Mothers in soil vs hydro?

Indoor Growing
#1

I’m looking to keep a couple mother plants. I normally run everything in hydro setup. What are the pros a cons of keeping mothers in hydro vs soil. I’m thinking the soil might be easier to maintain for the longer period, but I never have great success in soil. What are your opinions?
Does anyone else keep mothers in hydro instead of soil?

These are 3 Peyote Forum photos all started the same time, ones in soil will go outside when ready. But look at the size difference, my hydro stuff always seems to do better.

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#2

I have done both, but I just find it easier to keep my mother in dirt, just because they need a lot less maintenance. It’s true that they don’t grow as big or as fast, but for the most part I only need half a dozen clones so the size is not really an issue for me.

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#3

i don’t run anything automated, but couldn’t just one power outage kill it?

#4

As mentioned above, soil is just so much less maintenance for keeping mother plants. I would think you really have to stay on top of the maintenance if you are going to try and keep a mother plant around in hydro long term.

I’ve run a lot of hydro/aero but never tried keeping mother plants in hydro. I always used soil or soilless media.

I would be worried about the risk of water-borne pathogens being higher over time, trying to keep a hydro system running indefinitely - unless you can swap the mother into another DWC bucket (or whatever hydro method you’re using) and give the one it was in a good scrub/deep cleaning, maybe.

Maybe frequent water changes and using some type of microbial additive or sterile rez additive would be enough? I can’t really say.

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#5

Some good advice given already.
Even when running hydro I kept all mothers in soil/soilless.

Think of it this way, you may have to keep the rez totally sterile for 6 months to a year, probably longer.

That is a tough task.
Like mentioned above, you will have transfers when you clean the system, you may have scrubbing of roots ect.

With soil/soilless it is much more simple to maintain a mother.

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