Lowest effort mother tent?

Greetings!

I have a problem. The next step I want to take requires some pollen chucking and selection making. I need to set up a new tent just for my mothers. I am not rushing to do so, but in the next year or so, it will be a necessity for the projects I have in mind, and to keep the plants I love.

What is the optimal set up for low maintenance mother upkeep? I dont want to put in any unnecessary effort. I am comfortable with hydro, and I am dipping my toes into the soil world right now, so I am considering both options. Keeping plants small for long periods of time is counterintuitive to everything I know how to do. If you have any ideas or suggestions, I am open to them.

Thank you for your time, peace - TB

Hi Tolerance Break,

I like growing in coco coir, I think it's a great medium for keeping plants & mothers in. Even bigger moms (in 3gal pots) if you wanted to grow them out to take more cuts. I would use 2*4*8 for two mom's & 4*4*8 for four, ect.

Smaller plants are harder to maintain, having to cut them back and start new clones to replace the moms.. Bigger mothers are a bit easier to take care of, you could maintain a mother plant for 3 - 6 months, as long as she's healthy.

Best of luck with your project, sounds awesome! What are the genetics? Cheers ~

It depends a lot on the mother too, and her vegetative growth habits and how easily she clones. Some will bonsai nicely if that's your thing, but others might be far too lanky and finicky to do that. How many moms are you thinking of keeping?

MtRainDog said:

It depends a lot on the mother too, and her vegetative growth habits and how easily she clones. Some will bonsai nicely if that's your thing, but others might be far too lanky and finicky to do that. How many moms are you thinking of keeping?

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I would like to keep it down to 4 long term females and 2 long term males, with the potential for double or triple that in test moms/dads while I run packs. The odds of finding a long term keeper are low, as I am rather picky in what qualifies as a keeper, so the vast majority of those plants will end up in the compost bin.

The projects I have in mind do involve some lanky gals, some of which is landrace or landrace adjacent sativas. The threshold for keepers on those is astronomically high, I mostly just want to do seed increases, but the fact remains they could end up in the mother area.

Tolerance Break said:

I would like to keep it down to 4 long term females and 2 long term males, with the potential for double or triple that in test moms/dads while I run packs. The odds of finding a long term keeper are low, as I am rather picky in what qualifies as a keeper, so the vast majority of those plants will end up in the compost bin.

The projects I have in mind do involve some lanky gals, some of which is landrace or landrace adjacent sativas. The threshold for keepers on those is astronomically high, I mostly just want to do seed increases, but the fact remains they could end up in the mother area.

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A 2*4*8 would be perfect for your (2) males and 4*4*8 for your (4) taller/lanky narrow leaf varietals. Good luck with your project @Tolerance Break

I pretty much keep all my mothers in solo cups or smaller with 100% coco coir. Keeper cuts get bigger pots but usually I just take another clone & I end up with another solo cup mother plant. Sativas are easy to keep, the ones I find annoying are OG bc of the long node spacing

Cuts can be kept in the fridge for a year long enough to finish a grow and see if its a keeper then just grow the clone

amneziaHaze said:

Cuts can be kept in the fridge for a year long enough to finish a grow and see if its a keeper then just grow the clone

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My only issue with this is survival rates and susceptibility to temperature shifts due to power outages or simply opening and closing the fridge. Not against the idea, I just need to do some testing.

k0rps said:

A 2*4*8 would be perfect for your (2) males and 4*4*8 for your (4) taller/lanky narrow leaf varietals. Good luck with your project @Tolerance Break

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Are you suggesting a 2 by 4 by 8 tent?

higher self said:

I pretty much keep all my mothers in solo cups or smaller with 100% coco coir. Keeper cuts get bigger pots but usually I just take another clone & I end up with another solo cup mother plant. Sativas are easy to keep, the ones I find annoying are OG bc of the long node spacing

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What do you use for lighting? My understanding is Coco requires frequent irrigation, how many times a day do you need to water, and do you feed every time?

Appreciate everyone's input!

fluo tubes? long and low wattage great if you get one of those slim long tents
blue light should keep them short

Tolerance Break said:

What do you use for lighting? My understanding is Coco requires frequent irrigation, how many times a day do you need to water, and do you feed every time?

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Some midgrade LED light strip bar from amazon but bought some blue leds from rapidled to supplement. I water every day & fed every time at around 500-700 ppm's. To get the best results with coco yes you should water multiple times a day. I feel like with mother plants I don't need crazy growth so once a day is good. As long as they don't get dry for too long my plants have never had any salt build up issues.

Here is the variety of sizes I use & even small hempy style cups with just chunky perlite. That Old Timers Haze in the solo cup hempy been in there for at least 2 months just been cutting it down. I was going to cull her but it's so low maintenance I'll just keep it around to breed with. The red solo cup is my Ghost OG S1, which I will take clones from soon. I usually will transplant the solo's to bigger pots to flower out but the Ghost will grow too tall of I flowered that out.

higher self said:

Some midgrade LED light strip bar from amazon but bought some blue leds from rapidled to supplement. I water every day & fed every time at around 500-700 ppm's. To get the best results with coco yes you should water multiple times a day. I feel like with mother plants I don't need crazy growth so once a day is good. As long as they don't get dry for too long my plants have never had any salt build up issues.

Here is the variety of sizes I use & even small hempy style cups with just chunky perlite. That Old Timers Haze in the solo cup hempy been in there for at least 2 months just been cutting it down. I was going to cull her but it's so low maintenance I'll just keep it around to breed with. The red solo cup is my Ghost OG S1, which I will take clones from soon. I usually will transplant the solo's to bigger pots to flower out but the Ghost will grow too tall of I flowered that out.



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I like this for the space consideration. This might just be the route I go, appreciate the detailed explanation

Tolerance Break said:

I like this for the space consideration. This might just be the route I go, appreciate the detailed explanation

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No problem. I went a little crazy over the winter time so I had to keep everything small. Besides that lil tray there on in photo's all my veg plants fit in a 4 x 3 space. I'm eager to get my numbers down but it's not hard to do pheno hunts when you know how to keep things small in veg.