Mother Plants Care

[Tersky]

Hey all! So I have a plant i plant to mother really as a test. It is bagseed from what was supposedly Wedding Cake. If you have seen the solo cup plants i have posted, im gonna chose one of those. I plan to do a kinda bonsai mother at first to save on space. Right now she is in coco/perlite mix (70/30) in a 16 oz solo cup. I plan to move her into a 1 gallon smart pot this week once i harvest the rest of the small tent and move her there. I do have some questions about maintaining a mother and was wondering if anyone had some tips or could send me some links to good info. The questions i have are as follows.

1) What should feeding look like? Right now I have to water every day and i have always fed with every water. This is mainly because it has been in the solo cup too long so im not worried about it, i just want to know with a mother should i be feeding every time and what should the ratios look like.

2) Also i have read that when you are about to take clones you reduce the nitrogen to help the clones root better. Is this true?

3) How long after re potting should i wait to take clones. I have a few branches that are ready to be cut but i assume i should give the plant time to root the new pot.

4) Root and defoliation maintenance. With fabric pots i assume i wont need to do root trims, is that accurate? I will be re-potting every once and a while to get a fresh pot so i can wash the salt buildups but do i need to do more? And how often should i defoliate ?

5) Anything i am not thinking of? Any recommended supplements (seaweed ect)?

I am using GH Flora Trio currently and the grow space is 2x3x5 with a 250w MH

[Tersky]

Bump. Hoping someone will have some input.

EDIT: Maybe im stoned and paranoid but i just wanted to bump the topic so it didnt get lost on the 2nd page! Not impatient, just hoping to get more eyes on it. Hell i just wanted to type "Bump" but it said i needed more than 10 characters and i panicked!

[Mr.furley]

I was actually coming to find this thread when you "bumped it" I had seen it earlier but didn't have the time to give it the attention it needed.
Lol

[Tersky]

It's all good Mr.furley ! I get paranoid sometimes that I come off as impatient or short so i tend to over-explain myself....Ahem...like now lol.

[Mr.furley]

Hi Tersky

1). If you go a little heavy on the coco it will retain water longer, I give low doses to my mother's and increase if need.

2) reducing N and bumping up P&K helps with rooting.

3) if the plant is healthy cut clones, if you transplant and the plants don't miss a beat clone away.

4) air pot are in my future for my mother's because I shouldn't need to clean them or remove them, not sure on smart pot but it did cross my mind. They make smart pot with velcro sides to open them.

I'm always plucking them, I cut about once a month, and with half gallon plastic pots haven't had to root prune yet but it's coming (mothers are 1yr to 6months)

5) Give them the same feeding that you would your vegging plants.

I'm lucky to have a new vegetation area and just keep them off to the side under low light, some have a T5 93w at 1.5ft and some have a 93w led at 3 ft.(I have a couple of mother plants, lol) even thought I run lights 24/7 the distance at low Watts slow them down which is want you want.
Reverse you're thinking about growing cannibas and your on the right track.

[Tersky]

Thanks Mr.furley! I appreciate your feedback. May have to do something about the lighting, as it currently has a 250w which may actually speed up growth from what i gather. Im sure i'll learn more as i begin to mess around with it but this gives me a game plan to get started on!

[Mr.furley]

You can raise the light up double from what you would put it and it will slow them down.

Reverse you're thinking.

[Tersky]

Im starting to understand what you mean by reverse your thinking. I may not have enough room for the lights. When i set up the tent i didnt do a great job and the lights and ducting take up the top 2 ft of the tent so i may have to redo the ducting and such. I've also noticed a pulsing in my light so it may be time for a new ballast (bulb is new and have tried a couple bulbs with same pulsing) but finding a good 250 w ballast has been difficult. I may end up getting a new light. This one has lasted 4-5 years so im not too hurt about it.

[DingusKhan]

Might also consider planting her or one of her clones in soil. It would grow slower and need to be watered a lot less. You would have to be more careful to not overwater, but it would be less work to keep it happy.

[Tersky]

good point DingusKhan. I will look into that. Never grown in soil so this should be a good test and experiment. It is only bagseed so if i mess up i wont be too hurt! I had forgotten that soil does slow down the grow a bit. Lol i've always been trying to hurry my girls along so slowing them down feels weird.

[DingusKhan]

Once you get used to watering less frequently, and letting the soil dry out more slowly, it really is easier to grow. You get smaller, slower yields, but some of us think you get much richer flavor from really good soil. You could use this as an excuse to experiment with a bag of Kind soil, or if you live in a legal state with a grow shop, you might have a local mixer of organic living soil.

[JDU]

My friend keeps his mothers as houseplants. He says his house lights are far enough away that they dont encourage rapid growth yet keep the day long enough that they never flower. He makes an lb of butter or a batch of brownies from the cuttings he doesn't use every 2-3mos.

[Tersky]

Thats good to know, though i cant have it sitting out for anyone to see as im in a less progressive state. Would love to have one just sitting out in all her glory tho!

[DingusKhan]

Oregon rules!

[JDU]

Indeed!!!!
Go Ducks!!

[Mr.furley]

Here you go Tersky

This is 5 of my mothers from tonight(and 1 reveg clone hiding) that are around 6 months old, under 93watts of t5. They just sit here, getting a cup of water or lite feeding every 3 to 4 days. I have done soil for this but find coco is easier for me to manage, it's a personal preference.

When they stretch I cut them back, when they get bushy I cut them back, when they need more nutrient then I want to give them I cut them back, when they start drinking too much..... can you guess what I'm going to say?

I'm on the fence if they are keepers or not, some of the other Phenos from this batch of seeds had better qualities then i see in these but nevertheless I don't want to kill them till I grow them out, seeing their full potential and smoke some.


As you can see in the picture my coco ratio is high, my lights are high, I am high (not pictured) low wattage usage, no real big leaf is kept, the plants get striped like the one on the right and it stunt it and helps keeps maintenance minimal for a minute.

Here are those plants and some others on October 21 before I transplanted them from 4 inch pot into 6inch pots. They were starting to become root bound at this point, solo cup growers take note! thats 4 months in them 4in pots. The plants on the right are actually clones taken from some of those mothers.


This is the same plants on August 21 at 5 weeks from seed right after I topped them for the first time and used the tops for the Clones above. I didn't even have them sexed at this point, just trying to create a stronge base for the keepers.



This is the end result, The first run of choice phenotypes from those mothers. Each one of these plants is a clone from my mothers all at different stages of flowering, one of the plants pictured is on it's third run. Picture is current within the week.



Figure you guys would like to see some action shots and I hope this visual helps.

[D.A.A.S.69]

Very nice and clean looking Mr.furley.
Great looking plants too, and all the information you've supplied will be very helpful to alot of growers.
When you find the perfect strain, I would sure like to know, thanks bro.

[DingusKhan]

Nice! That's a really dialed in set up. What's your preferred cloning method?

[Mr.furley]

Thanks folks
DingusKhan I have been having the best luck with just Clonex gel and a jiffy cube in a dome on a heat mat, and 2 Cfl's, I have seen roots out the cubes in as fast as 7 days.
D.A.A.S.69 it's a big mess of more plants then I care to baby that is for sure, but at the end of the next run I will have cycled though all of them once and have a idea of thumbs up or thumbs down to start thinning out the so so's, besides I just popped 4 more strains because not every seeds a keeper.
Tersky keeping one or two mothers is pretty easy you should do fine, just dont overwhelm yourself off the get-go, also I have kept 5 and 6 them under 2-23 watt CFL before with success, it's a cheap way to hold plants. Keep me posted on your mothering.

[Tersky]

Just an update (Mr.furley you wanted an update from what i recall) Re-potted in 1 gal smart pots from 16 oz solo cups. The bushier one was in the holy solo cup while the smaller one was in a reg solo with drainage holes. They kinda got a little out of hand so they are a little bushier than i would like but they stayed in the solo cups longer than i would have done if i had had space to move them. This is just a test on keeping a mother plant so im not too worried. I also dialed back the nitrogen as they are a little dark as well. My 250w is 20 inches above canopy. Im trying to get it to stretch a little so i have the pots on risers (just 1 gal buckets flipped upside down) to promote a little stretch. If anyone has any suggestions or comments Im all ears. Unless you are going to tell me that i'm growing shit because i use synthetic nutes,

[Mr.furley]

I always like updated Tersky
Plants are looking good and your right the leaf are a little dark. Taking leaf, cutting nitrogen, and raising the light will cut down of photosynthesis which will slow the plant down.

[DingusKhan]

The other cool thing about cloning is it's a whole 'nother realm of playing with pot plants. And when you get good at it, you'll have an unlimited supply of test subjects to try different lights, pots, fertilizers...

Because if you kill them all, NO BIG DEAL, just clone some more! But by the time you're good a cloning, you should be able to keep a majority of your experiments alive.

You could keep one as a houseplant in a sunny window in a pretty flower pot, train it all crazy.