Mother plant

A mother plant (stock plant) is a genetically elite female cannabis plant maintained indefinitely in the vegetative state under long photoperiods (typically 18/6) to serve as a continuous source of cuttings for clonal propagation (Caplan et al. 2018; Punja et al. 2019). By preventing flowering, growers harvest repeated flushes of juvenile stem tips without allowing the plant to allocate resources to reproductive tissue. Mother-plant programs enforce rigorous phytosanitary protocols because latent systemic pathogens — especially Fusarium oxysporum, Pythium spp., and hop latent viroid (HLVd) — propagate into every derived cutting, a phenomenon Punja (2021) dubbed the "COVID of cannabis." Periodic rejuvenation via meristem tissue culture or replacement from backup stock is recommended to counter genetic and epigenetic drift and pathogen accumulation. Etymology: Old English mōdor + Latin planta. Synonyms: stock plant, donor plant, "mom," mother stock. → See also: Clone, Cutting, Cloning, Vegetative.