Deep Dive: Why Are Healthy Mother Plants Important?
Unveiling the Powerhouse: OGEN's Mother Room!
Today we are here today to chat about the importance of OGEN’s Mother room!
The mother room is an essential part of any cannabis facility. It helps to guarantee a steady supply of high-quality cannabis for future production.
The room is called "mother" because it is dedicated to cultivating cannabis plants. These plants will be used to create clones and are carefully selected for their desirable traits, such as:
· High potency
· Aroma & flavour
· and growth rate
In this blog, we will explore the key aspects of our mother room. Let's see why healthy mother plants are an essential part of our cannabis cultivation process. We will also look at what goes into maintaining a healthy mom plant!
Optimal Growing Environment
When it comes to the mother stage, achieving and maintaining optimal growing conditions is key. This ensures healthy clones and plants right from the start.
A well-designed mother room considers various factors to create the ideal growing environment. But there are three extremely important things to consider and keep an eye on:
Mother Room Lighting
One of the mother room's critical elements is lighting. Lighting can directly impact plant growth and development. For this reason, we choose to work with Ceramic Metal Halide (CMH) lighting. This is due to its:
· High efficiency
· Low heat output
· Ability to provide a full spectrum of light that is similar to natural sunlight
Especially in places like Canada, we need to mimic natural outdoor growing conditions in an indoor environment. This is to promote healthy and robust plant growth. Click here to read our thoughts on HPS, CMH, and LED.
Environment Regulation – Temperature & Humidity
Another important aspect of the mother room is temperature regulation. Cannabis plants thrive in a specific temperature range. This is typically between 20-28°C(68-82°F).
Maintaining the right temperature is vital to prevent stress on the plants. Stress can lead to stunted growth, reduced yields, and unhealthy plants.
Humidity is another essential factor for ideal growing conditions in the mother room. Excessive humidity can lead to the growth of mould and mildew. Low humidity can cause the plants to dry out and wilt.
As the plants enter the flowering stage, the humidity level gradually lowers to 50%. This is as they near the end of their lifecycle.
Plant Feeding Schedule
Customized feeding schedules are critical to providing the necessary nutrients for cannabis plants. This ensures they grow and thrive. Nutrient deficiencies or excesses can have detrimental effects on plant growth and quality.
It is essential to tailor nutrient-feeding schedules to meet the needs of each plant. This ensures they receive the right balance of nutrients for optimal growth and a high yield!
Maintaining Plant Health
As we’ve mentioned, mother plants create genetically identical copies of our cultivars. This is through cloning practices. Because of this, maintaining the health of the mother plants is a top priority.
Lighting, nutrients, and the growing environments are the building blocks of creating healthy plants. Other practices like pruning also play a big impact on regular plant maintenance.
Pruning Your Cannabis Plants
Pruning the mother plants is important for several reasons. It helps maintain the plant's shape and size.
Mom plants can grow very tall and wide compared to what we see in flowers. Regular pruning will make the plants easier to manage. This also allows better airflow and light penetration to the inside growth.
Removing dead &damaged leaves can help prevent the spread of disease and even pests. Pruning can encourage the development of new shoots and branches. This can lead to a fuller, more robust plant and high-quality clones.
Plant Inspections
It is also extremely important to regularly inspect your plants. Deficiencies show the many ways you are failing to take care of them. Learning how to read your plants will guide you in making the right decisions around feeding and other treatments.
Careful attention is also given to preventing the introduction of pests and diseases. These can quickly spread and infect other plants in the facility but can also be prevented!
Cutting Clones
The mother room is where the process of cloning begins.
We grow the cannabis mother plants to an acceptable size. If they are healthy and robust, cuttings are taken and placed into trays in the prop room. This is where they begin growing in our deep-water culture system.
These cuttings will eventually develop roots and become genetically identical copies of the mother plants they were taken from – this is a process called propagation (read more about our team or processes here!).
Once rooted, the clones are transferred into the veg rooms and placed inside Rockwool cubes. Here, they will grow further and eventually be transferred to the flowering rooms. Then, they will grow there until harvest.
Phenohunting
Our mother plants are very special to us. A lot of time, effort and care has gone into crafting our cultivars. It all starts with our phenohunt. This is the process of selectively choosing cannabis plants. This is to create new strains with specific characteristics.
Our cultivation journey commences in the propagation room, where seeds are carefully nurtured.
The plants transform into small veg plants. They make their home in the mother room. This allows us to collect valuable data on their unique characteristics.
In this meticulous process, we handpick plants that exhibit desirable traits. These include:
· Potency
· Captivating flavours
· Aromatic profiles
· Impressive yields
Matured plants undergo further cloning. Resulting clones are then monitored to identify inherited traits.
The chosen "winners" find their place in the mother room. They reign for 6-8 months before new mothers emerge.
Healthy Mother, Exceptional Flower
A cannabis plant can only produce its best flower if it is healthy and happy. That starts with the mother in its cloned from.
The mother room provides an optimal growing environment where plants are carefully maintained, pruned, and fed.
This ensures their health and robust growth. Maintaining the health of the mother plants is essential. They serve as the source for our clones and Phenohunting. This is to develop new strains with desirable traits.
We pride ourselves in our well-designed mother room and dedicated team of professionals. OGEN produces high-quality cannabis for its customers at a consistent rate.
