Cannabis Biology?

You can clone forever!

Interesting question. I would say YES, it makes sense, because when you clone a 6 week old plant, the clones are effectively 6 weeks old, once they are ready for vegetative growth again, they'll probably be close to 9 weeks old. So chronological age continues on into the clones. However, I've heard of clones (mother plants) as old as 15 years that are still growing, so I would say that while marijuana has a finite life, it's probably more than 15 years! I would say though, it's probably a good idea to start new seed stock every couple of years just to keep things young and healthy.

The age of a clone taken from a marijuana plant, has the same genetic age as the mother plant.

Geozander said:

The age of a clone taken from a marijuana plant, has the same genetic age as the mother plant.

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And I would imagine, just like any other organism, that with aging comes more stress along with a decline in health and vigor and more chances for disease and pests to take hold.

LegalAid said:

For example \I clone a mature plant that has undergone cell divisions and had its telomeres truncated. The cloned plant grows up and further truncates its telomeres. I then clone that plant, grow it, and clone it..... and repeat the process. Can I clone from clones for ever, or will the telomeres eventually get truncated to a critical level and my plants will just die. [/COLOR]

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I thought this was well known common sense. Older mother plants make poorer and poorer clones as they age. This due to the clone's older cellar development. DNA errors get greated (mutations) and these errors get rewritten as normal DNA code. This happens in your body too as you age. DNA gets rewritten millions of times and sometimes an error just happens. Sometimes it permeant and other times it's not.

The same goes for a clone of a clone of a clone. If anything I'd be more worried about the mutations you'd get from over cloning.

In any case, your plant will most likely be long dead before you see any sort of strange mutations or poor clone productivity. Also you can make a clone of a clone of a clone up to 20 times before you notice some problems.

My professional interpretation is though the truncation is taking place and the plant is indeed older; but as a photo sensitive annual plant its age is very unimportant PHSP's tend to be mostly biologically immortal when held in a vegetative flowering stage. there have been anecdotal reports of people keeping the same mother for 25+ years before finding a new strand they like more. However due to the increased age of the cells you would need to consider will there be age related illness in the plant, in general yes, after a wile, most people like to change there mother plants ever two years or so to prevent this from being an issue in the weak clones rooting process. however that being said there is a myriad of xfactors that could contribute to symptoms that look like age related illness IE soil born sickness having longer to take root and root balls falling a part over time in hydroponic solution.