Plant splicing...

[Cannarado]

Was watching "How they do it" waiting for my brownies to finish up for tomorrows trip. Anyway, they were talking about growing Cocoa Trees. They planted a seed, let it grow and at a week it was over a ft tall. At that time they take the sprout, cut it in half down the stalk after cutting the top off, and stick a "Cutting" into it

"To ensure a high yielding plant".

Ummm... Ether this could be an awesome way to get good traits into certain plants, or the crappiest cloning method i've seen.

I cant find much on the net about that process. I also am not understanding it. Anyone heard of such a thing?

 

[bromhexine]

ive heard of it before but never saw it done successfully i can see how it would be worth doing though by using an established root system for a young stalk. It'd be fun to play around and see if different strains root systems make other strains better buds. To do it well I'm fairly sure you'll need a woody cutting.

 

[moonunit]

Hi m8, sounds like a graft, this is actualy alot more common than most think. Most every rose you buy will be grafted. The reasoning is that the newer varieties of some plants, cocoa and roses for example, have poor root stocks but great traits above the ground. So they get a variety with a great rootstock and disease resistance, and graft the new variaty on to it. Hybrid tea roses especialy needed a grafted hardy root stock, in australia the rose variety dr huey is almost exclusively used as a rootstock line, onto which all the newer varieties with for rootstocks are grafted before sale.
hope this helps m8
much respect
moonunit

 

[moonunit]

Oh and i forgot to add
yes a multi strain mother plant can be achieved this way

 

[Cannarado]

Oh and i forgot to add
yes a multi strain mother plant can be achieved this way

Thats what im wondering... like taking strains and turning them purple, or like if its a decent way to get "Hybrids" without artificial insem lol.

 

[bromhexine]

traits wouldnt blend by grafting but you might get a fuller bud or faster growth or stronger stem

 

[OMountainMix]

When France had all the problems with their wine grapes, they took French vines and put them on American rootstock, and now you can actually buy good wine in America.

 

[Cannarado]

traits wouldnt blend by grafting but you might get a fuller bud or faster growth or stronger stem

Elaborate?

The whole point of the splicing for the trees was to ensure a high yielder with whatever else. They didnt elaborate on how it works or why.

Im wondering if it would be a good way to sog? Use last plants harvest stems to graft in a new top - Quicker 'rooting' that results in just one massive bud?

I wished i had area to play around with this... soon hopefully.

 

[bromhexine]

apparently it isnt easy to get the graft to hold. it takes some weeks and the plants must be in low light low heat higher humidity and the graft has to be sealed properly using grafting tape/wax. one mother plant with several strains would be pretty fucking cool problem is eventually with mother plants is after less than a year you gotta take cutting from them and start all over a new mother. i know that if you graft an indica to a sativa roots the plant wont be anything like the sativa the root system is just more developed so it can push more nutrient through but it isnt pushing any genetic traits.

 

[Cannarado]

apparently it isnt easy to get the graft to hold. it takes some weeks and the plants must be in low light low heat higher humidity and the graft has to be sealed properly using grafting tape/wax. one mother plant with several strains would be pretty fucking cool problem is eventually with mother plants is after less than a year you gotta take cutting from them and start all over a new mother. i know that if you graft an indica to a sativa roots the plant wont be anything like the sativa the root system is just more developed so it can push more nutrient through but it isnt pushing any genetic traits.

What makes ya think you have to replace you're mothers? I know of mothers several years old...

Have anything to back up that it wont pass traits?

 

[bromhexine]

what sort of containers are those mothers in that are several years old? i thought i read that if you keep the same mother too long it will cause problems as well as a decreased amount of production once rootbound. the traits not being passed on ive read somewhere although maybe someone else can chime in on that.

 

[Cannarado]

what sort of containers are those mothers in that are several years old? i thought i read that if you keep the same mother too long it will cause problems as well as a decreased amount of production once rootbound..

Rootbound is a state of mind. They are in 6" square pots, bonsai.

You'll read it all over the place - doesnt make it true. Often its hear-say or someones guess. Search google for "Al. B. Fuct". He grows some massive plants in some not so massive pots. Puts the thought of "rootbound" to shame.

As far as mothers, if a mother couldnt last that long - we would lose a ton of strains. The other myth that goes along with replacing mums is "A clone of a clone of a clone" degradeing genes. But ether theres not much research on it, or i just havent found any. But my friends been pullin clones off his crop for a good while. He takes 2 clones from each plant in flower to replenish his harvest. No mums. Same strain for 3 years - last bud i got was just as good as my first.

And by that thinking, you'd always have to do moms by seed. Cause if keeping the mom there that long is bad - dont you think the timeline would continue for the genes to degrade?

 

[moonunit]

Hi all, no trait blending or hybridization of any sorts would occur. Simply, if you graft plant A's top end to plant B's rootstock, everything above the graft is plant A and its genetic expression, and everything below the graft is plant B and its genetics. Multi strain mothers can, have and do happened, but it really is only practical in places with extreme laws reguarding plant numbers, as it is just soooo much easier to just grow seperate mums of the different mothers you wish to keep than to graft them all on to the one tree. Fruit trees are cool though, fruit salad citrus trees with a branch each of many different citrus plants for example.
The increased yield comes from the fact that they obviously have a high yielding new cocoa variety( lets say A), but it is poor in the rootstock department and or disease resistance, hence rarely gets to yield to its fullest potential. Grafting said variety( A) onto a cocoa line that has been bred or preserved for its excellent rootstock and or disease resistance(B), and you get the best of both worlds, using two different phenotypes of cocoa to achieve one goal without breeding( and the massive ammount of time it may take).
The thought of using it in the cannabis field has been toyed with and ideas have been kicked around, but nothing beyond a few novel mother plants have really come of it. Ideas of maintaining a big rootstock indoors, with stem sites to continualy graft new donor tops onto for production where milled over, but its is just not practicle. The main probs with the idea was most have trouble maintaining the roots of their plants indoors for just one cycle , let alone constantly and indefinately looking after the same rootstock. Also as is know, roots generaly speaking only feed through their newest fine root hair growth, hence a healthy rootstock essentialy must be one that keeps on growing till its and the plants death, the only way to achieve this in a contstant stactic root system as discussed would be constant root pruning to allow space for new growth. All of this, even in the most disease resistant varieties would be to much, and diseases like pythium ect would eventual take hold and take the rootzone down in all but the most lablike of grows. The extra work, effort and the negatives far outweighed the positives for this kind of thing, but it was a trip of a discussion though, and discussions like it are needed, as not all end in the negative so to speak.
much respect
moonunit

 

[bromhexine]

not sure what you're talking about cannarado i never said new mother from seed but i remember seeing a video of the guy from greenhouse seeds saying you shouldnt keep a mother alive for more than a year before taking a cutting an making a new mother from it. course you're talking 2 cuttings at a time from your mothers while perhaps he was talking about taking 30 branches each harvest. but rootbound being a myth.. well thats something i'll let others weigh in on.

 

[Cannarado]

not sure what you're talking about cannarado i never said new mother from seed but i remember seeing a video of the guy from greenhouse seeds saying you shouldnt keep a mother alive for more than a year before taking a cutting an making a new mother from it. course you're talking 2 cuttings at a time from your mothers while perhaps he was talking about taking 30 branches each harvest. but rootbound being a myth.. well thats something i'll let others weigh in on.

You can trim roots up and allow for new growth.

Im talking about seed because of the myths of "A clone of a clone of a clone" arent true and if so, then everything would have to be done from seed. And i just dont get how plants genes supposedly degrade over time. Do trees have to be replaced every year? No... they live hundreds of years!

And if he were to take 30 cuts, he'd have nothing to harvest. He's not doing it from a mom. He cuts the plants in flower. He flowers 20 plants, so he takes 40 cuts (2 from each plant) to root just before his crop finishes out so he can just roll the new clones in and start vegging.