HELP me select a mother and create a harvest cycle!!! PLEASE !!!

I was planning on ordering 40 fem. seeds, 4 diff. strains. I would like to have one solid mother from each strain. the seeds will be from a reputable bank. I will be using 2 -- 1k hps hortilux lights for flower, a 4x8 flood and drain, 4x8 tent. rockwool on coco.
the mother/clone room is a closet. with 4 t5 bulbs.

MY confusion is how to start and keep a mother. this is my understanding,
I was going to label each plant, Let them grow and show their pre flowers, take out the males.
next, take cuttings of each female plant and strain that are left. label each cutting. then flower the plants, started from seed. Harvest them and see which plant yielded the most and was most potent. After my descision i go back through the clones i took earlier and keep only the best clone from each strain.



1: will the mother have enough places to take cuttings to start another cycle by the time i make my descision on which clone to keep as a mother?

2: How often is it safe to take clones from a mother?

3: how often do you normally take cuttings to keep your harvest cycle going?

4: can i keep a mother in rockwool??

so please anybody who can clear my understanding of mother plants and help me create a harvest cycle for my set up PLEASE HELP!!!!!
thanks smoke on

1) Yes
2) every couple of weeks would work, but you want the plant to throw off stems after the last cutting before you start cutting for the next batch.
3) I take them every month and half, but I will be adding another flower room soon, so probably every 4 weeks once that is done
4) Yes, but she will get rootbound pretty quick, and rockwool is finicky with ph levels. I use ProMix in 8" square pots and the growth is amazing. It is cheaper than rockwool, requires no conditioning, and holds more water.

PS- If you get fem seeds, you won't have to worry about taking the males out. You will need to be on your toes for hermies, so keep a liter of Dutch Master Reverse stuck back just in case. Good luck.

the only things i really know about cloning is that you shouldn't flower the cut branches until about 2 weeks after planting so they have time to grow roots and as for the plant you cut them from just keep that on a full light cycle and it will never start to bud so you can always cut your clones =) oh and dont forget the root powder good luck

HomeGrown&Smoked said:

4) Yes, but she will get rootbound pretty quick, and rockwool is finicky with ph levels. I use ProMix in 8" square pots and the growth is amazing. It is cheaper than rockwool, requires no conditioning, and holds more water.

PS- If you get fem seeds, you won't have to worry about taking the males out. You will need to be on your toes for hermies, so keep a liter of Dutch Master Reverse stuck back just in case. Good luck.

Click to expand...

Well my flower room is the rockwool over coco mat. but i want to keep the mother in soil pots. i dont want them too big. just enough for about 10-15 cuttings every month and half or so. what size container should i use?

The dutch master reverse. you had to bring it up, haha, could you explain it some more, and when to use it?!?!
and thanks for the quick response

The bigger the pot the better (allows more roots, which will give you a stronger plant)- the only reason I mentioned Pro-Mix is that I started with rockwool and had issues with nute-lockout etc, but with the Pro-Mix I have done a side-by-side comparison with rockwool, and the Pro-Mix bunch is hands-down the better media- aside from that it is cheaper andd reusable. As long as you have something under the rockwool for the roots to grow into, they should still do pretty good though.

DMR contains hormones that prevent buds from being pollenated and will also kill any male flowers currently on the plant, also prevents male flowers from showing up. You can use it as a preventive measure early in flowering, or you can use it as a reactive measure if you do see any male parts coming up. They recommend to use it with Dutch Master Penetrator to increase effectiveness, but I used non-phosphate dish liquid instead (around 5mL per 250mL of DMR) and I have yet to find any male flowers yet. I have read other posts in this forum where someone finds a male flower and sprays it with DMR; within 48 hours the male flowers were dead and the buds were still strong and healthy.

Hope that helps, and good luck with the grow.

thanks alot HomeGrown&Smoked, that DMR sounds like good stuff. With femenized seeds and DMR the female success should be 100%

Are you big dutch master nutrients in general, or just DMR? have you used DM Liquid gold foliar feed?

How many plants should I go with in my 4x8 set up. I want to get the max possible yield for the 4x8 tent and 2 1k watt lights. Should I go with around 20 larger plants instead of 40 smaller ones?

It's my pleasure sharp, glad I can help. I only got the DMR after I read that some Barney's Farm Fem LSDs had a tendency to go hermie- it was the only product I could find that would keep seeds from showing up and had good reviews in the forums. I use GH nutes, and even on my outdoor grow (nutes @ half-strength) the plants love it. I have tried foliar feeding, but I have heard it was a good way to deliver nutrients . . . I'm just afriad I'm gonna mess up and burn the leaves.

As far as number of plants, either would work. In a SOG setup, you will have a crap-ton of little plants that may only produce 1 oz or so, but because of the higher numbers you will have a good total yield on the harvest. Growing fewer plants will result in similar results if the grow tent has a nice even canopy of green, it will just take longer for the plants to get big enough. But since you are using 2 1000 watt lights, and getting 1 gram per watt is easily doable, you are looking at a potential harvest of 2 kilos (or 4.4 pounds), possibly higher.

yeah i think i will end up going with the lesser larger plants set up. less plants,less to worry bout.

I have always been leary of using foliar spray, ive heard people burning their leaves when they accidently splashed some nutrient solution on the leaves. But i figured the dutch master liquid gold would be safe since its designed to be a foliar feed spray. just curious how your results were with it if you used it... Also have you used dutch master zone? ive heard its a pretty good alternative to hygrozyme.

Will anybody else help me set up some type harvest cycle, with my set up?!?!? a 4x8 tent. (2) 1k hps. and a turbokloner. and read some more on first post. this og kush has me in slow motion , but please need help getting together some type of mother plant and cloning cycle.

please help!!! thank you much appreciated

Don't stress so hard... here is what you do... in your veg room you keep your moms, whatever fits or whatever. In this same room you grow cuttings. Your moms just chill while you keep cutting their branches off and making babies. Grow em, throw em in the tent when they are the right size, or you get more room in the tent. It'll work out once you start doing it. You will be limited by your space, you will have more clones then you can grow. Your flower room will be as packed as you want. have fun

haha yeah your right need to slow down. It will come into play once i pick out which clone im going to keep as a mother.

does finding the desirable phenotype of different strains take long with 10 fem. seeds of 4 diff. strains??

It takes a harvest - just pick your favorites. If the seeds are good genetics they should all be fairly similar

Got a question about co2 if anybody still around. in my 4x8 tent should i go with a 20lb co2 tank and regulator. the guy at the local store said to use co2 boost, he said the results are great and he's seen it first hand. But i've seen on here that people said if doesnt raise the ppm much and cost 100 to refill. Let me know what i should go with in my 4x8 tent. 2-1k watt hps if that helps.

anybody???^^^^