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Clones From Clones From Clones
- Thread starter Zeez
- Start date
Y
Yard dog
Check out Heads posts and beware of the bogeyman....
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=140135
There were some other threads about discussing it too (I can't remember them)
In fact here's some more;
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=167789
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=149404
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=248249
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=173693
but it isn't genetic drift.
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=140135
There were some other threads about discussing it too (I can't remember them)
In fact here's some more;
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=167789
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=149404
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=248249
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=173693
but it isn't genetic drift.
~star~crash~
Active member
i would say yes that is true, but it would take many generations, not just a few & sometimes no problems get picked up , ...there are still 20 year old clones of clones of clones ...etc...out there...sometimes U run into tired old clones that are just plain weak
it doesn't happen to avacados or apples and my SD and OG clones are still the same dope after 25+ years.
clones from clones from clones held indoors under HPS with no sunlight degrade in vigor but the genes don't change.
pro nurseries hold their moms in light sup greenhouses to avoid this.
clones from clones from clones held indoors under HPS with no sunlight degrade in vigor but the genes don't change.
pro nurseries hold their moms in light sup greenhouses to avoid this.
frostqueen
Active member
I've discussed this at length with two geneticists/botanists. I'm inclined to think they are the ones who would really know.
If a cannabis plant is kept in optimum health, it can be cloned forever and remain vigorous and consistent. If you clone a plant that is not rapidly growing and fully healthy, the clone of it will be slower growing like the parent. Usually it will recover. In most genotypes it can still be returned to full vigor eventually with the proper attention. That being said, there is no genetic change that happens with any given cultivar after years of continued cuttings. The DNA remains intact.
What you are seeing as 'faded' in subsequent clones is strictly a physiological state; once a parent plant starts into a senescent phase (it is an annual, so it does fade out when it thinks the 'season' is ending for it) it becomes more difficult to bring it back to its original vigor. You have to shift the entire metabolic state back to one of youth and vigor. It takes time and patience. A clone of a clone of a clone, all from unhealthy plants, deeply entrenches the problem.
Restoration can be done in most cases, though. I've had a dedicated project going for a couple years now to study this. I originally started doing it to study the 'dud syndrome' people are seeing.
I discussed that problem at length with the botanists, too, and their opinion was that full-plant dudding is likely not a disease, but caused by an epigenetic reaction to certain environmental conditions.
Epigenetics (at least as they described it to me) is in this case basically the switching on or off of a gene or genes that relate to certain traits in a plant. There are likely a few environmental or physiological factors that combine to result in the dud syndrome condition. What is seen in the dudded individual is usually a near-complete lack of terpene production, a lack of resin development, a witchbroom like appearance in the veg state, brittle stems, and an increase in root problems that eventually can lead to pythium or fusarium infections. Those diseases are likely a result of the syndrome, but not the cause of it.
Further research is needed to track down what specifically causes the problem. Figuring out which specific genes are tied to the expression of various traits is necessary. Involved factors seem to include having a severe rootbound condition, low light conditions, cooler temperatures, and dietary deficiencies. Some genotypes are especially susceptible to it.
I have successfully reversed dudding as well as restored 'tired' cuttings to full health. It can be done. With duds it usually takes at least 3 generations of new plants and cuttings (and optimum growing conditions throughout) to restore the original vigor to the genotype. For rare plants it is worth the effort.
Genes are genes are genes.
Zeez nailed it in his own little way. There is a grower in S. California had some amazing blood lines yet his clones were getting horrible. Had a terrible time rooting, wimpy stuff.
We got the Ca, P and B dialed in along with everything else and the clones from these same mothers has done a complete 180, they are now spectacular!
Realize that the cutting only has a limited quantity of reserves. The less the reserves, the worse the cutting. What does that mean? Low vigor and most importantly, what most folks don't even look at, is the callus.
Just recently I opened up some clones for an other established grower with 150+lights. He was getting all kinds of chlorosis and all kinds of weird stuff happening in his plants that had 30 days in the ground.. I split the plants in two from the bottom up.
1. NO Callus!
2. Rot 4 inches up and going north.
3. Rot in both the bad cuttings AND in the good ones!
Imagine!
It is all about roots.
Roots are all about good nutrition.
Zeez nailed it in his own little way. There is a grower in S. California had some amazing blood lines yet his clones were getting horrible. Had a terrible time rooting, wimpy stuff.
We got the Ca, P and B dialed in along with everything else and the clones from these same mothers has done a complete 180, they are now spectacular!
Realize that the cutting only has a limited quantity of reserves. The less the reserves, the worse the cutting. What does that mean? Low vigor and most importantly, what most folks don't even look at, is the callus.
Just recently I opened up some clones for an other established grower with 150+lights. He was getting all kinds of chlorosis and all kinds of weird stuff happening in his plants that had 30 days in the ground.. I split the plants in two from the bottom up.
1. NO Callus!
2. Rot 4 inches up and going north.
3. Rot in both the bad cuttings AND in the good ones!
Imagine!
It is all about roots.
Roots are all about good nutrition.
clone=mother=clone=mother
Kevin Jodrey giving a good explanation of how cultivars get sick indoors and how they are restored to health in these videos.
he has a degree in nursery science and runs one of the largest clone OPs in the world, the upcoming new Cali 6 clones per day limit in legal stores will probably slow their roll some.
13:50 min into video.
[YOUTUBEIF]2KNPQqd10Uk[/YOUTUBEIF]
he shows off an '81 skunk getting restored in this video.
[YOUTUBEIF]VGrDVE4tNug[/YOUTUBEIF]
this is a longer video on the earthboxes and has an Asian Fantasy getting fixed.
[YOUTUBEIF]xpopShfmyrY[/YOUTUBEIF]
he has a degree in nursery science and runs one of the largest clone OPs in the world, the upcoming new Cali 6 clones per day limit in legal stores will probably slow their roll some.
13:50 min into video.
[YOUTUBEIF]2KNPQqd10Uk[/YOUTUBEIF]
he shows off an '81 skunk getting restored in this video.
[YOUTUBEIF]VGrDVE4tNug[/YOUTUBEIF]
this is a longer video on the earthboxes and has an Asian Fantasy getting fixed.
[YOUTUBEIF]xpopShfmyrY[/YOUTUBEIF]
Chunky,
Not sure that Jodrey has any degree, here is a good write up on his history.
https://www.northcoastjournal.com/humboldt/growing-the-machine/Content?oid=2883493
I find Kevin Jodrey a bundle of information, sometimes some poor logic for lack of understanding, like in this first video, talking about salts and organics. There are lots of salts in organic agriculture. Magnesium sulfate, potassium sulfate, calcium sulfate, the list goes on and on. Nearly impossible to balance a soil correctly without using a salt.
Kevins' observations about soil and hydro are completely right on. I would argue that he is correct but for very different reasons. The Ca/K ratio in hydro is usually a negative number or 1 at best, in the soil it is 10 or 12/1! What is wrong is his explanation, which at the end of the day is the most important point. I guess it doesn't really matter how you get to the conclusion that there is no way around microbiology and balanced nutrition. They are not mutually exclusive by any means. Using salts and putting them into humus molecules so that the plant can decide on what it wants to pick up are how one gets great yields and quality in organics.
Only watched the first video. Thanks for posting them. Love to pick his brain sometime!
As long as plant is healthy and you use new or sterilized tools/equipment as to not add anything viral to the cut. Then it won't degrade. Thats my theory and I'm sticky to it.
Kevin talks about reviving vintage F1s with grow boxes and natural sunlight. The point is that weather the plant is weak from bromidrosis or if it started as a clone from a crappy cut, it could be revived and the same genetics are still there.
This is a regular subject that gets answered each time.
And then gets asked again by the next new group of gardeners.
Anecdote time.
My favorite strain of 2004 was cloned exclusively until 2009 when another strain came along marginally superior.
Five years without deterioration is a given.
Another gardener had a sick plant he had been cloning since 1993 he gave to me for saving. This was in 2007. The plant was saved and cloned for four more years. I never sampled any of the original in the 1990's but it held its growth and potency for the four years after recovery.
The intact genome of Neanderthals has been sequenced after 75,000 years so it is my personal opinion that a few years of cloning is not going to degrade the DNA.
I did not read the previous pages because I read the previous eight threads with their accompanying 40 pages already.
Sometimes the biblical saying is true and there is nothing new under the sun....except to those born after the sun set.
And then gets asked again by the next new group of gardeners.
Anecdote time.
My favorite strain of 2004 was cloned exclusively until 2009 when another strain came along marginally superior.
Five years without deterioration is a given.
Another gardener had a sick plant he had been cloning since 1993 he gave to me for saving. This was in 2007. The plant was saved and cloned for four more years. I never sampled any of the original in the 1990's but it held its growth and potency for the four years after recovery.
The intact genome of Neanderthals has been sequenced after 75,000 years so it is my personal opinion that a few years of cloning is not going to degrade the DNA.
I did not read the previous pages because I read the previous eight threads with their accompanying 40 pages already.
Sometimes the biblical saying is true and there is nothing new under the sun....except to those born after the sun set.
The more I read, the more sense your answer makes. Epigenetics, hard & soft traits pertaining to duds, etc, all inconclusive at this time and contradictions existing even when discussed by PHDs. As far as facts, Duds are real. It is possible to reverse, although not easy. It is not a genetic variation but a physiological state.
I'm curious, Back to the cloning and branches selected for cloning, Do you think that some plants contain branches that are doomed to be "duds" unless somehow the switch is triggered to put them in the vitality mode?
Yard Dog, Frost Queen, Chunky, and all, Good answers, references and wisdom. Thanks. This is an incredible resource.
Absolem
Active member
Well said Frostqueen.
Great point Phaeton.
From personal experience I have a DJ Short blueberry from 1998 that I was given in 2006. Just as vigorous as the day I received it. It's from his days when he lived in the Detroit area. Back then it was known as the Detroit blueberry.
Great point Phaeton.
From personal experience I have a DJ Short blueberry from 1998 that I was given in 2006. Just as vigorous as the day I received it. It's from his days when he lived in the Detroit area. Back then it was known as the Detroit blueberry.
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frostqueen
Active member
In my experience, getting duds to reverse is quite a bit harder than restoring vigor to a tired old cut. Getting that 'switch' to turn back on to stop the dudding syndrome usually takes me 3 consecutive generations. I get the dudded plant as healthy as I can, then take the top as the clone. I give it the best light and food possible (calcium and silica are key), and keep temps in the low 80s to speed metabolism and transpiration. I do that 3 times. It's time consuming, but if you only have one plant of a given genotype and it's a dud... you do what you have to to save it.
Interesting question about the branches. The single-branch dudding could possibly be the plant deciding to prioritize food and health away from 'extra' branches, but there's not enough information to be sure yet. Single branch duds seem to have the same trait suppression we see in the full plant duds: lack of resin, lack of terpenes, brittleness. Nematodes have been blamed for single branch dudding, but I have studied cross sections of stem under a microscope and not seen any trace of them, at least in my garden. More research is needed.
I've reached the point now where I get very few duds. I can spot them in veg pretty easily now; they have a very distinctive look, and once you recognize it you can eliminate them before you go into flower. For me keeping duds at bay can be accomplished by using the same technique as reversing dudding in clones: by rapid vigorous growth and having plenty of root space. Your mileage may vary. Some genotypes are definitely more prone to it. In my garden WiFi and some OGs like Ghost are the most susceptible. GG#4 has done it once before for me, too.
I have taken a lot of pictures and written up a guide to ending dudding. I should get that posted.
I tried to emphasize how utterly real the dud syndrome is to the botanists, and the obvious need for research projects that could help understand it. (You can bet that I offered to run the program! Still trying to find my career/place in this new legal grow world.)
Dudding must be affecting commercial grow operations, but many growers wouldn't be able to recognize it as 'the syndrome'. Many growers often tend to blame root diseases (which IMO are actually the result of the syndrome, not the cause); or they assume that they had some sort of nutritional or ph problem. The key, though, is to recognize dudding in veg so it never hits the flower room. Undudding dudded plants in flower seems impossible at this point. I've tried everything.
So, back to your question about branch selection: I've noticed that almost all of my single-branch duds have been on the very lowest branches on the plant. I had one plant a couple years ago that was a half dud, with one half of the plant doing it while the other half was beautiful. I have a picture of that somewhere. So I would say your best bet would be to use branches higher up on the plant. Lower branches do root a bit easier than top ones, but in my experience the higher up ones still root fine. It may just take a couple days longer. Using a kelp/fulvic foliar a week before taking clones can help with rooting.
frostqueen
Active member
Your link doesn't work so I don't know what your point was, but telomere erosion in cannabis is not significant enough to cause DNA damage, according to botanists. Maybe you were using the link to describe telomere repair/replacement, which happens in healthy plants?
For those who don't know, telomeres are the caps on the end of DNA which protect chromosomes. Telomere erosion happens throughout a plant's life but also gets repaired in healthy organisms.
Mutagens would be the thing that causes cannabis DNA to shift. A good example is mosaic virus, or significant exposure to radiation. Many feel that they have seen virii in their gardens. I never have. It is a difficult thing to test for, from what I understand.
Possibly duds, branches or plants, have an impaired ability to produce, regulate or maybe distribute hormones as auxins. May be due in part to old cells that have not enjoyed constant new growth and development.
Under branches get less light, slowing everything down, so possibly dudism starts with handicapped growth due to environmentals.
Under branches get less light, slowing everything down, so possibly dudism starts with handicapped growth due to environmentals.
Y
Yard dog
https://m.pnas.org/content/92/21/9555.full.pdf
just remove the s from https, it's a glitch and adds the s
