Ahh Sunday, the day of rest, (and some nice Hash !)

Hi,

I have a quick question about finding a suitable mother plant. I am currently growing in NFT and would like to start using cuttings rather than female seeds. If I was to buy non feminised/female seeds, how would I find out if the plant I wanted was female.?

Do I

1) Veg until pre flowers appear (5 - 6 weeks) then take cuttings ?
2) Flower the plants and take cuttings from the plant after it has shown sex, then use one of the cuttings for a mother ?
3) Flower the plants then re - veg afetr sex is shown ?
4) Take cuttings from all of the plants, label them, root them then flower them to find out which sex the plants are ?

Thanks in advance.
Mcplop

Hiya Jock, 1 or 4 mate.
Although i'de wait for them to show before taking cuts, so #1 for me...

RAZ

Hey Raz,

I was thinking #1 myself, how many watts would I need to keep 3 mothers alive ?

Cheers mate.
Mcplop

Two 20w 2 foot Fluorescent tubes should be enough to keep 3 mums alive.

Check for the Bonzai Mums thread.

My advice on selecting a mum would be to sex your plants, then take numbered/labelled cuts from the fems, then flower on the donors (females obviously )

After flowering and smoking, select the clone that you most liked from those you flowered, select for potency, stature, growing/flowering characteristics that most suit your needs.

And also I would suggest you have a read of both the articles here.

Hope that helps.

Edit to add I know you mentioned you are growing hydroponically, but the bonsai and cuttings advice applies just the same. Except you would put the cuts into rockwool.

EO.

Cheers peeps,

I like the sound of your suggestion EO, getting a mother and getting a crop, win - win.

Cheers
Mcplop

EO, I think that method is the best. 1 and 4 combined. However, I have a question regarding number 4. You suggest flowering the donors instead of the cuttings. Wouldn't it be a case of whether you want to do SOG or SCROG as to whether you flower the cuttings or donors? What I mean is, if you are trying to select mothers that will be ideal for SOG, maybe it is better to flower the cuttings of the tops, to decide which donors to keep, so that you know which donors will give the best cutting for SOG style? Or flowering the donors to determine which cuttings will be good mothers for SCROG? The best phenos for SOG might not show up under conditions where their tops have been cut and conversely, the best phenos for SCROG might not show up under conditions where they haven't had their tops cut. Thanks.

I understand what you are saying gunnaknow, but I think that flowering the plants from seed can still give a good indication of whether the plant is more suitable for sog or scrog. Which is a bit more strain than pheno dependant anyway.

As a rule I wouldn't use the top growing tip for a cutting anyway. I prefer to take smaller side cuts.
The donor plants wont make good mothers as a mum is always best selected from a clone.

Plants grown from seed can be big by the time sex shows and are not always suitable then for keeping healthy while you wait for the cuts to flower, dry and then smoke.
I just think it is way easier and more managable to flower the donors grown from seed and take small cuts from each, they are then busy rooting while you are flowering on the donors. With good timing and planning it will be possible to then flower on the clones as soon as the donors are flowered and that special mum is selected and put aside.

Does that make sense?

edit for spelling

Thanks EO, I see your point. It would be difficult to keep lots of large donors healthy whilst waiting for the cutting to root, flower and cure. It would also use up lots of unproductive space and light.

I have another question in that case EO. Would it be possible to take side shoots from the donors to be used as clones, then flowering the donors? That way, the donors wouldn't have been topped and you would be able to see which had the best pheno for SOG.

Perhaps side shoots won't be big enough to use for cuttings by the time the plants have shown preflowers? How old are plants usually when preflowers first show? I think I have seen preflowers at week 5 in the past. Never paid much attention and don't grow these days. According to OT1, smaller cuttings do better than larger ones because they are less woody, so root much quicker.

Any particular reason for this rule?

I am growing 9 seedlings at the mo, 8 chronic and 1 master kush, and I intended taking a good cutting from the top of each one (labeled), then flower the donors to see which are female, and growing on the female cuttings as potential mothers.
I just thought it would be better to take the healthy top section as the potential future mother.
Does the fact that the top section produces the main control auxins make them less suited as cuttings?
If so, then I can see why you would use side cuts.

Or is there another reason?
I'm a few weeks away from taking these cuttings, so it gives me time to sort out my plans, any advice appreciated.

Rex

Rex, I have heard that lower shoots have more rooting hormone within them, so root more easily. I'm not sure if it's true.

My question is whether the side shoots are big enough to use as cuttings by the time the plants have shown preflowers. In well established mothers, size of side shoots isn't an issue. I'm thinking that cutting should be a good 3".

definately, I always take smaller side shoots for cuts. (not that I have taken many tho )

I am not exactly sure of the science of it tbh rex, this is just my personal preferance, firstly I am not keen on topping plants that are about to go into flower. Having flowered both plants that I topped and those I didnt, among the particular stains I used, I preferred the non topped plants. For space and other reasons.

Secondly I prefer to take smaller side branches for cuts just because I like smaller clones. The top growth tip can have more foliage on it and be hungrier than the smaller side shoots IMO. I know it also goes against the common sense view that the main tip has a bigger concentration of growth hormone in it. I think all new growth tips have their fair share tho.

This is just my own preference tho. Other peeps do take main tips for clones and they have good rates of success with them.

I did find this time round with a new strain that the plant showed sex as early as 4 weeks on a couple of the plants, but the side shoots weren't quite big enough to take the clones. I had to wait another 2 weeks for all of them to fully show sex tho, by which time they were big enough. As long as the tip has 2 sets of leaves it is big enough to use for me. The bottom set of leaves i take off and cut the stem on a diagonal through the node there.
I take tiny cuttings tho around 2-3 inches. I have not a clone fail on me yet.

Thanks Mate!

Yes I am ...if not as soon as they show preflowers, but within a week or so after that.

EO, I wrote that message whilst you were writting yours, so I didn't see your reply to my earlier thread before I had posted my double checking question. I changed my message to a simple "thanks mate!" as soon as I saw that you had answered my previous post. You then replied to my message before you had seen that I changed it. I'm getting confused now.

No worries I specialise in confusion

Maybe it is a good suggestion for first time cloners to take two side cuttings of each donar before putting the donars into flower. That way, when they finally realise which donar did best, they are more likley to still have an alive cutting of it to use as a mother.

Thanks, I will keep all that in mind when I take my cuttings, and time enough to do a little more research.

Definately at least 2 just incase of failures. I would take a few probably, once they start to show roots either keep or discard the extras, as you wish.

If anything this is probably enough reason to take side shoots, with less foliage to support while rooting I would probably get a greater success rate, although thinking back to my last grow a few years ago, I seem to have green fingers when it comes to cuttings, I've not lost one yet.

Rex

Yep, that's how it's worked for me in the past, precisely the same method.