opinions on using mothers vs cloning clones

the reason people like to keep a mother instead of continuously taking clones from there last crop is because of "genetic drift". genetic drift states that if you have a mother and take a clone, that clone will be slightly less resilent and also not quite as potent as the mother. then if you take another clone from that one, its even less resilent and less potent. so the more you keep taking clones without a mother, the less potent and tough your plants become. now it doesnt drop drastically with each time you clone, maybe about 2-5% of your potency and resilancy is lost, but if you keep cloning clones 20 or 30 times, youve made a huge negative impact on the bud your growing.

so the benefit of keeping a mother means that every clone you take (as long as its always from the same mother) will always only be 2-5% worse than the mother plant and you wont have a downward spiraling product quality.

i usually dont keep a mother, i make clones, when there ready i clone them, and when those ones are ready i clone them as well. but then i start a new plant from seed that my next set of clones will come from. so im still allowing genetic drift in my crop, but im limiting it to a 6-15% quality loss then restarting.


hope this helps. goodluck

If Genetic Drift states that, then "Genetic drift" is wrong. I have personally done 14 gens away from the original mother with NO apparent loss of either plant vigor, or potency. (See my previous post in this thread)

Jack Harer said:

If Genetic Drift states that, then "Genetic drift" is wrong. I have personally done 14 gens away from the original mother with NO apparent loss of either plant vigor, or potency. (See my previous post in this thread)

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jesus man dont need to try to fight. but if you insist your a moron. there not aparent because you cant see stuff likenthat by eye. a5re you telling me you can see the difference between weed that has a 24% cannabanoid contetnt versus weed that has 27%??? i didnt think so, it would take testing to show the genetic drift. go back and take a high school botonay course for christ sake. the plant will still grow, and possibly faster than the mother, but it WILL be more suseptable to disease and your THC content WONT be as high. doesnt neccesarilly mean that your plants gona suck or not gona grow, it just wont be as dank.

for some people thats not much of a sacrafice because there lazy and dont actually love what there doing. i chase perfection and perfection only, theres obviously other more kindergarden approaches to growing, but anything worth doing is worth doing right.

(oh and BTW just go google genetic plant drift or something, its a scientifically proven and accepted fact, dont argue blindly just because you want to prove to the poster that you know what your doing)

Not trying to fight. You stated that you get a 2% to 5% drop with each generation. At those percentages, I would have most definitely seen a significant drop in both vigor and potency after 14 gens away from the original.
Cuttings are merely an extension of the same plant. My mother gave me cutting of a "Wandering Jew" she got from her mother who got it from her grandmother. My plant from that cutting is still as vital as the day the cuttings were first taken. Genetics do not change by taking cuttings, only by multi-source recombinant DNA or from sexual reproduction. You can clone from now 'till doomsday and the plant from any resulting cuttings will be as vigorous as the original plant. Genetic "drift" is applicable only in sexual reproduction. You will not find this in biology 101, you need to take an intermediate class in genetics. I am now in my second year of an undergrad degree in biology (My second degree).
I have no need to prove to anyone that I know what I'm doing. Since undertaking the cultivation of Cannabis, I am passionate about nothing else. It's my calling.

I might be getting into this too late but hell if you lost 2 to 5% with each generation in plants the ornamental plants would be in a world of hurt. Plants and flowers are cloned or rooted whatever you prefer to call it for decades at a time without loss of vigor or health. Can you screw up your genetics sure but just by cloning a good plant that isn't taken while in flower, not usually. I haven't gone 14 generations deep with my girls yet but have flowers I have been cloning on a regular basis for over 20 years by the above mentioned loss each time those girls either shouldn't look like the original plant or be doomed to death soon after rooting.

Its always nice to have a ready supply of clones to cut. Also, the mother plant
should be tested to be a fem plant so that theres no fear of male or hermi there.
But if you clone a clone how could it be guaranteed fem? SOmetimes those mean
herms pop up out of nowhere.
Mothers work for me, do what suits you and yours best and you cant go wrong.

Obviously it is a good thing to have a mother if you can fit it in your program. Myself, I have way too many going at once to bother with a mother. As a consequence of that, due to the bust, I lost some great genetics, but having a mother on premises would not have prevented that.
If a mother plant works for you, Great! By all means keep one. But you CAN clone clones, as far as I can see, indefinitely. When you have a continuous rotating crop going, with plants rooting, vegging and flowering at the same time, believe me, there is no shortage on the supply of clones to be taken. I usually ended up tossing about 100 to 200 every 60 days and that's after I gave a whole lot of them away. Kinda hard to find 'em all good homes around these parts.

yes, the plants will look no different. but regardless of what you say (my % may have been off ill check) it doesnt change the fact that it does happen every time you take a cutting. your just not able to see as difference, if a medical lab tested your first strain and your 5th set of cuttings, they would notice huge differences. trying to say its not true is like trying to say that greenhouse gases dont exist simply because we dont notice it ourselves. that doesnt stop it from melting the ice caps and eating away at the ozone does it? no, but i guess this shows somethin about society, not willing to work hard for a plant not willing to work hard for the planet, we just let it all slide by in ignorance

but ya i said earlier that you can keep taking clones, its not gaona ruin your harvest and he asked what the benefits are of having a mother, so i told him the facts, not my opinion. he can do whgat he wants with it

knourgro said:

but ya i said earlier that you can keep taking clones, its not gaona ruin your harvest and he asked what the benefits are of having a mother, so i told him the facts, not my opinion. he can do whgat he wants with it

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just quit arguing with jack harer.. his facts seem way more possible than yours and he has a degree to back it up . i highly doubt thc gets taken off every clone to clone rather than mother..

Genetic drift has no application to cloning. Genetic drift is ONLY in relation to sexual propagation. I don't know why you're spreading misinformation, but I'd like to see your sources

^ amen thats exactly right.

jack is correct and ill leave it at that

hah says the band wagon hoppers

Destillat said:

Genetic drift has no application to cloning. Genetic drift is ONLY in relation to sexual propagation. I don't know why you're spreading misinformation, but I'd like to see your sources

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but i believe your thinking of genetic mutation, where an entirely new form of strain or typoe is created by it. drift happens because you cut the branch away from the heart (the roots) and the plant (each individually) will devlope its root sytem and growing patterens. at this time anything from slight changes caused by stress, to possible bacteria that infects them will all cause minute genetic changes AKA genetic drift. its the deiiference between mating two starfish (if thats even possible, idk so dont freak out at me if they cant) and getting a genetically altered offspring with two seperate helixus, versus cuting the arm of one and letting it grow back the rest of the starfish, since it has to rebuild the whole starfish again, it has the same basic double helix, but with minute changes based on bacteria and enviorment that will always cause a slight drop in resilency.

im gettin off this post after this, dont wana cause any more trouble. everyone keeps thinking that im saying the clones will eventually come out disfigured and fucked, they wont. but theyll have a higher chance of getting sick and dying, and a lower overall THC count. i know this to be right so you guys can do what you want with it. im not tryna fuck with people who clone clones over and over, its your grow, do as you will

I never have moms... the strains I want to keep I just veg, flower and take clones. Repeat. Simple.