Pots: when the wrong size it's just right for you.

Ok guys here is what I would like to hear from you.
I think most of us, if not everybody, know the "rule of thumb" behind chosing the right pot size for the strain we are going to grow.

But today I'm here because I would like to hear some feedback from those of you that didn't need the right pot dimension for the plant but instead needed the right pot dimension for their space necessities.
We all agree that the best thing for a plant is to have 1 gallon of soil for every feet, or sometime month, she will grow. This is more or less a rule to follow.
But sometime people really need to keep the plant as low and tiny as possible for their needs. One of the most effective way to do this is use a small pot, smaller than it should be to grow a plant at her very best.
A small pot cause root bound and root bound prevent the plant to grow beyond a certain point. Sometime root bound it's something you want because your micro grow room it's really a micro grow room, probably for just one plant and becouse you need discretion more than everything, more than a big yield.

So there are lot of thread where i see a pots that are obviously undersized, but at the same time it's very difficult to find something about this matter. It's like "undersized pot it's not good thing, don't do that!" but again some time is necessary.

I would like to hear from you what was your experience in growing plant in only 1 gallon or maybe 1/2 gallon, or whatever you tried, because you needed to keep your plant, I don't know, 10" high!
Some time LST, Scrog, topping, which of course help, are not enough, so what is your experience and what did you manage to get from those tiny plants.

I know you can grow a plant inside a beer can, but i'm not talking about something that extreme!

You can run monsters in 1 gallons. You have to water a few times a day though.

I am a advocate for some extra root space. Currently, I am using 7 gals, they are a little big for my purposes but I like the extra room.

If I was going to try to fill a small space like you are talking about, I would go wide rather then deep. A wide root system lends to wider plant in my experience. You could put together a shallow wide planter box easy peasy.

Then maybe take a look at a net, Weave your plant through it until it’s about 3/4 full and flip.

That is exactly what i'm going to do especially because my grow room it's only 27" in height and only the filter takes 25% of the total height. I was thinking about a low wide pot...not yet sure about the volume...not more then 1 gallon, probably less.

Micro G. said:

... my grow room it's only 27" in height and only the filter takes 25% of the total height ...

Click to expand...

Can the filter be moved outside of your grow space? Are you able to use one of these low profile Rubbermaid containers? The outside dimensions are 20" x 15" x 5"



Put the stalk of the plant at one end, bend her and grow her parallel to the ground towards the other end. You can secure the branches to the sides as she grows out. I reckon that the little lip would be great for securing the branches. Keep growing and securing the branches to the sides and when the plant has reached the other end, secure the to top - then flip. That might give you a bit more wiggle room.

Thank you for the suggestion, unfortunately I only have 14"x14" but still planning to do some LST

Crap ... OK.

Were you gonna use CFL's for lighting? You don't have much head room and CFL's are kept a short distance above the canopy. Not a lot of options with 27" of available height.

I'm using simple led stripes i've bought on amazon. With those i could probably keep my light panel really close to my plant without hurting her.

I'm talking about my setup in this thread: https://www.rollitup.org/t/wait-am-i-the-only-crazy-one.1009489/#post-15392074

But again, the topic here is how to chose the pot size to prevent the plant to grow to much for our necessity. For example I saw different folks growing autoflowering strain in 2,5 liters pot which is 0,6-0,7 gallons and they manage to have a small compact plant that still gave a fair amount of buds. That is exactly why i'm looking for some feedback. Unfortunately I couldn't reach those people because their thread are of months ago and they don't log in anymore.

This is what i'm talking about. I know that you guy are capable to achieve incredibly results using the best soil, pots, lights, ecc... But I my self could be super happy with a plant like this two or three time a year and I'm sure a I'm not the only one!

Didn't know there was another thread. LED strips - roger that.

You could mainline it which can give you a few more tops and help increase yields a bit. What is the diameter of that pot?

At the moment the volume of the pot it's a "question mark".
I'm dealing with Royal Dwarf so the ideal size would be around 1,5 gallons or 5,7 liters. I'm still figuring out what I'm going to do. But becouse I've seen growing diaries of Royald Dwarf were plants were growing huge for an autoflowring strain, I think i will go more towards 2,5-3,5 liters. Because as I said a can be totally happy with a plant like the one i've posted earlier... for months.
Anyway i'm probably still going to try some LST to try, as you said, to even out the growth.

In my opinion growing a plant and keeping it say no bigger than 10” tall is extreme but that’s just me. There’s micro growers out there but no where near in numbers like non micro growers so it’s hard for a lot of us to be able to give you the advice you’re looking for and need.

Why not just pack the space with solo cups and do a huge solo cup grow? There’s people who have grabbed 1/2 a zip - 2 zips out of a solo cup. If that doesn’t interest you I’d say stick to 1 gal pots and train the hell out of them.

Just remember the smaller the pot the more you’re going to need to water. And things that small come a certain point will need multiple waterings per day. I run in 5 gal fabric pots and have to water every 3 days in veg, but once I hit week 4-5 of flower I’m watering every two days. Make sure you have the time to be on top of watering them multiple times a day. Running in fabric pots is beneficial in a lot of ways. Few examples, it’s impossible to over water, when the roots hit the fabric they are air pruned and your roots get a ton of oxygen to them. Everyone should be growing in fabric pots if growing in soil imo.

Thank you Spazz!
In my case I will have about 14" of total space for the plant to grow. I'm using cheap led strips and this means that I will have about 2250 lumen during veg and 3000 lumen during flowering in an area of 1x1 feet. This for 2 main reasons. The first one is that this is an experiment so I decided to use mostly what I already had (wood for the box, different size pots, some led strip, ecc...) because I don't even know if i'm going to be able to continue this experience and I don't want to toss my money out of the window. The second reason is that this thing has to be as stheathy as possible, and this is why I still don't know if I will be able to go on with this. That is why the only real investiment I did is a big ass carbon filter....big ass for such a tiny grow room.
That said I know the light could be better but I think I have enough lumen to be happy for the result and anyway I do not have any alternatives with such space because only with these led I can keep the plant really close to the light.
I know fabric pots are the best solution but again in my case is essential to keep my plant small and the fabric pots I've found are too big. I'm thinking to open dozens of 3 mm holes all around the pot to improve oxygen flow and prevent over watering.

My first concern now it's that, I really can't understand way, but I have lots of problem in germinating seed. They don't open...just thrown away the first one after 16 days of waiting...the second one is now 9 days since i planted it and still closed, I tried with the third and last one yesterday. They were 3 Royal Dwarf Autoflowering I bought just three weeks ago...I've already recived vaucher from the seller but still 16 days are gone and I have nothing...so sad.

Spazz24 said:

In my opinion growing a plant and keeping it say no bigger than 10” tall is extreme but that’s just me. There’s micro growers out there but no where near in numbers like non micro growers so it’s hard for a lot of us to be able to give you the advice you’re looking for and need.

Why not just pack the space with solo cups and do a huge solo cup grow? There’s people who have grabbed 1/2 a zip - 2 zips out of a solo cup. If that doesn’t interest you I’d say stick to 1 gal pots and train the hell out of them.

Click to expand...

10 inches tall or 10 inches above pot?

this is 4 weeks and with LST its only 6 inches above my pot it might still stretch a little but it’s about done.

cheap plant tie wire and a roll of duct tape and there isn’t anything u can’t do

Seed germ? I start with soaking them in ph water of about 5.8-6.5. Once they drop on their own or I tap them and they sink I let them sit 24 hours. Then they go into a paper towel that I rip down to make one ply. Make it damp and put seed in middle folding over. Put that in small plastic ziplock and leave open somewhere warm. (I put it on top of my tent)

once they pop a root then I make a hole to about my first knuckle. Drop cover and put into light.

Thank you Wattzzup!
Again...if only these little mother fucker decide to sprout...
I really can't wait to do exactly what you are already doing.
How big is the pot I see in the photo? It doesn't look much bigger then the one I'm going to use...

Don’t put them in soil until u see a root. Otherwise you don’t know for weeks if it’s a dud by the time I dig them back up

As my branches start to extend up I pull them to edge of the pot and insert wire to tie down I drill holes in the pot to tie too and use duct tape if needed

That pot is 3 gallons.

Wattzzup said:

Seed germ? I start with soaking them in ph water of about 5.8-6.5. Once they drop on their own or I tap them and they sink I let them sit 24 hours. Then they go into a paper towel that I rip down to make one ply. Make it damp and put seed in middle folding over. Put that in small plastic ziplock and leave open somewhere warm. (I put it on top of my tent)

once they pop a root then I make a whole to about my first knuckle. Drop cover and put into light.

Click to expand...

This is exactly what I did with the last one of my 3 seeds. Yesterday I put it in a cup full of tap water at 24 °C with 10 drops of hydrogen peroxide(never tried this before but should kinda help both to purify a little the water if needed and also help a bit the seed to germinate...that's what i've read). This morning, 24 hour after, I took the seed and put it in a wet paper towel folded three times. I keep it well wet but not leave any excess water.

Anyway the third and last seed didn't look that good. It was more light brown-yellow than how a good seed should looks like...anyway it sunk I hope that this is a good sign.
Now the wet paper towel with the seed it's in the grow room with the light on (i've put it over the light panel not under the light) but with the fan off. It look like this create the perfect germination condition... 25-26 °C temperature and 80% humidity...I've put in there also the seed that it's nine days I'm waiting for it to germinate but i don't really expect nothing to happen.

I don't exactly know how long i will have to wait to see if there is hope or if I have to order other seeds.