Chaining clones vs. dedicated mother plant, pros and cons?

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The first time I gave growing a shot, I had a small area with T5s for seedlings and clones, and I’d then move the wee babies into my bigger box to finish veg and flower. Before switching to 12/12, I’d take some clones to start the next batch, and repeat this process until I’d get bored and try a new strain.

When I described this to a reasonably-experience grower, he told me that this process will “weaken the genetics” over time, and keeping a mother plant (ideally grown from seed) is the only way to preserve the genetics of a plant.

So, what are your opinions here? Keeping a mother plant is, of course, probably the safest bet if you want to keep a particular plant around for the long term, but if a particular plant is 5, 10, 20 levels of cloning away from the original seed-propagated plant, might it be weaker/different than the original?

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I have had shitty, unhealthy clones that i have grown out, taken clones and flowered. Then i grew out the clones and they were much healthier and the flowers were larger and better. This has happened over and over. If the clone can be improved threw better practices in a few generations then why can’t it happen long term and indefinitely. I think it is more important to factor in your space and keep small clones or big moms on that factor. Salvia is propagated almost exclusively through clone and has been that way for written history. Given enough time cannabis might head that way if prohibition stays. Genetic drift i believe is speculation that stoners have given way too much attention.

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Hmmmm, personally from my experience and education (certificates in horticulture, a lot of life science in college, 4 different plant nurseries and some 45 years of growing weed later)… in my opinion:

I do not see the need to keep mothers around. They get large, woody and root cramped and weird after a few years. Weed is an annual plant, and as such likes to be re-grown from cuttings rather than kept as mothers. The genetics will be virtually identical, shorter term, between any mothers and clones made from her (or him). New gen clones are apt to be more healthy IMO. Longer term, genetic drift will happen, as well as sports/mutations, but we are taking decades or more here. I have an apple tree on my property that is a Gravenstien, which was first recorded in Holland in the 16th century (if my memory serves me right). The tree is still producing apples that are virtually identical to those that were produced on the first Gravenstien apple in Holland 500 or so years ago. Likely there has been some genetic drift in the tree that I have over time. Also there have likely been sports (mutations) that have occurred in other clones of this strain over the years. Weed is an annual though, and apples are long lived perennials. So the genetic drift is apt to occur at a faster rate in Cannabis than in pome fruit. But that is speculation on my part.

Genetic drift in Cannabis is a huge problem though, and is seen far more in F1/2/3 seeded generations of the same strain than in clones. Actually, it is a pervasive problem, and I have read essays 300 years old about complaints of hemp growers in Colonial America talking about hemp strains naturalizing and going to shyte over time if you are not diligent in selecting the best plants to take seeds from for the next year’s planting. Some have even recommended selecting and keeping seeds from the best plants for several years out, in case you get a bad crop or drought or a particular year’s plants being sub par. In more modern Mj growing around the world it has been noted by many that planting seeds of the same strain from seeds produced in subsequent years the quality will noticeably decline in about 3 years time. It is debatable if Mj and hemp declines naturally in any environment, or if it only declines in a new environment. I happen to believe that landraces seem to be more consistent in their native environment, and left on their own they will maintain more of whatever qualities that they have been grown for (seed, fiber, or psychotropic drugs). For example, old naturalized self-sowing weed strains in Afghanistan seem to remain very potent when let alone. Once you move Cannabis to a new environment, then things change, and typically rather rapidly. Cannabis is predisposed to adapt rapidly to new environments. I believe that there is gene switching going on here, as the changes occur so rapidly from the same genetics in only a few generations. Gene switching is a newer concept, and not well understood. Gene switching is typically controlled by what was previous thought to be useless and obsolete DNA in genes. But in humans it is known that if your father or grandfather lived through a famine when they were under the age of about 20, then you will likely live longer than if your father and grandfather were always well fed. What happens is that some genes switch other genes on and off based on an organism’s exposure to the environment during their lifetime. It is a rapid adaptation process, and not really a mutation or genetic drift, as the genetics remain the same, while a specific phenotype or observable characteristic is different.

So to answer your question, I think that chaining clones is better that keeping mothers around in my experience. Yes, they may decline over time, but I have not seen that happen myself. I have had more problems with keeping mothers around for multiple cycles. The problem I see with modern clones is that many clones are not actually from original cuts, they tend to be from self seeded or crossed second or third generation strains that have genetically drifted. This is pretty rampant when it comes to OG Kush strains out there. There are a lot of cuts of OG from back-crossed, re-crossed, and self crossed seed strains. Seeding was part of the process of the development of the strain, and subsequent OG strains like SFV, Larry, Bubba, Tahoe, etc. If you believe the California version of OG that is. You can say the same about GDP. Many have posted on the web that GDP, Grape Ape, Mendo Purps and Purple Urkle are siblings, the parents of, or are offspring in any combination of the 4 strains. Having grown it, I believe that GDP is the result of a cross between Purple Urkle and Big Bud (mow more commonly called Super Bud). You can see the traits of both parents in GDP. But… good GDP cuts are hard to find these days, and a lot of later generation seeded selfed and crossed strains are out there that are called GDP. There is no policing effort to make sure that strains are what they are labeled as, and some will sell crap seeds and cuts that are really nothing like what they are being sold as. The medical Mj market here in the west has been pretty good about strain labels, but I know a lot of people that start chain cuts from seeds rather than hunt down high quality cuts from original plants. Its a crap shoot in many instances here with black market, medical and commercial strains being sold. In Oregon clones sold in stores are inspected for bugs and disease, but not for genetics.

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You have enlightened me greatly with this post, thanks. Now will look for anything else posted by you. Intelligence, experience and careful thinking, I like it a lot.

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I was asking exactly same question sometime ago… I’m linking it for the reference:

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Thanks for pointing me over to that thread, also great pics in there!

I just have a small personal grow, so even if I find my dream strain, I can’t imagine I’d do more than 4 rounds of cutting-to-flower in a year for a particular plant. Good to hear that dozens of cutting cycles like this doesn’t seem to cause any issues.

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In reality, most plants for landscaping sold at nurseries are made from cuttings. My roommate in Gilroy used manage one of the largest landscaping, nursery and plant supply places in California. All they did there was pay Mexicans to cut mother plants and pot the cuttings up to root in pots. Its the most common way to propagate. Here in the north Willamette Valley of Oregon there is a lot of root stock growing and grafting of fruit trees, as well as growing of seed garlic for California. These are all clones. There is also a lot of bamboo growing here, and I have a bamboo nursery. Some species can be grow from culm cuttings, but most are propagated by rhizome cuttings. There is also a lot of tissue culture cloning done with bamboo here.

Which brings up another way of cloning that is becoming more common in Cannabis as the real money enters the pool. Tissue culture us rather easy to do with Cannabis strains, and using TC for cheap and easy mass propagation is going to be the norm. They cut a tiny piece of the mother plant and grow them in jars on agar agar or gelatin and it grows roots and leaves, and eventually sizes up to full plants.

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I know a couple of people experimenting with tissue culture. I agree it will take off, but it separates the passionate from the opportunist. If you don’t keep everything sterile and on point it can be disastrous. The ability to cold store strains indefinitely is cool. Pardon the pun.

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Well, TC is not a home grow type of setup, no. Though I know a few amateurs that have banks of frozen TC cultures in their homes. If you look at the HUGE industrial indoor grows in Colorado and Arizona that are coming on line right now though, they have labs set up and they do a lot of TC propagation. They also do stem cutting propagation, but that seems to be fading out in the new era of industrial and commercial indoor grows. Look at YouTube online for large indoor grows. People simply do not realize the massive size and scale of weed growing that legalization in Canada and the western US states is leading to. These are buildings the size of stadiums with 10 or more huge grow rooms, drying rooms, labs, and processing areas. Its all sterile, and they all run around in clean suits.

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Degradation of genotype by continuous re-cutting is commonly spread urban legend which has nothing to do with science or experience(maybe with poor education :slight_smile: ). With proper trimming and rooting only the fresh new tips, there can be no problem. And if there is any it´s due to some overlooked health problems and diseases. Maybe caused by your fear from re-cut so you kept one batch of motherplants too long so there was enough time to catch diseases over the years no matter you do your best. Or old mothers reached the size limit of your growspace and just getting old and unhealthy. What I recommend is to renew your motherplants often so to keep space cleaner and have healthy clones before motherplants requirements exceed your growspace limits. No matter how many re-cuts it will be genetically identical and taken from new fresh tip the clone is in the same phase of life-cycle as fresh seedling.

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Its not a problem. I replace tired mothers with clones from veg due to eventual issues with structure. Or I eventually have to root prune to keep things going. I’ll take cuts from a pruning job and use that for more mothers when I tend a clients garden.

I do alot of cloning for people, dispensaries to private growers. So I watch the cuts passed around, I can make a educated guess how many times the clone has been duplicated, for example I brought a sherbert cut locally and I’ve watched it move around to at least 10 different growers. So I’m assuming there are 2 duplications per grower so there seems to be little to no degrading of the flower quality after 20 or so duplications. BUT I have seen some problems with frost development with some popular cultivars like GG4, Bruce Banner. that have been heavily duplicated.

If you do the math and cut from veg state, I think you’re only going to go 4-5 generations a year, so I assume that it will take years before problems develop after seeing what looks like 20 plus duplications with no problems that I can see.

As long as you are not causing stress in the clones, or mothers you should be fine.

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I was talking with a big supplier of medical clones in Humboldt Co. last week. He says that he only keeps mothers around typically for 6 months, and at most 8 months. That’s it. He perpetually clones new mothers for himself as he clones plants on a very large scale for sale to growers down there. He also clones from his private collection to keep ‘reserve’ genetics for himself and some other trusted people. He and several others have a shared genetic collective, so that if any one of them gets wiped out or ripped off of their plants, the others can share what they have and replace their lots strain genetics. Basically a living shared genetic strain bank. I think that is a great idea. I was amused that he dumps his mothers that often, but I can see why. Old mothers get crusty and lose vigor in my experience. I have run several strains of plants through 2 to 4 bloom and veg cycles. While it is easier for me to over-winter old mother strains under lights and it is also easy to re-veg and get more buds from multiple harvests off of established rooted plants, no one does that commercially that I have seen. They all pull the whole plants at harvest. Meanwhile clones replace harvested plants and go onto veg and flower production, and in parallel clones also go into replacing mothers in regular cycles.

TC is replacing some of this in larger indoor ‘factories’ in places like AZ and CO. I am not sure about the viability longer term with TC though. In bamboos, TC tends to lead to less vigor as compared to division clones in some species. This may be more of an issue in monocots than in the dicots though. Bamboos also naturally and commonly throw chimeras from rhizomes with distinctive phenotype differences, so asexual sporting and mutation is common (also geno and pheno variations). As bamboos only flower globally anywhere from 50 to 150 years, they survive between blooming by asexual reproduction. But as a result, they are a good indicator as to how often plants can mutate from asexual (clone) reproduction. In some bamboo species, it is very common and rampant. In others, it is not very common.

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I think it will be somewhere here, but I didnt find. maybe Im blind :smiley: How about fems?
What do you think of clones from feminised seeds? no keeping mother, no selection … just one time a few cuts for me and my small tent. Then bloom.
I know its a bit lottery but hope that a few clones for one time could be ok. What do you think?

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Tissue Culture is very interesting… I’ve seen Cannabis TC for the first time in early 00’s in Switzerland and wonder why it hasn’t spread widely.

Do you think it offers some benefits compared to traditional cloning? I know that less material is needed for tissue culture, but is it less work? As you said lab grade environment is needed and the process probably takes even more time that for clone to root… or am I wrong?

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great discussion! I’ve never used dedicated mother plants, but I have re-cloned plants every 2 months for up to 3-4 years with no change. I have a friend with a strain “library” of clones he’s kept for 20 years with no degradation.

Isn’t tissue culture mostly used commercially for plants that are difficult to propagate? for example I’ve seen Lady Slippers, a native orchid in the northeast, for sale at nursersies for $35 or $70 per plant. They were all propagated through TC because it’s very difficult to reproduce the fungus/tree root interaction they need to grow from seed.

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I perpetually clone my reference’s cuts until they are backup in seeds, it mean one month maximum in general. And it’s absolutely not the easier way to maintain multiples references at a time during a selection, but for me a price to spend for the next decade.

Now i have to make this input contextual to be balanced:

  • The lines in question are mostly heavy inbred; i never hybridize something until I’ve read at least the F3s. Not saying it’s the way to go, it’s just mine. The side effect of this strategy is obviously the specialization of the blood in a tiny range of expressions. Which mean aside a specialization of the needs also.

To quote an easy example to image it, if you start with a Cheese hybrid F1 (and drive the selection by its need of a load of N), then if the best weed is carried in this line by the most cheesy specimens; you will center and increase this linked trait among generations. Wich make the motherplants of this improvement, less and less “handly” to maintain than a motherplant which have genetically more tools to defend.

  • They are not specially selected for theyr productivity/vigor as long term’s motherplants, when it happend it’s generally a lucky shot. I have one actually and the last i got was in 2009. I think than i have a special affection for bitchy phenotypes, but not only lol.

As allready stated previously, cannabis is also genetically coded as an annual. It mean hormonal cycles that you can’t avoid, no matter how strong is your will. And it’s a lot more problematic that with specialized needs. Take a certified chemD cut that is well maintained, trigger its variegation in hitting the polarity of its root zone, and enjoy the systematic shitty offspring of all further clones. No matter if you renew it each week or not. And if you get a clone allready triggered, just insult your source hardly ^^ Welcome in a real world of details that entirely drive the final output of the quality, no matter how strong are your dreams.

Now it exist a fews well known little tricks to don’t have to deal with my personnal obsession on it. And to can say me “hey Fuel, see, i can deal with it with less efforts !” ^^

In this very specific context, you enemy is mainly the membrane alteration. Don’t be scared by this barbarian term, it’s pretty simple in fact. It’s a shield than you want as stronger than fort knox, to avoid any drift and changes. Problem, this barrier is quickly and automatically altered with the hormonal changes of an annual. Understand more and more weaker, to a “zombie state”. It’s a bit more complicated but let’s stay simple and let’s call it a “death signal”. (I prefer the term “delivery” but it’s inherent of the personal vision that I’ve allready exposed.)

It exist “miracle products” for your mothers that make thess membranes more resistant to the time when you start from a clean, fresh and not triggered state :

  • excess of calcium : yes, your commercial cal/mag juice work. But as an urgency stuff only. If you can get the calcium totally isolated, it’s far better on long term. This specific product is particulary used for it, but any good equivalent will do the job also.

Always remember that calcium is mobile, like NPK. The procedure is simple : take quickly a cut of what you want to maintain, and test its limits of tolerance in calcium. Remember the bonus % tolerance that is over the usual rate in early stage, and apply it to later stage. Just like NPK again. You can have a lill cut that eat N like crazy, but you feed it like a motherplant you will burn it within 48 hours. Stay logic and proportional with mobiles and you’re good.

Constant excess of calcium of your mothers will help you to delay, but stay rationnal and don’t expect the same level of accuracy on long term that seeds done in the first year. Let’s talk with honesty one minute, it’s why we are so many “old school” to hunt 90’s jewels btw, even with terrible germination rate we allready known that the average grade is a lot superior that the actual ones done with washed moms. Don’t forget that the actual genetic is more and more centered around the same old moms, it’s a cascading problematic. And i’m not speaking about the fast food alt’ products here, just the evolution of the core from where they come also.

  • For the most advanced of you, you can push it with a specific Cal chelator like the BAPTA that will help also a lot for the most bitchy no-triggered-herm-cuts (ECSD, Trainwreck, GG#4 etc …) that you have to maintain with the same output quality for your STS seeds or even your regular outcrosses. Only when used with excess Cal off course, not alone and not with a normal feeding.

Damn how to simplify that to the maximum lol Yup ! It’s exactly like the PH. Lets say that you have a cheap and bad water and that you grow hydro. To maintain the stability of your range, you will generally regulate often with the usual PH+/PH- products that are “instant”. The problem is the productivity of your plants, that by definition are more used to adapt to a given PH range that suffer from a constant regulation. “PH burns” come from here and are not often understanded by newcomers, that generally think it’s manganese deficiency. It’s why in this case you will quickly switch to a KH regulation instead, wich will naturally reduce the spectrum of the PH variations. The more obsessionnal hobbyist on the KH are the high grade aquarium-peoples.

It’s exactly the same case with the Cal and its chelators. The chelators being the KH of the Cal in a way.

Fulvic acid can work but it’s like the cal mag of the previous statement, it can help in urgency if you only have it under the hand. The main problem with it is to stay in excess of a mobile nutrients without being counterproductive for the heatlth of your mother, even with an eagle eye and a certain mileage this is not a long term solution. Ask too much attention. Like crazy, beginners must stay aside from this trick at any cost.

The specific chelator to use is sold for labs in salt for EMF tests, not cheap, it’s around 200€/kilogrammer.

Sincerely, i prefer to just make my seeds in the right timing but you allready known it ^^

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Would chaining clones from a feminized mother (from feminized seed) be the same as a regular mother (from regular seed)?? (don’t think it would matter, but just want to be sure)

I am glad this topic came up because I was unsure about chaining a cloning mother or regrow from seed every several months. But as long as the feminized mothers have no problem chaining clones, I’ll just do that :smiley:

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Same deal, feminized, regular, favorite nephew, doesn’t matter (actually I don’t think we are there yet with the nephews)

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You give me the baseball bat to hit you here @Roux ^^, but i will stay on the subject at any cost and avoid the collateral debate that it mean lol

As said Rick, let’s stay generalist with these details ^^

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I have kept a strain for a few years, but never the same mom. I find that if you give any plant the correct conditions it will thrive no matter how bad of shape its in. - just that sometimes its not worth the wait.

I believe TC is for a 100% pest free plant. I do not see any advantage to using it. ( maybe for mailing)

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