Possible mutation from mother/cloning technique?

[Pot Belly]

I have a perpetual cloning cycle that I use that keeps my 2 strains going, and limits my total plants to 3 at all times. (2 vegging, and 1 in flower.) It's very efficient for me, and works well for my personal needs.

Instead of maintaining a dedicated mother plant for each strain, I take a cutting, and make a clone from the girl that I'm sending in to flower. That clone will root, and veg until it's time for her to go into flower. I alternate between strains in flower, so when one is done in flower, there is a nicely LST'd 4 month old bushy vegged plant ready to send to flower.

So on to my question.........Is there more of a chance for the strain to "mutate" due to this cloning style compared to maintaining the same mother, and taking cuttings off her indefinitely?

 

[Pot Belly]

Bumping this.......

Any thoughts?

 

[WeedHopper]

I am doing the samething untill I decide to go for seeds. I have kept the male alive by cloning and killing. I jus dont wanna mess with seeds yet. But I would like to get some beans soon,,because that way I can start another couple strains without keeping a Mother alive or a constant clone cycle going,, all the time.( Small Growroom, nice but small). I will Clone untill I have plenty stash of that strain,,then pollunate,get my seeds and ,,,well you get the jest of it. Wanna get several Types smoke put up in Jars and beans too.

 

[Pot Belly]

Doing my cloning this way keeps my space requirement down to a minimum, as well as the number of plants.

I was just curious if not maintaining the same "root stock" for a mother would cause some sort of adaptation, or mutation in time. I understand that a rooted cutting is an exact replica of the host, but would continuous cutting and rooting from consecutive clone generations cause a change in that pheno over time?

 

[Tater]

Highly unlikely. Mutations are generally a result of outside forces. In order for something to mutate you would need to add/remove/damage its dna sequence. So unless you regularly work with radioactive elements (or something else known to cause mutations) you should be fine. I've heard reports of strains losing strength but I find these claims to be dubious to say the least. Until I see a study using gas chromatography or mass spectrometry to accurately measure THC levels over time I call **.

 

[leafminer]

It's a good question and thanks for asking it.
I know there has been some discussion as to whether cloned animals would have a shorter life than originals due to the shortening of the telomeres.
Unfortunately I have no idea if plants even have telomeres ...
Cosmic radiation bombards all living things at all times, plus the mutagens in the environment, so my guess - just my guess, mind - is that the risk probably is cumulative, so yes. What do you think?

 

[noneedforalarm]

i use the same method at the moment.but on multiple plants.so if there is a deteriorating effect going on it will be a looooong time before it even becomes a problem.hell by the time it becomes a problem(IF IT becomes one) i will have long been through many grow cycles and the strain i did it on would be a distant memory by the time it started to lose it potency if i continued using this method on that same strain for an x amount of years.
but i started with one mother and took 6 clones from her,and will take less from more plants and continue with that for awhile.so 1 mother 6 clones,6 mothers 12 clones.ya dig?

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

I have "heard" that the quality will deteriorate if you keep taking clones from clones.....but that has not been my personal experience. My 5th (maybe 6th) generation clones seem as healthy and potent as the original plant.

 

[WeedHopper]

Yeah,,I dont see how a clone can change,,unless outside forces change it somehow,,right. I mean,,clone means an exact duplicate,,so it shouldbe the same untill someone or something changes it,,crap,,Im high..Forgot what tha hell I was talken about. Ill be back,,gotta take another hit. Makes me smarter for a few seconds.

 

[slowmo77]

i do my clones the same way and haven't had any problems. i have 2 strains i've been growing for over a year now do it this way. i did take clones from a plant a couple of weeks ago and now its growin crazy. it went from 2 branches at each node to having 3. the mother plant isn't like this at all and the cuttins weren't like that when i cut them. very strange.. but healthy so who cares.

 

[tankdogster]

I was also wondering if the plant will get progressively older and older? Like short veg and rapid flower. Maybe that would be OK

 

[Lemmongrass]

***, how could a plant pic up a triple chromosome train midclone?

 

[Hick]

After several generations of cloning clones, there is a depression. They will startt to loose vigor, become weaker, ect. ..IME. I have sen it on a couple of occasions in my own stock.
I think POTUS mentioned it in another thread, not too long ago. I think it is rather a mystry as to why or how.

 

[slowmo77]

***, how could a plant pic up a triple chromosome train midclone?

well lotek, im not sure of the how but i'll be glad to post a pic of the original plant and the cuttin i took from her. the mother only had two branches at each node and the clone now has 3. i didn't do anything to my knowlege that would cause it and i doubt i could do anything to cause it. like i said i have no idea how it happend but it did.

im not sure what that first word you typed was but im sure theres no reason to start a sentence that way. not trying to be rude but if your addressin me please do it with respect as i would to you.

 

[HappyCat]

From my admitedly non-professional understanding of genetics continuous cloning copys the genes of the mother plant. After many generations small genetic errors and inefficiencies build up in the genetic code, slowly sapping the clones strength and vigor over time.

This could well take a great many generations of cloning however, especially on plants that are not very stressed, perhaps much longer than would be practically noticed in any one breeders lifetime. Then again higher stressed clones may be noticeably losing vigor and potency in just a couple generations.

While not completely understood the natural process of reproduction helps to reset the genetic material.

Of note some interesting traits have come from similar processes. Thornless blackberry and raspberry vines are almost always clones of particularly old and established vines. For some reason very old vines sometimes lose their thorns; however when seeds of these vines are grown they produce normal thorned vines again.