What Are Mother Cannabis Plants and Why Have One?

Hmmm. It’s not often the words mother and cannabis are used in the same sentence unless you’re in trouble at home.

However, while your own mother may not approve of your relationship with cannabis, there is another mother who you can turn to instead, a mother cannabis plant.

In simple terms, a mother plant is a plant you can continually take cuttings from, and as it is a female plant, you will only then get female plants from the cuttings – it’s a form of cloning.

A mother plant is also bit like a factory for cannabis plant cuttings, as you don’t harvest any cannabis from it.

Using cannabis seeds is a great way to grow cannabis plants, but you can never be 100% sure what the plants will end up like. Not every plant grows the same, even from the same batch of seeds.

From your crop of plants grown from seed, pick the best three or four.

Do this by week two of flowering as by then you will have been able to identify and throw out all male plants.

However, before one plant ultimately becomes your mother plant, you will want it to go through one growing cycle where you can then check their root health, pest resistance, flowering potential and, of course, how the cannabis smokes.

In addition, if you take cuttings from each of these plants, you can see how they react to stress.
With the cuttings from each plant, you can then check them to see which root the quickest.

In the initial cuttings’ two-to-three-week vegetative state, see which cuttings grow fastest.
Once you flip your cuttings to bloom phase, see which have the best flowers and which develop the fastest.

Finally, check the harvested cannabis to see which comes closest to the desired effect you are looking for.

Once you have been through all these stages, you can make your final decision which plants you want to keep as mother plants.

You now want to keep these in a permanent state of vegetation, so you need to set up a minimum 14/10 day/night cycle, though 18/6 will produce faster plant growth and enable you to take cuttings more frequently.

Ideally, you want to just take a few cuttings each time, but regularly, so that you have a constant ‘conveyor belt’ of new plant growth for your cannabis supply, rather than having to harvest loads each time.

In the interim, just keep the plant well-trimmed – similar to Bonsai, and remember to trim the roots before the pot becomes rootbound!

Now bringing home your new boyfriend or girlfriend to meet your mother takes on a whole new meaning!