Long term Storage of Mothers/Clones? How do I save these Genetics?

Every year I go out west to work for 3 months, I do treeplanting in BC and Alberta, and I make alot of money at it, while living with almost zero expenses. I need to continue doing this job, as minimum wage isn't really too appealing to me.
But I don't want to let my mother plants die while I'm away for those 3 months.

Any idea's how you could keep a clone or a mother plant alive unattended for the whole summer? I could plant many clones outdoors and hope for the best, then revegg when I get back home.

But what I'm thinking of doing is putting a stunted clone into a small pot and into the refridgerator. Trip the light on/off switch so that the light is on when the door is closed to the fridge, stick a 13watt bulb in there, and use one of those glass orb things that you fill with water to provide water to the runted little thing for 3 months. Hopefully it would grow so slowly and use so little water that it would not dry out over the three month period.

Any other ideas? has anyone ever kept a plant alive indoors for 3 months without any attention?

I think no matter what you try it is likely to end badly other than having someone plant sit and that even goes badly more often then not...What you should do is hermie the mothers you want to keep...and then keep some seeds...damn that takes time though...but the only way this will work is to reduce those moms to seed...I mean maybe the fridge would work,but it seems to me the plant would mold like old lettuce in less than a month. And could the plant even make it being that cold? I bet there is someone on here that could keep the particular strains going and give them back when you wanted them...Maybe?

I can't foresee a plant making it that long inside with no attention...you could utilize orbeez...look em up they're a kids toy, but they used to market something just like it for plants. They are like weird little balls that absord and hold a pretty good amount of moisture compared to the size of the thing...anyway they take forever to dry...and will water a plant for quite awhile depending on how many you use...maybe do a plant in a cup of orbeez...actually I am going to try this myself...this evening...lol

haha I love experiments, I took from a selection of 10 clones the one that was most stunted. It had almost no roots when I potted it and it was treated quite poorly during the rooting process(too much heat). So I inticipate it wont suck back water too fast.
I think plants can handle the cold, but what it does is slow it down, which is exactly what I think I need to do to be able to leave the plant for 3 months. I see no reason it would mold, I don't know what could really make it die about having it in a fridge, I dont expect it shoudl die(unless there is no light or no water). I've seen plants survive some weird shit. My mom has a small storage room in her basement that she never really goes into. She was given a flower bulb for her garden about a year ago and put it in there. I walked into that room just about a month ago and found this big flower growing out of a bulb with a 12 inch stem and 2 shrivelled yellow leaves. But the flower looked healthy!, no light or water for 11 months and it did that!

It will be still 3 months before I leave for alberta so in the meantime I can do a trial attempt at this and see how it turns out. If it doesnt work out the suggestion to have someone on RIU take care of a clone for me and send me back a clone, is a very good idea, hopefully someone will be interested in doing that and reads this thread. Its Kali Mist for anyone interested

I don't have a clue what that orbi thing you talked about is but I will look into it, that sounds like just the thing I need.

Oh and I'm growing in coco, maybe there is a better medium to use instead? any suggestions on the medium I should use?

Ok I'm going to document my experiment here for all to see.
specs:
Kali Mist cutting
rooted 3 weeks ago
sex: unknown
medium: coco/perlite 50/50
pot size: I'm guessing 1 liter?
nutrient solution: H&G cocos AB at 420ppm(.7) pH 5.8
photoperiod/lighting: 24/7 with 13 watt mini CFL, at 3 inches
temperature/humidity: inside a fridge
Ventilation: whenever I'm hungry

Who think's it will work, and who think's it won't? and explain why!

I know what your all thinking...

"this guy's definately been smoking too much weed..."

We will see!

Have you looked into using colloidal silver application to self-pollinate her for some seeds? It's easy and inexpensive enough to do at home and small-scale.

WolfZen said:

Have you looked into using colloidal silver application to self-pollinate her for some seeds? It's easy and inexpensive enough to do at home and small-scale.

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I don't want to play around with hermies in my flower room, and I would prefer to have F1's instead of inbred F2's

subbed. good shit. how long has the plant been in the fridge?

Thedillestpickle said:

I don't want to play around with hermies in my flower room, and I would prefer to have F1's instead of inbred F2's

Click to expand...

I think I get what you mean but I was just talking about self-pollinating a single female plant through colloidal silver application (which would leave her seeds as P1). Not about cross-breeding and back-crossing multiple plants. If you want to preserve just the genetics of a mother plant for storage, why would you cross her for F1's (let alone want to take as far as back-crossed F2's)? Probably off-track or our terminology differs - in any case, good luck with the storage experiment.

Thedillestpickle said:

Every year I go out west to work for 3 months, I do treeplanting in BC and Alberta, and I make alot of money at it, while living with almost zero expenses. I need to continue doing this job, as minimum wage isn't really too appealing to me.
But I don't want to let my mother plants die while I'm away for those 3 months.

Any idea's how you could keep a clone or a mother plant alive unattended for the whole summer? I could plant many clones outdoors and hope for the best, then revegg when I get back home.

But what I'm thinking of doing is putting a stunted clone into a small pot and into the refridgerator. Trip the light on/off switch so that the light is on when the door is closed to the fridge, stick a 13watt bulb in there, and use one of those glass orb things that you fill with water to provide water to the runted little thing for 3 months. Hopefully it would grow so slowly and use so little water that it would not dry out over the three month period.

Any other ideas? has anyone ever kept a plant alive indoors for 3 months without any attention?

Click to expand...

These things suck and dont work...
SO rethink your experiment before you start officially...



Maybe set up a Gravity powered top feed drip system...
That only lets tiny drips out, and would last for a long time....

jkahndb0 said:

These things suck and dont work...
SO rethink your experiment before you start officially...

Maybe set up a Gravity powered top feed drip system...
That only lets tiny drips out, and would last for a long time....

Click to expand...

How about a wick? passive hydro I guess it's called. Trouble would be determining what the right ppm to use would be... Over that long a period the EC will either want to climb too high or drop too low. I think letting it get low would be the best option. Maybe initially water the pot with 400ppm and have the wick sitting in a res of 250ppm, just enough to keep it alive. I would also put H2O2 into the res and in the medium to prevent mold or bacteria

WolfZen said:

I think I get what you mean but I was just talking about self-pollinating a single female plant through colloidal silver application (which would leave her seeds as P1). Not about cross-breeding and back-crossing multiple plants. If you want to preserve just the genetics of a mother plant for storage, why would you cross her for F1's (let alone want to take as far as back-crossed F2's)? Probably off-track or our terminology differs - in any case, good luck with the storage experiment.

Click to expand...

I don't know much about breeding really, I thought that self pollinating would kill the hybrid vigour of an F1, hence why people pay so much for seeds

wheels619 said:

subbed. good shit. how long has the plant been in the fridge?

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about two and a half hours

I had to take a saw to part of my fridge to make the light stay on... haha

Holy this is quite the goal your after, I like it we do the same thing as employment and I fully understand your situation luckilly for I my wife stays home and takes care of all our kids. But I think theres a few things you could do, Tissue culture like they do to keep mushroom genetics alive, creates a sort of living library on a nutrient plant. Or find out the exact temp that slow it down to dormancy but not death, kinda like a hypothermic patient they're not dead until they're warm and dead. Other ways off the top of my head is look into dry ice, kinda like cryogenicly freezing your girls I would be looking into how they do it. I would think an instant freeze of a plant with low water content in her could preserve it, or freeze one in a solid block of ice really quick so when you thaw it out it'll be like that movie inceno man. But you gotta freeze it quick enough to stop the cell processes including death and degration

So, um gee um, how's the plant supposed to breathe after it runs out of air in a day or two?

PJ Diaz said:

So, um gee um, how's the plant supposed to breathe after it runs out of air in a day or two?

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Yea... I thought of that. It's just going to have to hold its breath lol
I guess I can only hope that the plant's metabolism is slowed down so much that it doesn't use up all the CO2, or I will have to find a way to bring in CO2 or create some. Maybe a wick dipped in vinegar that slowly wicks the vinegar into a bowl of bicarbonate. It woud be impossible to really control the rate of CO2 release though. Hard to come up with a 3 month solution. Perhaps creating an air-leak in the door's seal is the best option.

Smokey your making this sounds like I'm going to need a PhD to make this work! Did you say you do treeplanting? where do you plant trees?

google tissue culture.
I don't know how practical it is... but its definitely an option.

http://www.flytrapcare.com/tissue-culture-basics.html

PJ Diaz said:

So, um gee um, how's the plant supposed to breathe after it runs out of air in a day or two?

Click to expand...

So, um gee um, It doesn't breath afterwards, the whole point of freezing it to the point of stoping cell functions is to bring the cell to a point where cells do not need to breath, have nutrients etc.. It stops the cell "freezes" it, immobilises it, stops it in it's tracks in other words it stays in suspended animation. Just as is the day you put it into that state, so you tell me if the cells are frozen to a point where they dont even proceed with the death and dying process then will they need air in a day or two?