Hello all. I've got three 1 foot plants in soil and I have 3 brand new cuttings in rockwool from those plants. I've got a grow cabinet with a drip set-up/Scrog. I've also got a very small tent to keep 2 mother plants in soil. Should I..... A.) transfer the larger plants to the drip system and grow them for harvest. The cuttings in rockwool would be inserted in soil for motherhood. I wouldn't need clones for 3 months or so. Pros - I can probably get to harvest quicker Cons - shocking to plants. If they all die then I'd have to grow my current cuttings out as a mother plant and then clone again. That would be time consuming. B.) keep the bigger plants as mothers as they are already in soil. Use the clones by inserting the rockwool cube into hydroton. Pros - protects my genetics. This strain would be a pain in the ass to get more of (6 hour drive round trip) Cons - the larger plants weren't topped and my grow tent is only two feet tall.
Sounds like you've thought it out well already. But my opinion is to use the plants in soil as your mothers. Yeah it will take a bit longer for your first harvest, but it won't be that bad. And like you said it would be hard to get more of those genetics, so you don't want to take a chance at hurting them. Just my opinion.
Debate settled. The bigger dirt plants are now the mothers. I cut some more clones to make the extra wait time worth it.
ive changed a 2ft tall plant from soil to hydro before and it went through shock for about 3 weeks. the root system it had ended up cluster fucked in the net pot and had to wait for all new root growth to come through the nets. i was using dwc though so idk how well the transfer to a drip system would be. it may not go through as much shock since it will still use the same root system. if you just use your clones for hydro they grow much faster than in soil so its not as long of a wait as you think. when i did the transfer i was in the same situation, wanted to keep the bigger plant in soil as a mother but needed something to flower fast and wanted to flower using dwc. it was worth the transplant in the long run, 3 weeks of shock for a 2ft plant yielded much more compared to 3 weeks of veg for a new clone to begin flower.