Yo people, I wanted to ask how do you keep your strain collection? I was thinking of a LED cabinet or tent for germination and keeping clones, but before getting to reinvent the wheel I wanted to tap the great overgrow minds.
I already have six quantum board 120s for this project, and my designated space is about 3ft x 2ft, so I figured something like 3 levels each with 2 QB120.
@LemonadeJoe thanks for splitting this. I still need to figure out the ropes around here. Anyhow, how love to hear some ideas about this.
Are you asking how to keep mother plants?
That is one method, I wanted to check on what people around here do. I was thinking about trying something like the “bonsai sultan” method (minus the sultan, if I´m not chucking pollen) or organizing a schedule to get succesive clones and keep it small, instead of having a bunch of mother plants that take a bunch of space even if they are not too big.
I´m limited in space, but like to try plenty of strains and find what I deem to be “keepers” in many of them. 30-40 mother plants sounds like a nightmare, while a beautiful cabinet of small clones sounds like a dreamy genetic encyclopedia. Take one out when you want to grow some more of it, into the veg tent and from there a couple of clones back to the cabinet.
Perpetually cut clones, let them grow big enough to get a good clone off if it, keep new clone alive, flower the other or throw it out. Rinse, repeat.
that’s the way I do it…
Haha OK. I guess I just wanted to see other people builds and collections, and have a chance to discuss and show here what PCB leds can do (I´m very excited about those QB 120, no heatsink seems to be a gamechanger for me, and QBs have been shown to grow beautiful buds).
Sweet. Are there any strains you have kept for years like this? Very simple (which is nice in my book). Apparently what I really want is to build a sick clone/seedling cabinet which I don´t need 
some of those are nearly 3 years… and I got them from others who had them for years before me…
I would think doing 2-3 each Everytime would be a good idea just to make sure you carry the genetics forward.
Agreed. Which is why I want to have plenty of capacity while only having a small space. So I can keep up to 30-40 strains/cuts * 2 or 3.
keep one growing plant… keep one rooted in cloning tray… keep 2 rooting in tray at all times.
Cool. Although my concept is something like a “encyclopedia” of strains, keeping some alive even if you don´t want to grow them for a couple of years (I love my Oldtimers Haze, but don´t have capacity to flower it now). When there is space on the veg/flower rooms, there she goes into the oven.
It sounds like you’re making yourself a lot of work
Probably, although building stuff is a pleasant thing.
The practical side is that I´m really really short of space, and can´t have trays lying around with clones or add another veg tent with lots of wasted vertical space, so want to have something where I can have stacked levels, and take advantage of PCB leds thinness and temps. A cabinet also helps with some level of stealth, so it unlocks new places for this thing to be.
Building a cabinet isn’t what I meant. I meant all that cloning all the time
So youd rather keep a single mother plant for how long? Do you LST them? Which pot size? Do you feed less so they grow slower or do you have any technique to keep them small?
Cloning does not seem to be a huge PITA, but if I can go without it sure I´m interested.
I can keep a rooted clone in the tray for 6 weeks with out it getting over 6 inches tall… trash it for a newly rooted one… plant the other newly rooted clone and trash the grown one after getting your good fresh cuts… easy peasy… best way I know to keep 12 strains in a 3 x3veg space…
look in to tissue cultures. i’m sure there’ll be a day where you can select a strain from a database (like phylos…) pay a fee and it’ll shit out a tissue culture or seed from your desktop 3d printer or something. i think it should be possible to synthesize plants soon from a known genetic makeup… and imagine all the variety you could explore changing a few markers around