Cannabis Sensei

Flowering Your Cannabis Mother Plant (Properly)

By Jake Willhoite · · Updated

marijuana plant grown outdoors in sunshine with someone grabbing the buds with one hand
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Using cannabis clones or cuttings is a great way to run your grow room: you get a uniform crop that grows with equal vigor and finishes at the same time.

However, there may come a time when you decide to change your strain and start again from seed, selecting a new mother plant from a batch of seedlings.

In that case, is it okay to flower your existing cannabis mother plant?

The short answer is yes!

How To Flower Your Cannabis Mother Plant

Cuttings are genetically identical to the mother plant they come from. So her buds should match what you got from her clones, although her size, age and pot will change how they turn out.

However, there are some points to consider when growing marijuana from the mother plant:

Isolate Her

Don’t put her in the same area as your latest cuttings if height and size are an issue. She is going to be larger than they are (unless you cut her right back).

Use a SCROG Net

If you’re flowering your mother plant indoors, use a SCROG net to support all those minor stems and multiple buds. Use knuckling to create supportive points in each stem.

Set the net high. Sativa-leaning plants stretch more after the switch to flowering, so they need less vegetative time under the net than indica-leaning ones.

huge marijuana buds from mother plant

Expect a Bushy Plant

You’ve been snipping her for a while. A mother plant in vegetative growth may look similar in size to a plant one or two months old, but she has been through constant pruning, or “pinching out.”

Cutting a main stem pushes the plant to grow new shoots from the buds lower down the stem. Every clone you have taken has changed her shape.

When a mother plant is put into flowering, the stretch at the start of flowering pushes all these small stems into growth. The result is a very bushy plant with a large number of potential colas.

Ignore the Old Growth

The lower part of an aging mother plant tends to have older, woody stems. However, the latest growth is fresh and just as vigorous as a cutting grown for the same period, and that’s what will produce your bud.

So ignore the older growth below the scrog line. In fact, this is one case where we would advise stripping those lower leaves and letting all the action happen in the newer growth.

tall cannabis mother plant

Be Realistic

Don’t expect huge colas from a plant grown this way indoors. A confined pot limits the root ball, and light is shared across a huge number of bud sites.

The result is many smaller buds, but the total yield should still be about what you expect for the strain.

Read Also: When to Stop CO2 When Flowering Marijuana

Stimulate Her Roots

An older mother plant has been growing in a confined pot for a long time. Before putting her into bud, cut off the top half of the plant, remove her from the pot, and carefully trim away any visible dead roots.

You can also use an enzyme product like CANNA's Cannazym, which the maker says breaks down dead roots into forms the plant and soil microbes can use. A root stimulator like Rhizotonic can help at this point too. Then re-pot into a container at least 50% bigger than the original, using a good cannabis growing medium.

Leave the mother in vegetative growth for a month to allow her to recover from this.

Watch Out for Diseases

Older mother plants can be more prone to disease and infection. Dense, entwined branches can also rub and trap moisture. Watch closely for problems throughout the flowering period.

Let Her Recover

If outdoor growing is legal where you live, you can put your mother plant outdoors in early summer in well-worked, fertile soil. A month of continued vegetative growth gives her time to recover from transplant shock and spread those pot-bound roots.

One of the best outdoor cannabis grows I have ever seen was a retired Original Amnesia mother, about two years old, that we gave to some friends at the end of May. They planted her in a small courtyard and gave her very few cannabis nutrients. By September, she was roughly 13 feet wide and 7 feet tall.

Cannabis is for adults 21+ where it is legal, and home growing is allowed only in some states, often with plant limits. Under federal law, marijuana outside FDA-approved drugs and state medical marijuana licenses is still a Schedule I controlled substance, so check your state's rules before you grow.

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