Inside the MÜV Mother Plant Room

Mothers are the foundation of life. They instill values, not just genetics, helping to set you on course for a life of your own. Mothers provide unwavering support in good times and bad, sharing in triumphs and failures. They deserve celebrating every day, not just Mother’s Day, in our humble opinion.

Mothers play an important role at the MÜV Cultivation Facility, too, in the form of mother plants, and are shown tender love and care seven days a week.

What is a Mother Plant?

When growing cannabis, there are two ways to approach producing plants: growing from seeds or clones. Growing from seed is almost like roulette – you toss the dice by purchasing seeds, without knowing if what you will receive is viable. This is because, though you may enjoy the parent strain, the seeds it produces will have variations; one may be extremely purple in flower, while the other may be green, with both exuding different levels of cannabinoids and terpenes. These variations within the same strain are known as phenotypes, indicated by numbers in strain names.

Mother plants are used to create plants identical to themselves. This is achieved by taking a cut, or a small piece of the branch, off the plant. These cuts are referred to as clones of the mother plant and exhibit the same characteristics as the plant they were taken from. Mother plants are kept in a vegetative state, meaning, they never flower. This is important as taking cuts from a flowering plant can stress the plant out, or even cause the clone to hermaphrodite in an attempt to pollinate itself.

How Are Mother Plants Chosen?

A lot of time and care goes into identifying the ideal mother plant for cloning.

Choosing a mother plant can be an arduous process. You must first pop seeds of the strain you’re seeking in multiple phenotypes. Having multiple phenotypes is key; because each will display slightly different properties, growing the variations helps to identify the pheno that best meets the growers’ needs.

It is not uncommon for stress tests to be conducted, which are the manipulation of growing factors like humidity, light, and watering to see how the plant reacts. You want a plant that can withstand these environmental factors and still produce your sought-after results. These phenotypes are brought to flower for an analysis of its characteristics, namely its terpene and cannabinoid content. The pheno that checks the growers’ boxes will become the mother plant. Once the mom is selected, seeds are forgone for cloning, arguably the fastest way to grow cannabis.

The Benefits Of Cloning Cannabis

Cloning marijuana strains is ideal, particularly in medical marijuana markets, as the strain will exude the same properties and characteristics. This allows patients to identify what has worked best for their symptom management and know when purchasing the strain again, they will achieve the same effects. The grower, too, benefits from cloning, as the strain is an exact copy of the mother, requiring the same nutrients and exhibiting similar yields and potencies.

Look Inside The MÜV Marijuana Mother Room

If you’re wondering what a mother room may look like, you’re in luck. The Pharm to Ü series takes you through the MÜV Cultivation Facility, starting with the mother room. Watch as Marina Mikkelsen and Cambell White, Assistant Directors of the MÜV Cultivation Facility, take us behind the scenes of the grow and explain the process of finding a viable mother plant. https://player.vimeo.com/video/546609660