How long can you keep a mother in veg? What should I do if shes preflowering?
Get cuts taken soon, and wait for the cutting to re-veg. Once that’s done, replace the mother
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Should I flower her in a different room?
MILF’s are not worth the effort or wasted space in a flower room IMO. Usually mother stock has intentionally had their growth slowed down to reduce the turnover rate and they never really regain vigor that a properly vegging clone can. You already have deficiencies showing in the leaves. Typically the ratio of root mass to plant canopy is also out of balance and plants can already be root bound. Additionally, the structure of mother plants is commonly compromised for good flower production from taking multiple rounds of Cuttings. Think of it as multiple rounds of topping that can lead to an abundance of spindly secondary branches and too many flower sites that will be all larf. Because of the age of some mother plants there is also an increased risk of existing pythium root rot. As suggested above take clones ASAP and keep a few to replace your mother and flower out the others.
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I think you make a good point, but what do you think about: taking a lot of clones, and then trimming down the excess branches to encourage a more focused growth?
Not everyone has unlimited resources/access to growing and I’m sure some people would want to salvage their efforts. Just curious!
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We have our moms veg for months on end but has to be in a seperate room. Keep 18 and 6 cycle 600 watt is plenty.
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Shouldn’t you just keep lights on at all times in mother room? Just keep feeding till they get big and produce good cuts and cut away, trim down a bit and let it keep growing over and over until she doesn’t produce any more healthy branches. And if you like the strain, take a cut and repeat.
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Almost time to take her outside. She earned it. You know what? hook her up with some prize D while you’re at it. Someone here has pollen.
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I was assuming we are talking indoor? Questions I would ask: What is the current overall size of mother plant in question and how does this compare to your typical plant size when entering flower? This relates to if you have enough room/height to accommodate this plant if it snaps back and stretches hard. By the time I replace mothers they are typically to big and would stretch up into the lights. You could aggressively thin the plant to reduce spindly branches and excessive nodes, however this is just one more shock that can slow down a plant with reduced vigor. I would do a some now and then some later going into week 2. I understand that desire to try and finish out plants you already have a lot into, but clones off that mother if they will take well could surpass a milf in vigor, yield and health in about the same time you might spend nursing her along.
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I wouldn’t bother flowering that mother. The extra work never seems to be worth it to me. Let alone something that’s pre flowering under veg 18+ light.
To each his own though. It’s a weed, it will grow.
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I have had moms for about 12 months before i ditched them. After every round of cuttings i would butcher about 70 to 80% off of them to keep them manageable. Im not an advocate of flowering moms. To much debranching involved and the finished product isnt as good in my opinion.
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Three years ago i started some seeds in winter, we pheno hunted based on smell cuz they didnt grow very big, it was mid winter, we finished them in 5 gallon pots. We left the bottom 3 or 4 nugs and transplated to 10 gallons, revegged them under 24hr light in spring and put them back out for summer. We flowered them again during the natural fall flowering cycle in the 10 gallon pots. We harvested them last year and put them under 24 hrs of light again in 15 gallons and thought well fuck it lets see, they revegged. We had them back out for a third round with an additional 15 gallon pot underneath the old one. The stalks were incredibly thick and flowered just fine for the 3rd time. We actually killed them this time, but it was an awesome experiment getting 3 harvests from the same stalk.
We easily 2x our harvest from the year prior and im 99% certain the nugs were exacrly the same quality.
Oh yeah i just remembered the second round we bred with them. So we got 1 round of small terpy sensimilla, 2nd round was seeded buds, third round was sensimilla
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We have a Harley quin that was saved after flowering and got her to reveg out 
she’s looking good now gonna clone her her in a month or two. Lights are 20/4 right now
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All the other mother’s look fine this one just had some serious preflowering going on, she is a bit bushier than my other ones wonder if rootbound has caused her to start that. Lights were on 18/6 cycle, changed to 20/4 now.
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Heres a little trick.
You can always cut the rootball w/o any issues. You will stunt the plant for 1 week in doing this.
Remove plant from pot. Use hands and “massage” rootball to loosen up root mass and shake out some dirt. Now remove bottom 1/3rd of rootball. Use a very sharp razor blade or the like to do this. You can even shave the sides down as well. Repot and fill with fresh soil.
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bet thanks
Cannabis is a vegetable, not a weed. Common misconception.
“weed” is a judgement placed by the grower who would prefer something more “productive” or “desireable” in its place.
@Demontrich - Good tip on the root ball trim. Curious to learn more from your experience.
How often is this done and does what do you see as the primary benefit? Does this allow longer life for the mother or keep growth more in check? Or both? Any insight with fabric pots that make super dense root balls?
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Both
Fabric or the like are great. It automatically root prunes as roots poke thru fabric and hit the air, the root tip dies off.
But watering fabric pots pose challenges. You can get dry areas, where others are soaking. Then getting mold and rot on the bottom. You must raise pot off the floor to negate this.
I’ve even went as far as taking a set of hedge clippers to a room I let veg too long before flipping to flower. I hacked the tip 1/3rd of the plant. She flowered just fine, all with even canopy.
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I grow my mothers in a double stack HUGO blocks, surrounding them with Hydroton…
The key is to keep up with your clone taking. Never flower a Mother, they will not grow as good as what you were thinking… trust me, I’ve done it at least a half dozen times…
When you take a clone, you can use that as the new mother, but with over 10 years of growing, my clones that I mother never have the growth and branching as the OG mom… I know that mothers root structures grow deep, as a clone with just grow wide and shallow.
If you do have fathers, now would be the best time to induce genetic breeding… I always keep a father around for a good occasion (Currently, I have MOON DROPS father plants that I will cross with my JELLIUM and PLATINUM JELLY)…
Sucks when a good mom goes on her own to the next stage…