Root Development vs Plant Growth

natmoon said:

No the concept of the thread is not that roots are not important just that if you maintain a small efficient root system you can still wield good results and that a large root system may not be necessary to maintain healthy growth on a plant that is harvested in a relatively short amount of time.
The fungus helps your roots efficiency no matter how big the pot or the plant is.
You can grow a small fully budded plant in a pot the size of a coffee cup

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Thanks for clarifying.

In my experience with root/bud ratios, it is consistently strain dependant. I have grown monster buds and when I chopped and threw the soil I could hardly believe how scrawny the roots were. I have also transplanted plants from veg to final bud containers and thought that because of the extensive root system the buds would be plentiful and huge, not always so. I do however pick my males for breeding based on root development in part. Monster roots=monster plants and hopefully monster buds.

ccodiane said:

In my experience with root/bud ratios, it is consistently strain dependant. I have grown monster buds and when I chopped and threw the soil I could hardly believe how scrawny the roots were. I have also transplanted plants from veg to final bud containers and thought that because of the extensive root system the buds would be plentiful and huge, not always so. I do however pick my males for breeding based on root development in part. Monster roots=monster plants and hopefully monster buds.

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I always pick the males according to their smell.
If they smell really strong then chances are they are good to use.

Breeding males priority list (mine):
1- bad ass sisters
2- fast
3- great smelling
4- tight node spacing
5- big ass root system/plant
6- purple
So yeah, I agree

I forgot to add this yesterday... the mid-week feed changed a little bit as the math in my head works out this feed to be just past the mid-flower point. So I lowered the ec to 1.8

Sensi Bloom A, 29.25ml (3.25ml per litre)
Sensi Bloom B, 29.25ml (3.25ml per litre)
MET Bloom, 16ml (1.77ml per litre)
Fulvic Acid, 16ml (1.77ml per litre)
Barricade, 1.5ml (0.18ml per litre)
Carboload, 9ml (1ml per litre)
Cannazym, 20ml (2.22ml per litre)
B52, 20ml (2.22ml per litre)
Overdrive, 32.5ml (3.61ml per litre)

Plants are fine, starting to swell... I honestly cannot see any problems. Except the insects of course... my plants are tied, so i cannot take them down... they seem to have gotten worse (moth worms) as even my top leaves are being attacked now. You'll be able to see on the pic's I post on wednesday (6 weeks flower, 3.5 weeks to go). I hope the temps (as it snowed here) drop last night might have done something to kill them.

I need to point out also that 1.5-2litres of this feed is given to the ex chronic mom. She's doing well (except for the insects) too. I haven't counted her main colas but there are quite a lot of them. At least 20. The ex indica mom (la conf x mystery haze, although heavy indica pheno) is now gone. I'd been pilfering colas and turning them into oil for a while now, and I finally took the last 3 today. I always like to pour the gas through fresh bud, then allow the frozen waste to dry (while it is frozen it is much easier to crumble and dries quicker, although i only do this in the tray i'm drying in, as crumbling frozen bud could make trich's fall off!) and do it again. It works for me.

I've mentioned this, well for one thing i'm mega stoned on the oil, boredom and... ah, yes... i'll probably end up doing the same thing with the chronic mom... hopefully she will last me in the form of oil till harvest day.

yeah... I was a bit mashed while writing that yesterday. I put the gas through fresh bud, and make oil. Then the frozen bud is allowed to dry normally (after crumbling quite a bit), then I make some more oil out of it. The fresh run doesn't produce as much, but it provides enough.

That's why I agreed with fdd' about the trich's. While smoking the indica oil, at even just 4 weeks flower it provided me with a couch-lock buzz. Not uppitty like it should. In fact, i've just had a couple of tokes now, and its definitely a couch-lock buzz... and to mind just as strong as smoking the buds when fully flowered, if not stronger. Same buzz. What I did note though was that the oil from 3 weeks wasn't very potent... potent enough, but not as potent as the 4 week mark. weeks 4 and 5 I didn't really notice a difference in strengths. It's the 5.5 week oil i'm smoking now. It would normally flower for 54-56 days. Yup, i've waked and baked again.

Got it.
So I pulled out 9 males out of the garden the other day and thought of you Skunky. They grew in 5" net pots and reached a hight of about 1 meter before I pulled them. They lived in this net pot nestled into a 3 gallon bucket full of Clay. Here is the interesting part. the root mass barely extended past the net pot, they could have been growing in a 1 liter container and would have been doing fine. I think growing in 3 gallon buckets is most likely a was of space, and medium.

daddychrisg said:

Got it.
So I pulled out 9 males out of the garden the other day and thought of you Skunky. They grew in 5" net pots and reached a hight of about 1 meter before I pulled them. They lived in this net pot nestled into a 3 gallon bucket full of Clay. Here is the interesting part. the root mass barely extended past the net pot, they could have been growing in a 1 liter container and would have been doing fine. I think growing in 3 gallon buckets is most likely a was of space, and medium.

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yes, thankyou that is very interesting.

Yes. I cut down to 3litres a while ago, and I just wanted to see how far I could push it and achieve the same results. I started in 2 gallons... then down to a gallon, then 3 litres. All with the same (actually improved, as my growing skills got better) results.

These 0.5 litre pots. I honestly feel I'll accomplish a good yield relative to the veg time I gave and not the actual container size. thanks for joining in.

I can see now the progressive steps you have been taking. I think I am on my way to cutting back on root space myself. I don't really like spending the money to wash up clay every month, nor do I like my back hurting afterwards! I have been thinking about trying a hybrid idea of growing in Coco in a flood and drain bucket system, and if I could use alot less Coco in a smaller container then the 3 gallon buckets I have now, I would be stoked. Stoked meaning thrilled, or mildly ecstatic..LOL, see ya Skunky

Just the one pic'... my camera is running low on batteries so I thought it best to just take something of an over-all pic'. They had the same feed as last time... I'll change at the mid-week feed.

I'll take root pic's tomorrow after I take out the final background plant. There's still 3.5 weeks to go, and I see no problems

Lookin great for there age!

Wow, beautiful plants. I have read the thread before but can't remember if you mentioned your watering schedule, frequency, etc. If you have I''l find it. What kind of gas do you use for the oil? gasoline? sounds interesting!

Thanks for the compliments, although they'd look better if not for the thrips. They're actually starting to put holes in the leaves now... so my yield may not end up as good as I hoped... although it will still be a decent representation.

my feeds are nowhere nearas frequent as I imagined they would be. I have 6 good plants, and two half-good plants left on the tray. The 6 good plants are good, because they are getting the best of the light. Right now they're on 15litres a week between them. That's it.

I use butane gas to make my oil. The stuff you buy to fill up lighters.

Thanks skunkushybrid

Man the Oil that I just made kicks my ass! I have found myself standing with my bubbler in my hand and not knowing how long I have been standing there! LOL

Yeah, the oil can certainly take you on a journey...

There's something cleaner about oil too, even when I'm smoking it it tastes, and feels different to smoking bud. I mean you can still taste the bud, but it's like a cleaner version. More hashy.

A quick question about oil.
I tried a few weeks ago (when I was low on "supplies") to clean out the tube connected to my hitter piece on my bong. It's one of those metal ones that just screw on. However it was completely different from the resin that I scrape out of my bowls, which is real thick and hard, very easy to work with w/o losing too much of the resin. This stuff was like real thin tar or a very low (high?) viscosity oil. Very difficult to work with. I was wondering if there was any way to clean this out and collect the oil. I was thinking of soaking it in some type of alchohol and then letting the alchohol dry off so I could just use the oil. I also have been making filters out of cotton balls and putting them at the end of my blunts, after the blunt is smoked you should see these things, light to dark brown (depending on size of blunt) from the resin. Could I soak these in alchohol to extract the oil?

My other problem is when I extract the oil and let the alchohol evaporate, will I be left with the real sticky hard to work with oil again? If so, how do I use it or can I make it thicker and easier to work with? Maybe by mixing bowl resin or sifted-kief in with the oil?

Anyway thanks for in advance for your replies.

p.s. before I forget, I've got some REEEAAAALLLLLYYYYYY strange growth on one of my plants, I'll post a pic later to show you.

I'm still convinced your work is showing the power of the nutrient mix. So much so I bought an Advanced nutrients pack and Sensizyme. I'll be cultivating a crop to find a few mothers in 3.5 square pots under T5. Look what you have done skunkushybrid !