Mother plants?!?

Ok so I have three OG Kush in Veg. What is the best method to keep my 3 mothers from touching the light? I have cut already and it seems to be like a lot of wasted energy to keep on cutting off of them for the 9wks im going to have to wait to smoke all 3 and choose one. I mean how do you guys keep your mother plants from getting out of control? I mean I chopped them down, I just dont like the shear look, and they are healing just fine, just wonder if there is another way to look handle this. I considered cloning all 3 that way I can wait 3wks, clone wait 3wks, move them to veg for another 3 then I would be good?

You should top or LST them.

Make some holes in the top rim of your pot and tie some strings to the branches and loop them through the pot.

Be gently at first because they can snap if youre too forceful

And if you top them youll have even more branches to tie down and the topping itself would keep them shorter and make more clone-able branches.

Dude they are like 3months old, way to late for LST

You can probably still bend some branches down. Not exactly LST but tying down? haha

But if not just take some clones and flower them?

Thats what i do with my mothers.

I already took some clones and they are in flowering, I use netpots, what will I tie them down to, LoL.

Well besides flowering them, tying them down or chopping them down there really isnt anything else you can do besides make new mothers.

Have you ever considered growing mothers in a soil/soilless medium in like 5 gallon pots?

Then you could tie em down top/fim alot and probably only need one mother.

If you don't plan to flower these mothers you can always cut some roots out. That will stunt growth , a plants canopy is determined by its root system size. If the roots can't handle the canopy the plant will spend more time and energy in re growing the roots. Or try bonsai style trimming, popular for mother plants.

Pinch and bend. Or just say screw it, there is no need for mothers. I have 8-14 strains at all times and no mothers.

Superstoner, I have 12 in flowering already, do I just wait 3 weeks, and clone the 3 again?

Bonsai mom's....Google it. I keep mother's for years in 4x4 pots and keep em under 10" total height. Hey SS1 how do you keep so many strains without mom's. Your obviously perpetual... is your area huge??

superstoner1 said:

Pinch and bend. Or just say screw it, there is no need for mothers. I have 8-14 strains at all times and no mothers.

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Yep. No mothers here. My plants donate the next crop cuttings right before they go into flower each cycle. Works for me. I guess if you want to skip a cycle with a certain strain you would have to keep a mom for a short time.

Bluehillsmoker said:

Superstoner, I have 12 in flowering already, do I just wait 3 weeks, and clone the 3 again?

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Yes. I take cuttings every three weeks.

KronikGrower said:

Bonsai mom's....Google it. I keep mother's for years in 4x4 pots and keep em under 10" total height. Hey SS1 how do you keep so many strains without mom's. Your obviously perpetual... is your area huge??

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Yes i run a perpetual grow. Huge? I wish. Flower room is 6x10 and veg/clone/drying room is 5x10. In 110sf i pull 2+ pounds every three weeks using 3000w in flower and all t5 in veg. I just couldnt imagine having mother plants to worry about plus the amount of space needed. I have 14 different collar colors to keep everything organized and i just make sure to always have each strain represented.

Bluehillsmoker said:

Dude they are like 3months old, way to late for LST

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No it's not. wait till after they have been watered and go down bout 5-8 inches of largest branch and bend it till it kinks. It will lay over for a few hours then start turning toward the light. This may take a little practice but it is much easier than trying to tie down 50 branches. I do this with three month old plants often.
The key is making sure the stalk is full of water. Otherwise you will just break it off.

tissue culture

I like my ladies young and perky ...

clone off the top, flower the bottom. rinse and repeat

joe macclennan said:

No it's not. wait till after they have been watered and go down bout 5-8 inches of largest branch and bend it till it kinks. It will lay over for a few hours then start turning toward the light. This may take a little practice but it is much easier than trying to tie down 50 branches. I do this with three month old plants often.
The key is making sure the stalk is full of water. Otherwise you will just break it off.

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No, the key is to pinch it first then bend it. This snaps the branch length wise and allows it to lay over without breaking.

superstoner1 said:

No, the key is to pinch it first then bend it. This snaps the branch length wise and allows it to lay over without breaking.

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I stand corrected sir!