There are many growers that, after certain experience growing, decide to select and keep a mother-plant. The needings (and desires) of each grower will mark the choose of the strain that later on will be kept (and cloned once and another). In this post we will talk about some tips for clonning and keeping mother-plants, saving problems.
What a mother-plant is?
Growing marijuana - where the female, and its genetics, are the most important thing - it is common to keep a plant, from what we previously know sex and properties, in vegetative stage (periods of 18 hours of light and 6 of darkness). Plants used this way are called mother-plants.
Why keeping a mother-plant?
Many growers keep their cannabis plants in continuous growing stage for its quality once flowering. Reasons why a grower could want to keep a plant could be: yielding, taste, effects, resistance against pests, medical values...
All growers keeping a mother-plant know that all cutting done from a mother plant will be genetically equal to her (well keep all qualities).
How to keep a plant in continuous vegetative stage
To keep a plant in a neverending vegetative stage it is necessary to submit her to a continuous light period (18 hours of light followed by 6 of darkness, day after day). For that purpose we can use a lighting kit, timmers, and a small extractor (it must be proportional to the power of light used, more light bigger the extractor should be).
How to know wich plant to select?
To make a good selection, and get the best mother-plant, it is important to start from as many seeds as possible, of course from the same strain. Trusted seedbanks usually sproud thousands of seeds to get the one an only plant better than any other. In case of growers with less space or budget, and less clone needings, a recommended number of seeds to get a nice mother planrt would be between 10 and 15 if they are feminized, or between 30 and 40 seeds if they are regular (male or female).
Begining from 10-20 females (that we label and keep in vegetative stage until they show their sex), we should clone them to get 4-8 cuttings from each - assuring a minimum of 1 clone of each plant will survive. Some plants take longer to root than others (what could be interesting to know and note as characteristic).
*It is very important to label properly every cutting so we know wich plant is belonging to.
Once cuttings have rooted (and after a short period of growing) we will switch them to flowering stage (12 hours of light followed by 12 hours of darkness, day after day) to know their characteristics, yield, taste, effect when smoked...
Once we harvest those cuttings, and smoke all samples, we will know wich one is our favourite seed/plant to keep, and we will get rid of the others.
What qualities to look for in a keeper
There are many qualities you may be interested in. Generally each grower will know what is he looking for. There will be growers interested in plants with better taste, a higher or lower intense smell, better yields, resistance against mold, short flowering time... A good mother plant is that one that keeps all the qualities from the selected strain.
How to multiply a kept plant?
To multiply the number of plants, from one an only plant, grower will need cloning techniques to produce cuttings. This technique (so extended in-between marijuana growers) is based in cutting a branch from the mother-plant and then make them root, and later on flower. All cuttings comming from the same plant will be genetically equal to her.
Recommendations for mother plants
Pests in mother-plants: As a plant that has to source us with cuttings to flower them, it is very important to keep plants free from pests. We recommend a periodically (once a week or every 15 days) pulverization to prevent, even if we don't have any singe problem.
Nutrients for mother-plants: Plants kept in constant vegetative stage are susceptible of overfertilization. It is important to keep nutrient quantities used to feed plants in a controlled way. For a concious usage of nutrients, without overfeeding nor defficiencies, it is very recommended to have an EC meter (electroconductivity meter) so we known al feeding parameters are right. Enzymes or defficiency solvers may be helpful for motherplants.
Watering a mother plant: All plants that are, or have been in continuous growing stage, usually demand water quantities higher than plants that just "stayed" some days growing - it is normal because their size is considerably bigger.
