i do keep bonsai moms, i have for years. it's out of necessity. i would never recommend it over normal sized moms, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
if i take a two cuts from the same plant, but one cut comes from the bonsai mom and one comes from an 18" plant in veg, the bonsai mom cut will take longer to root and longer to take off after transplanting.
but, with extremely limited real estate in the garden, i choose to keep bonsai moms so i can have a larger genetic library. it's a nightmare doing big seed hunts and trying to keep everything backed up!
if i had the space i'd keep my moms in minimum 5 gallon containers.
i've always wanted to try grafting several varieties onto one root stock for a multi-mom, as a possible alternative for saving space.
as for the bonsai moms, i started with oldtimer's tech, but i've since moved away from his procedure.
i am able to keep fresh green growth by careful and intentional pruning. i can dictate the shape and direction of new growth by selectively pruning. i follow the common tree pruning advice and try never to remove more than 1/3 of the plant at a time.
this way i am able to entirely refresh the plant every few months. thats how i manage woody growth.
to avoid root pruning, i follow the general advice that a happy plant has as much above the soil as below. once the vegetation starts to grow larger than the container, i immediately notice fussiness---leaf drop, wilting, deficiencies, lockouts, etc. when the plant is at 110% the size of the container, i prune it back to about 75%.
finally, i prune off anything that's not gonna end up being good cutting material. for example, any branches that start to grow down. i hate cuts with curved stems. i shape the bonsai moms so that all my fresh growth is coming from the top of a branch, and will grow straight up to the light. kinda like a grape vine is prepped in the spring.
we've been keepin them in 1/2 gallon grow bags lollll
definitely not ideal.
i think rigid plastic nursery pots might be best. root training pots might be an issue when it's maintenance time if you can't easily slip the container on and off.
i don't root prune the bonsai moms but every couple months they've consumed enough soil that i've got a few new inches of space in the container. rather than top dress, which would quickly swallow up my tiny trunks, i carefully slip the entire root ball out of the container and fill the bottom with a few inches of soil, then replace the root ball on top of that.
i always take that opportunity to refresh the top dress, so i add some malted barley and neem cake and my home made castings, and top it off with a nice mulch layer.
hand watering is definitely a PITA. even two days between waterings is dangerous. the blumats definitely kick ass and make life way better.
if you can't do that then the perlite wicking bed is worth a shot! drought is the biggest risk of failure when keeping a plant in a small container for way longer than it wants to be there.
HTH!
Let me as you this heady. if space is an issue for you, why not just take a cut from your vegging girls and not bother with moms?
i do keep bonsai moms, i have for years. it's out of necessity. i would never recommend it over normal sized moms, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
if i take a two cuts from the same plant, but one cut comes from the bonsai mom and one comes from an 18" plant in veg, the bonsai mom cut will take longer to root and longer to take off after transplanting.
but, with extremely limited real estate in the garden, i choose to keep bonsai moms so i can have a larger genetic library. it's a nightmare doing big seed hunts and trying to keep everything backed up!
if i had the space i'd keep my moms in minimum 5 gallon containers.
i've always wanted to try grafting several varieties onto one root stock for a multi-mom, as a possible alternative for saving space.
I think I get it. I was just curious because I have limited space as well so that's why I don't keep moms and just take cuts of cuts. Never usually have any issues, and the rare time one doesn't root I take one from the plant in bloom and since it's only wk 1-2 it's still no issue. But I guess the time it doesn't root that way either I'll be really sad to lose a lady.
I think I get it. I was just curious because I have limited space as well so that's why I don't keep moms and just take cuts of cuts. Never usually have any issues, and the rare time one doesn't root I take one from the plant in bloom and since it's only wk 1-2 it's still no issue. But I guess the time it doesn't root that way either I'll be really sad to lose a lady.
oh yea we have lost some gems in the shuffle. in the last year and a half i've revegged maybe half a dozen plants and rooted cuts from even late flower more times than i care to admit
we do our best but sometimes things slip through the cracks or, worse, fate takes them from us despite our best efforts.
the little bonsai library is an attempt to hedge our bets.
Lol I absolutely HATE when im banking on a reveg for a prized lady, nothing is more stressful IMO. I sit there willing the girl to grow, fearing if I take my eyes off her she'll shrivel up and die on me. Especially if she's really special.That's about what I do as well. If push came to absolute shove then I would try one last reveg Hail Mary.
Hopefully good cuts are spread around your circle though so in the worst case a good buddy would still have a cut for you?
we keep them in 8 sqft under a few hundred watts of fluoro. this keeps them alive but not exactly thriving.
as i mentioned before the cuts off the bonsai moms under insufficient lighting take longer to root and longer to take off once transplanted than the same genetic material cut from 18" plants in 10 gallon containers happy in veg.
it's a back up genetic library to be used in case of emergency.
if we want to put something back into rotation, we usually take a cut from the library, get it nice a healthy in veg, then take more cuts off that plant.
a few times a year we sit down to a somber culling ceremony. anything subpar is obviously cut first, but we also make head-to-head considerations with stuff that fills a similar niche. for example we culled the chemx we had last year when we found the white jeep. both have a strong chem high but the jeep grows a thousand times better.