bump
12 inches is a pretty small space. I was just thinking.. what about lst (low stress training) hang little weights on the stems to pull the plant over and make it grow horizontally.
I found this on google. it sounds like topping, then LST method to get multiple colas. I might give it a try some time, but I think I'll like the SoG method better. it sounds better to have one plant focusing on a single cola. one person on there said it takes longer to flower if you FIM.Thanks, I hadn't considered LST. Do you know what FIM is? I keep seeing it mentioned but haven't seen an explanation.
considering your size restrictions I would avoid mother plants all together unless you are doing a decent sized sog grow. Just take clones from the lower section of your vegging plants each round, or if topping use the tops, and you can avoid the need for mothers all together. Mother plants are really only needed if you need to get lots of clones often and are not planning on vegging for any substantial amount of time.
From what I have heard it takes a very long time (like years of continuous cloning) for the genetics to begin to degrade. Many people with pretty large set ups don't use mothers and just use this method. As far as fimming you were linked above, but basically it is just a form of toping where instead of taking the entire top node off you cut just above the top node which can provide an extra top or two, basically it is no different than topping just an optical illusion because the new top comes up immediately after the node that you have cut above.