"Tickover" tent and other cloning questions

I'm thinking ahead to plan for cloning any decent looking plants out of my initial seed grow.

I don't want to have a perpetual grow because I can't afford the electricity, don't need that much weed and don't want the stress and hassle. I want to knock it on the head for a good few months and then do a grow in the winter when heat won't be as much of an issue. However, it would be a crying shame to let any good genetics I may or may not have in my tent go to waste when I harvest.

So I gets to thinking, could I keep a mother "ticking over" without aggressive growth somehow? I figure having her under a low watt CFL like 125 watts or less will give a fair amount of stretch. Is there a way to keep her happy, keep her short, and not require a lot of electricity or attention?

When I was a lad I used to grow bonsai trees. Could I do this to a mother, trim her roots and keep her in a small pot to encourage her to grow like a dwarf? Would this have any knock on effects to offspring plants?

Cheers y'all.

You can. Just keep trimming. If low energy is what you want, use cree led bulbs.

I set up a cab with my old cfl hood to do a perp grow. I use mostly 7w led with a fee cfl for heat. so I am only pulling about 130w and have a good space for cloning and vegging. Not much trouble at all...

I'm intrigued by LED bulbs, but all the hydro shops I've visited don't sell them because of the unreliable results. From what I hear they have come on on leaps and bounds since their early days but I don't know enough about them, nor do I know anyone who does, to take the plunge.

CFL might be the way to go. If I can draw as little as 130 w to tick over, including the fan, I'll be happy. Presumably, if time isn't an issue, when it comes time to clone some babies, I could veg quite happily under the same low watt bulbs then just shove em under a massive HID to flower?

Here's another way....
Clone, your best plant... now... grow it along side mom...
CFL's small ones... 7-10 watts, low heat... 8 of them spread out near above...
Then when your 'daughter' gets roots... flip your mom to 12/12... yes you will need two small areas...
It will be a small plant... so what?
Then watch and grow and learn your clone..... as your clone gets to be 12-13".... clone it.... twice....
Over and over you will learn, and the CFL's will keep everything small...
Every 8 weeks.... clone another two plants....
The youngest I've cloned-17 days old, cloned the top of a small red cup clone...
In a year... you will be the clone master....
Good Luck!

Even from the very start, LEDs have been good for veg. It's flowering that's always been an issue.

FlashBabylon said:

I'm intrigued by LED bulbs, but all the hydro shops I've visited don't sell them because of the unreliable results. From what I hear they have come on on leaps and bounds since their early days but I don't know enough about them, nor do I know anyone who does, to take the plunge.

CFL might be the way to go. If I can draw as little as 130 w to tick over, including the fan, I'll be happy. Presumably, if time isn't an issue, when it comes time to clone some babies, I could veg quite happily under the same low watt bulbs then just shove em under a massive HID to flower?

Click to expand...

Sandx, I don't want to do a perpetual grow just yet, which is why I will want to just keep the (future) mother ticking over a few months until I start up again. Having two areas isn't an issue. I would be taking clones from mom and floweing them rather than floweing the mom. In the future, I may consider doing a perpetual grow under CFL or LED in future, because I would like to use the room my tent is in for a bedroom and set up a false wall stealth grow down one side. It would be a real small area so I would be doing a perpetual grow of quite small plants as you suggested.

Thanks for the input guys, it's given me some food for thought.

I seen this the other day in the soft secrets magazine issue 2 2014 maybe it can help

Danny, that's excellent, thanks very much for that, really useful!