How much vegetation removal can a photo survive?

[TinyMeatGang]

Hi all! Not sure how to start this effectively so I’m just gonna bullet point my current grow situation in chronological order:

• Planted my mother plants from seed about 4 months ago
• Mothers grew for 2 months before I took clones off of them
• Rooted and planted the clones and gave them a month of vegetative growth while mothers recovered
• Took clones again from the original mothers which will be used in the next cycle

As an important note, this is a SOG setup, each plant in an 11"x11" pot bunched up right next to each other.

The issue I now have is that after 4 months in veg with limited space (each one had about 1sqft), they’ve grown exceptionally tall and stringy. Not an issue for taking clones, but part of my plan was to cut the mothers down to the size of the grown clones when it was time to switch to flowering (which is now, the tent has filled out very nicely)

My issue is that at this point, I’ll be cutting off about 80% of the plant to get it down to the size of the clones, and I’d like to keep spacing and height relatively even to make the execution of the SOG easier.

I cut one of the 4 mothers down today before pausing and realizing that I should probably check that I’m not inadvertently killing four of my plants.

Here’s the one I trimmed:

Here’s the one above next to it’s uncut brother:

Sorry for the rough pictures, it’s a huge pain to pull anything out of the tent presently because of the irrigation system and the very tight quarters.

Did I cut too much off or will it grow and recover nicely? If it’s fine to cut that much I’m going to proceed on the other three, but I would like to check with people more knowledgeable than myself before I proceed.

Thanks1

[OGIncognito]

Post some overall pics and in clear light Growmie. SOGs are usually set up in Small pots like 1 gallon with a short veg period (2-3 weeks) then flipping the light schedule. I would have recommended leaf defoliation versus removing the upper beaches that had all the better bud sites

[StonedCold13]

Looks like they cloned all the new growth.
She will bounce back busy busy.
Keep her under at least 18hr light preferably 20+ and treat her like a normal vegger.

[StonedCold13]

Here is an example for ya…

End of November

mid-February

[ChittyChittyBangin]

These plants can take a lickin and keep on tickin. She will recover just fine.

[beardless]

Twelve clones in 6" nursery pots. Mix of northern lights and AK47. It was done for my entertainment to see if I could grow 12 plants to harvest in a 24X24" space.

Search “Maintaining a mother plant”. I would start with Hellraiser’s postings.
i believe he kept a mother of his favorite strain going for years.

[DR.PNW]

Cannabis is super resilient, iv seen plants grow back from nothing but 4 inches of basal stalk.
You did take a lot off and she looks stressed and hungry but she will bounce back, and I am sure, that at this point, nearly a year later, she already has and may have been cut back again.
Vitamin B can help with stress form cloning, as well as a small dose of fulvic.
Lets see what she’s looking like now if she’s still kickin’.