Jiffy pots and rootbound.

Is it fairly common for seedlings to become rootbound within the peat pellets? Of the 4 planted, I had 1 that was looking pretty rough and with all conditions being equal I decided to take a look at her roots just to see what was going on. Basically the roots were circling the peat pellet and had only begun to start branching out of the bottom to get to the rest of the pot. Not only that, this pellet seemed to have retained almost all of the moisture while the other 3 planted were drying up properly so the poor plant was suffocating from the looks of it. Anyway, I ended up breaking up the peat pellet and unfortunately damaged most of the roots. It's been a few hours now and she looks fine, but we'll see. Btw, it's a soil grow and they were all planted in 3 gallon smart* pots about a week ago. Only the 1 has shown any kind of issues so far.

those things are crap, the side walls dry out and kill the roots in it's zone.
use plastic pots next time, styrafoam coffe cups for example.

frmrboi said:

those things are crap, the side walls dry out and kill the roots in it's zone.
use plastic pots next time, styrafoam coffe cups for example.

Click to expand...

I didn't have a drying out problem this time, it was too wet. I get what you're saying tho, dump em. Will do and I should consider myself lucky that only 1 has had any issues.

http://www.amazon.com/Plantation-FR312B-15PK-Round-Jiffy/dp/B000UGT94C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320527511&sr=8-1

I use these to get young ones started. i get a smaller size (1 1/2") at my local farmers union, mix up a perlite/promix mix for clones.

however recently i have discovered cups of water, toss a cutting in there, just make sure water level covers the bottom of the cutting. easiest method ever.