I was wondering what the consensus was on how many times a plant can be cloned. I have some white widow's and white lightning's I want to keep around but no males left to knock them up. Some people say only a few times while others say you can do it perpetually with no loss of vigor/potency or yield. What does everyone think?
As with any plant you should be able to clone indefinitely as long as you are taking from a mature plant, unless there is something about MJ that makes it different than other plants.
Oh yeah their mature they've been vegging since the beginning of june with the wl still vegging and the ww a week and a half into flowering. It's just that a lot of people try to say that genetic shift occurs after 3 generations but I was hoping that's not the case. Thanks man
I suppose that would make sense if the plant lacked stable genetics. I'm no scientist so you should probably wait for someone with more knowledge to chime in, but at the same time I don't see the harm in trying.
Every time you move away from th F1 mother plant the clone gets a little weaker..you take a clone..take a clone off that clone..then a clone off that clone..each time you do that it gets a little weaker..But taking clones off the first seed plant(f1)the clones should be real close to the mother plant..But as a plant gets older it starts to get weaker and things set in,if you live in a state where you can get clones just get new clones every grow..if not....try to change out the mother plant with fresh seed stock every two years.
Nah bum fuk texas where I'm unfortunetly currently residing frowns on what were talkin about. Ordering seeds was pretty stressful considering they had to be delivered to a sensitive address. But next year when I move out I'll be able to use my mom's address and everything will be cool she dosen't smoke so if they show up there they won't find anything. I ordered from marijuana-seeds.nl last christmas and I still have the blueberry, northern lights, g13 haze, super silver haze and afghan strains from them and some white widow crossed with the white lightning. I just wanted to keep around the original strains of ww and wl around as long as I can.
A buddy of mine has been cloning the same Jack Herer for well over 5 years now... still as good today as it was 5 years ago... -Loki
I say Bullshit. I have an 13th generation Matanuska Thunderfuck, each generation represents a year. I grew the original from seed in 1997 and moved her from AK to the lower 48 in in a small box in the back of a trailer. She is as potent today as the original mom was 13 years ago. Every year I take four clones in Jan and save the best one for a "new" mom and flower out the "old" mom and three remaining clones for a years worth of great smoke. My special stash that only gets shared with the best of friends. Wolf
I'm stoked by the recent reponses because I love my white widow and white lightning strains and want to enjoy them as long as possible. I am making my own hybrids with the other 4 strains I have(plus a bad ass bag seed strain) but I'd like to preserve the original strains as long as possible hopefully perpetually. I'll keep clone mothers alive as long as I can in drip setups but I am encouraged by recent posts and can now breath a sigh of relief thanks dudes
Actually "WhyGarden" is correct, clones do get weaker. Although it may seem as potent, it is impossible for it's yield to have not declined. I would have to be testing each plant year to year to find out exactly what has happened in your case mountainwolf. However, mutations are always possible. B.S. Horticulture Science from a top 3 Horticulture University.
My understanding is the genetics remain unchanged. The plant is perfect. The cause of degradation to a strain is the human element. We fuck things up. And given the fact that the cloning process is an extremely "hands on" aspect of the human care .... this is where we tend to harm genetics and weaken or alter the strains. I would say the results of a bad growing environment is equally as detrimental to quality as is propagation. The introduction of or to stress, damage, insects, disease etc are also variables. To answer the question would require a 100% sterile growing experience void of any human interaction ..... hmmm. My guess is that potency is being confused with genetics. You can take a great strain and kill the potency with bad growing practices. Remove the human from the process and the strain remains in tact indefinitely.
Mutations are possible, but as Mountainwolf takes the best plant of four, he's had really good luck(skill) not selecting those and keep his line cloning true... -Loki
Good point, thankfully I'm employing the best possible growing techniques i.e. hydroponics. There is no enviornment in nature that can measure up to the superiorty of hydroponic/aeroponic setups. I use drip systems(fogponic systems coming soon)and R.O. water and regular treat my reserevoirs with 35% h2o2. My drip totes are lined with black plastic sheeting and mylar so that algae growth is suppressed. I grow in hydroton and with regular treatment of h2o2 I never have any problems(knock on wood) with pythium, algae or bacteria. I use the advanced nutes bloom and micro and apply using the "lucas" formula and supplement with cal-mag, silicone plus, pinnapple floranectar and koolbloom(in flowering). I start plants under cfls then move to a 400w mh and then to a 400w hps in flowering. I have a bubbleponic/aeroponic cloner for my clones and I add liquid clonex to to the cloner. With established mothers I usually pull clones off anywhere from the last two weeks in vegging to the first two weeks flowering max no later. I trim all the leaves and shoots off my clones before severing them from the mother and let em heal and recover for 4-7 days before cutting em off. I make another cut with the stem underwater to prevent a embolism in the stem them dip them in clonex solution before tossing em in the cloner. Like I said I'm also beginning to dabble in fogponics and aeroponics we'll say how that goes. I'm not sure how else I could improve the conditions for my plants I know their current home is better than anything that can be found in nature. Temps are carefully controlled to a average of 72-78degrees 65 during the dark period in flowering. Fresh air from outside is regularly pumped into the room and plants are strictly grown under 24/0 in vegging and 12/12 in flowering. Not trying to sound condescending at all but I just don't know how I could make things better for my plants and will take any advice in good faith I'm always looking to learn more. Thanks for the help guys peace
Actually WhyGarden is wrong and so are you. Don't wanna get into a pissing match with you but I will anyway. I have kept two strains alive for well over a decade now and have been growing for 20 years. Don't need a sticking B.S. in anything to grow dope. I had to get into my filing cabinet and get out the records for my AKTF strain; 1997 mom 183 grams 1997 clones (4) 726 grams 13 years later, last years crop 2009 mom 191 grams 2009 clones (3) 576 grams I would drop the whole file in here but don't want to type that much and it would probably bore the shit out people. About the only thing that has changed all these years is the kinda lights used due to the vast improvements made in that field. Veg time on the clones are all the same, four weeks then into flower. Mom's are the same age and size year after year. In 13 years the gram weight has been no less than 18 grams off in either direction. So when you get done doing your decade + long experiment then you can come and tell me that I am right. Wolf
This plant had been cloned for nearly 20 years at the time of this photo, it is called Feralocity and it's Australian in origin, it's also known as Aussie Big Bud. The cuttings are taken during bloom, rooted, vegged, then bloomed, cuttings taken at day 21 of 12/12, then the cycle starts all over again. An overlapping 3 month cycle is used, so roughly 5 harvests and five batches of cuttings are taken per year, putting it at roughly one hundred bloom cycles away from the original mother. And this was over five or six years back when I worked with the plant, after some tough work I forced one to produce some male pollen and managed to bring seeds back home with me, none of which have quite matched the mother so far (that's the common problem with clone-only strains, and why they are clone-only's), but the original plant itself is still going strong in several gardens in West Australia. Three months from cutting One of the buds from the upper left hand portion of the plant in the above photo, there were several like it on the one plant.. one of the benefits of taking cuttings during bloom is the multiple branching effect induced by reversing the flowering hormone, which under normal circumstances causes the nodal spacing to shorten into what we call 'bud', but when reversed promotes dense branching until veg is set.
unlimited times, the clone is a genetic replica of the- origonal plant. Unless the mother is changed through DNA damage it will be the same. you can however stress a mother plant enough to change its DNA and have clones that lack vigor etc.
Just smoked some little popcorn buds off my white widow and I'm drooling looking at those pics BadKittySmiles. This is bad ass and makes me feel a hell of a lot better. I took 30 clones on day 10 flowering and all are beginning to show roots in my aero-cloner. I agree taking them during flowering causes wicked branching all of my clones have little buds on top even though they've been in a 24/0 photoperiod. After reading the responses and seeing roots forming on my clones I'm floating on cloud 9. Gonna go smoke a bowl then pass out. Peace dudes