or mid plant would be used to flower as there may be some genetic variences from clone to clone..
I've always removed lower portions as clones for a quick flower session (if 8-10 weeks is at all quick) and then remove the top of whatever my present mothers might be (currently have 6 mothers being kept) to replace the mother herself and flower the original along with whatever clones enter the flower cab for a session.

Have a Great day & Good luck and remember "Variety IS the spice of life"
don