Any Existing Evidence that Clones upon Clones Degrade Yield or Quality?

taint said:

I agree with ya there but in practice I very rarely keep moms...................we're still talking I hope.

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only time i will keep a mother is when its decided that i stop growing then i will place a few plants under 24 hr light cyle till following year but IMO why bother keeping a mother when you can always clone from your existing crop last week and up to first week in flower i look at my trays and say these are my next generation and so forth

sorry I didn't read everything but think of an autoflowering plant and how its new growths are still the same age. if you try to take a clone from an auto then it will still flower at the same time of its mother. they are the same age.

i know of a plant that has been kept alive through clones of clones of clones since 1998.
still just as vital and predictable as ever.

tinyTURTLE said:

i know of a plant that has been kept alive through clones of clones of clones since 1998.
still just as vital and predictable as ever.

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Many strains have been maintained that way for decades, the key is to avoid major stresses. How do people think the lone G13 male (that's been used by various breeders for years) has been kept alive? Or Chemdog, God, Rom, etc...

Maybe it is time to culture some of that G13 male pollen.

svchop889 said:

I guess the question is how long is the appropriate amount of time to keep a mother plant. One season, and then replace with one of its own clones?

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I use mine for about 3 months or 3 passes of cuttings, then replace it with a spare clone. Same as Al B Fuct's method. They get too big and the stems too thin for my liking.

Homebrewer hit it on the nose. Remember this is a plant and 'age' isn't the same as people. They go through cycles. If you take a clone, veg it, clone from the veg and repeat it will always be genetically identical to the original no matter how many times you do it. This isn't like the concept of a clone of a clone isn't as good as the original, these is continuing the genes. Variation is dependent on environmental factors.

MasterS said:

Homebrewer hit it on the nose. Remember this is a plant and 'age' isn't the same as people. They go through cycles. If you take a clone, veg it, clone from the veg and repeat it will always be genetically identical to the original no matter how many times you do it*. This isn't like the concept of a clone of a clone isn't as good as the original, these is continuing the genes. Variation is dependent on environmental factors.

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* Unless it is an autoflower.

We'll being I haven't grown every strain there is to grow, even though I've had my share, I'm pro to keeping mom for as long as poss. Especially if the crop produced by her was to your liking. Whatever the reasons.. The crop grown from the 2nd generation clones could be inferior to the first. Why risk it. One thing I can guarantee is that the mom, no matter how old, will always produce "same potency/same crystalization" time and time again. Yeild may vary always.... Just my take & I speak it how I live.

Ive cloned from a clone for years.... I do clone from a clone of the earlier cut. I grew NL x Skunk for 3 years , thats 3 grows a year sometimes i can get 4 in but it depends on the strand type...I have owned and run 3 nurserys over he past 30 years and also grown my crops for me and my family.

Would vegging a mother for a couple years at a time, then flowering, and revegging, and repeating coax the plant into a state of longer natural life?

Smoking a bowl so in case I didn't make sense, lets say..
Mom is born from seed 4/20/11
Vegged until 4/20/13
Flowered until 'about' 6/20/13 (8 week flower)
Veg until 6/20/15
Flower until 8/20/15
Veg until 8/20/17

And so on, while taking clones the entire time (which if aimed properly could shape the plant into a nice little tree) and revegging it down to stubs every now and then,

Anybody ever heard of anything like this?

i dont think the genes are the supposed to be drifting after multiple cuts. i have seen strains degrade in quality after multiple runs. I am positive the quality of the next generation is solely dependant on the state of health of the mother plant. if your mum isnt happy, the clones wont be 100% and will show lack of vigor/less then par quality. and if you continue to take clones from your weakened previous batch, then you have achieved genetic "drift" and you are fucked and you need to replace your moms and start over.

i feel its easier for a mum to lose her vigor and her general health after multiple seasons of being forced to stay in veg. lets say you take a clone to make into a new mom once a year. as long as everything is healthy you should be able to maintain strains for years that way. but i cant stress enough, do not take clones from a plant that isnt flourishing

I for one have had a Sour desiel for going on 7 years and have seen no degradation in vigor or quality of the smoke. I have cloned off the clone right before the next goes into flower. The only diff is in the size as is normal for cloned plants.

I've heard of moms that were kept in Bonsai form for around 12 years. I plan to keep my mothers in Bonsai form, but I doubt I'll keep them quite THAT long.

after about 16 generations, you will notice a decrease in mold resistance, and desease resistance

I remember from a hightimes about 10 years ago, that once youve hit the 7th clone it was considered to not produce thc anymore..

in explanation this is Mother(0) clone it(1) clone that clone(2) clone that clone (3) and clone it again (4) then clone the 4clone again (5) cloned again(6) the next clone (7) was then to be known as almost a legal marijuanna.. if not legal.

This was read a long long time ago, so in essence, its just a hypothesis maybe.

thats a new one to me..

Absolutely not true and looking at it from a basic genetics POV makes absolutely no sense. The genes from the clone are the same as the genes from the mother. They do not change. There is nothing to change the genetics of the plant. Clone > Vegged > Clone can go on forever as long as you don't fuck it up and kill one along the way.

ray420365 said:

I remember from a hightimes about 10 years ago, that once youve hit the 7th clone it was considered to not produce thc anymore..

in explanation this is Mother(0) clone it(1) clone that clone(2) clone that clone (3) and clone it again (4) then clone the 4clone again (5) cloned again(6) the next clone (7) was then to be known as almost a legal marijuanna.. if not legal.

This was read a long long time ago, so in essence, its just a hypothesis maybe.

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Smells like a lot of bullshit in this thread. How would the dna of the plant change by taking cuttings? Also how is cloning like making a copy? It's more like cutting something in half and having it regenerate itself with no "replication" of any kind done, just natural plant growth.

And autoflowers don't rely on photoperiod to change their auxins, they do it automatically. It would be like cutting off an arm of an adult that is already matured and full of hormones and expecting it regenerate a fresh baby with pre-hormone characteristics despite the fact that the arm (which the body would regenerate from) is already swimming in hormones. Would the regenerated adult be genetically different from the baby the original genetics came from? No, but it would be an adult and not a baby.

ray420365 said:

I remember from a hightimes about 10 years ago, that once youve hit the 7th clone it was considered to not produce thc anymore..

in explanation this is Mother(0) clone it(1) clone that clone(2) clone that clone (3) and clone it again (4) then clone the 4clone again (5) cloned again(6) the next clone (7) was then to be known as almost a legal marijuanna.. if not legal.

This was read a long long time ago, so in essence, its just a hypothesis maybe.

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No. Just, no.