Midnight Rudy
Member
hey there
im starting some plants from seed which i plan to keep as bonsai moms,
i was wondering what would be the 'minimum' ammount of internodes in a plant from seed to make the first cut to keep a bonsai mum?
thanks!
n
I normally top a seed plant when it get to 5 leaf sets. Meaning after the first set of nonserrated leaves but counting the first serrated single leaves. I leave that single leaf set, and two other nodes. Once I had one die, but the other 30 or so I have done that way have been fine. The clones from the top like that fme are bulletproof and I don't think I have ever lost one. I typically take the clone and then flower the seed plant for sexing and evaluation.
If i wanted to keep my bonsai moms in solo cups, how frequently should i expect to trim the roots??
I was using a Hiko tray that has about 400ml volume per, and am now using 10 oz solo cups. Either way they are due for a root pruning every 3 months or so and I do it just like it says here. They love it and just go nuts a week or two after the pruning. I can hold up to 7 moms and I run a 25 plant micro sog. Never had a problem with my moms not producing enough cuts and usually was throwing away twice as many as I was using. Most of my cuts are only a couple inches long. I don't use intense light because I DON"T want tight nodes on my moms. I trim to encourage lower growth to keep my heights down and to encourage the soft growth that is best for cloning. When I root prune I bury the main stalk some too.
When you first start keeping bonsai moms it is a real good idea to always have something in clone and a couple versions of the mom in veg so you can make the occasional mistake and not loose your genetics.
My .02