PVC Tube for Bonsai Mother?

subb said:

Yeah I definitely would prefer to stagger the clones like that. So you think taking, say, 3 clones from my plant right before sending into flower won't add anymore time to the flowering period? I just assumed the plant would have to recover somewhat after taking clones.
I think this is probably where I will end up eventually, but I would like to have a mother, at least at first, to make sure the cloning process goes smoothly.. then maybe after that I will just go to the staggered clones like you said.

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IME it is actually not that easy to stunt growth. Others may disagree. But in my setup I prune 1 week before flip and usually 2 - 3 weeks after flip. Haven't really noticed a difference of lower yields. After a few grows you start learning which branches suck at life. Then just trim those stupid ones away on the next run.

When I first started SCROG I thought I was over trimming every single time. Then at the end of flower was surprised to see how much more could have gone away. Either way now I have hash bags so whatever isn't quality looking goes into hash making. So now I don't really care if I don't trim enough.

justugh said:

well i gave u my best advice i had

do what u want but when it fails .....come back so we can tell u told u so

and u know mothering plants are only good for 3 sets of clones ................with u keeping it this small is just a waste i would just grow them from a seed

or change over to Autos so u can grow them all in one place on a 20/4 timing 72 days from planting u normally have smoke i pull in 4 to 8 oz a plant i might of just gotten my first 10 ozer it is drying so excited 10 oz on soil in 65 days of growth

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I'm not trying to belittle you or your advice, I think you just are misunderstanding my post.

Mothering plants are good for 3 sets of clones? what? I've heard of people having mother plants for years.

I am not flowering the mother, I am just simply keeping her in veg to take clones. I have a grow box, all I am asking is if people have tried this PVC MOTHER chamber.

Sorry for any miscommunication. Sure I can make a little mother box, and I just may, or I may stagger the clones, but I think you might be misunderstanding what I am trying to accomplish?

yktind said:

IME it is actually not that easy to stunt growth. Others may disagree. But in my setup I prune 1 week before flip and usually 2 - 3 weeks after flip. Haven't really noticed a difference of lower yields. After a few grows you start learning which branches suck at life. Then just trim those stupid ones away on the next run.

When I first started SCROG I thought I was over trimming every single time. Then at the end of flower was surprised to see how much more could have gone away. Either way now I have hash bags so whatever isn't quality looking goes into hash making. So now I don't really care if I don't trim enough.

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Yeah you're right.. my last grow was a scrog actually and I did a lot of trimming, didn't seem to bother her! I will probably just go this route then.. much simpler and easier

justugh said:

no no no no bad bad bad

the idea u are talking about is called a Phototron
http://www.phototron.com/index.php/phototrons.html

the reason yours would not work is
1 the amount of soil for a good plant is 3 to 7 gallons
2 for u to have to room for it to grow good u are talking a 2 foot pipe (why grow something with 14 grams when u could make something with 2 ozs)
3 once it is in there u can not inspect it and read what the plant is telling u (red vein dots on the leaves )
4 how are u going to evenly water it
5 how to controll the smell
6 the heat ..........the light needs to be 1foot or higher so u are talking a 6 foot tube someplace

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could keep a small plant going with very little root space with passive hydro
if you do not mind watering it every day or other day or it will dry out
i seen some folks growing fairly big plants in little coke (330ml) bottles
passively just using perlite vermiculite mix or whatever

a small mother to produce a few clones could grow well enough on 55 w cfl

even with this small wattage the heat of that cfl will cook up the tiny airspace inside a plastic tube
might be better to consider a small led that can direct all the heat directly away above the plant inside a tube

i have to agree with you on the heat thing a narrow tube has a tiny amount of airspace compared to a small box or whatever
a fan will not be able to cool the air before its heated by the light

i have a 125w cfl in a cabinet that i threw together recently to start some cuttings/mother soon about 3ft x 3ft x 1.5 ft
i have a fan directly mounted next to the cfl blowing air across it and another fan 4 inch sucking air out
the temp in there is 6 degrees above room temp so it stays at about 76f ideal for mothers etc

i put a 250w MH in there just to see how hot it would get and the temp goes to 95f in about 10 minutes lol
25 degrees above room temp

Yeah the PVC plan was to use one of those Cree LED lights so heat would be down a lot, coupled with a powerful PC fan I figured it would work out pretty great.. but thinking further into it I will probably just stagger clones.. I still am tempted to try this just because I like the idea of it

your talking about keeping a short plant to make clones from

how is that misunderstanding

what u are not understanding is the stress bonsai plants under go ...............u are forcing a plant that wants to grow to stay small then u are cutting parts of it off to make copies

a large plant can take this stress and not be to effected but a small plant a bonsai ................u might as well just kill it after that 2nd cut if it comes back i will be shocked

u want to keep it on the cheap

we are telling u the idea is bad but u are not accepting it and telling me i do not understand ...........i understand it u are missing alot of factors that i get

justugh said:

your talking about keeping a short plant to make clones from

how is that misunderstanding

what u are not understanding is the stress bonsai plants under go ...............u are forcing a plant that wants to grow to stay small then u are cutting parts of it off to make copies

a large plant can take this stress and not be to effected but a small plant a bonsai ................u might as well just kill it after that 2nd cut if it comes back i will be shocked

u want to keep it on the cheap

we are telling u the idea is bad but u are not accepting it and telling me i do not understand ...........i understand it u are missing alot of factors that i get

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its not as easy as it sounds with all strains/phenos, some plants just do not like being chopped backed continuously
the last example i had of this was biker kush and NL x big bud i kept some very small mothers of these for a while

NLX big bud grew in an excellent symmetrical shape it produced cuttings/shoots from the base of the stem
all the way up evenly this growth was not vine like or stringy i cut it back numours times it continued to grow in its symmetrical shape perfectly
it would of made an excellent bonsai style mother i kept this plant for a few runs just because it grew so vigorously it wasn't my favorite smoke

the biker kush was a great smoke but made a terrible small mother plant, it grew very unevenly like a vine
the lower shoots were skinny floppy not good as cuttings , when chopped back it liked to shoot up tall before it produced decent growth at the top of the plant
the lower 4-6 inches of the plant was just stem lol and vine . some plants are like this and need to be kept bigger to give decent shoots for cuttings

peace

justugh said:

your talking about keeping a short plant to make clones from

how is that misunderstanding

what u are not understanding is the stress bonsai plants under go ...............u are forcing a plant that wants to grow to stay small then u are cutting parts of it off to make copies

a large plant can take this stress and not be to effected but a small plant a bonsai ................u might as well just kill it after that 2nd cut if it comes back i will be shocked

u want to keep it on the cheap

we are telling u the idea is bad but u are not accepting it and telling me i do not understand ...........i understand it u are missing alot of factors that i get

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Well you were talking about flowering it or using autos instead I thought? Maybe I misunderstood you. Many people keep bonsai mother plants, though, it's fairly common from what I see.

It's irrelevant at this point anyway, I will just end up staggering clones.
I know there are people who do use this setup, though, and was looking to hear from anyone who has. Seems more of a hassle than anything, though!

I'm not trying to NOT take your advice, I guess I just had a hard time understanding what you were trying to say by your wording, my bad.

Also by the diagram, the soil wouldn't be at the bottom of the tube itself, it would be in a pot within the tube, so you can take the plant out - if that makes sense? I realize now that it looks like I may have just threw soil in a long-ass tube and planted it in there, but you would be able to just lift the tube off the plant to water it and whatnot.

But yeah.. staggering the clones sounds way more convenient, less space, and easier (nothing else to build )

subb said:

Well you were talking about flowering it or using autos instead I thought? Maybe I misunderstood you. Many people keep bonsai mother plants, though, it's fairly common from what I see.

It's irrelevant at this point anyway, I will just end up staggering clones.
I know there are people who do use this setup, though, and was looking to hear from anyone who has. Seems more of a hassle than anything, though!

I'm not trying to NOT take your advice, I guess I just had a hard time understanding what you were trying to say by your wording, my bad.

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a plant that naturally has very tight internodal spacing and produces thick shoots near its base
is an ideal candidate for keeping small and can be kept very small

some plants mainly more sativa dominated ones seem to want to grow leaves and string near the bottom
so keeping these small is not so easy when you want thick robust shoots for cuttings

keeping bonsai is not common but its well known about, (forum popular) most folk keep a couple mothers in a tent
or buy clones or take clones from clones as they grow and keep no mothers at all run perpetual etc
i would think bonsai is one of the least common methods for keeping mothers

peace

Yeah mine will be Northern Lights if that matters. There are sticky threads on other forums for bonsai mums, just figured it was more popular with the micro-grow crowd. Definitely the least common, but still fairly common I think?

Probably will avoid a mother altogether though.

Thanks for the info, guys!

your idea is ok but the space is just very small in a tube
look at other grows here at RIU folk be putting little plants in loudspeaker cabinets and flowering them lol
this might be a better idea for you a loudspeaker can be stealth and also gives more room for the plant and more air space so you do not create a mini oven lol

peace

Didn't come up with it, read about it from some other folks, wasn't really sure if it would be worth it or not.. clearly not haha.
Screw keeping a mother anyway, I will just clone before flower and repeat.

subb said:

Didn't come up with it, read about it from some other folks, wasn't really sure if it would be worth it or not.. clearly not haha.
Screw keeping a mother anyway, I will just clone before flower and repeat.

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yeh that would probably suit you best anyway if you want to grow small plants that don't yield much
you might want a constant stream of plants harvested every 3-4 weeks etc

make/buy yourself one of those fancy aero style cloners if you havent already so you can root your clones as quick as possible 7 days or whatever
give them a little veg time just to settle in once they are settled 1 week or so then flower
take your next lot of clones during early flower just after the first growth spurt about 1 week into 12/12
but before you see too many pistils
this way you will have more shoots to choose from as clones and no delay going into flower
(during veg waiting for the plants to be big enough to take cuttings from)
you can take clones from clones without problems lots of folk do it for the perpetual thing

peace

skunkd0c said:

yeh that would probably suit you best anyway if you want to grow small plants that don't yield much
you might want a constant stream of plants harvested every 3-4 weeks etc

make/buy yourself one of those fancy aero style cloners if you havent already so you can root your clones as quick as possible 7 days or whatever
give them a little veg time just to settle in once they are settled 1 week or so then flower
take your next lot of clones during early flower just after the first growth spurt about 1 week into 12/12
this way you will have more shoots to choose from as clones and no delay in flower
you can take clones from clones without problems lots of folk do it for the perpetual thing

peace

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Yup I actually built a nice aero cloner, can't wait to set this baby in motion! Just about everything is set, I'm just finishing the last touches on my box and waiting for my living soil to cycle and be ready for planting.
Pretty excited to get this new setup started, though.. it'll be my first perpetual box, so I was pretty curious on the best method of providing clones.. I think I was worrying too much about keeping a mother plant when it's really not needed at all.. Will def get a journal up when the grow starts so look out for it. Judging my other scrogs I think I should be able to easily hit 1oz/month with my small box.. strictly for personal medicine

i think with your clone from clone plan you can get a harvest every 3 weeks or so
as you will have to wait for plants to be big enough to take the next generation of clones from
taking clones in early flower and the aero cloner will help speed it up as much as possible

folk that keep mothers with the perpetual thing can get a harvest every 1-2 weeks constantly taking cuttings
better still and very easy are folks who just buy clones this way you can get harvests every other day if you want lol

peace