stoneslacker
Well-Known Member
IME there are differences in being root bound during veg or flower. Once a plant is in flowering, root growth will slow considerably after week 4 or so. In veg, roots will not stop growing, even after hacking down a large mother to half her size. Also in keeping a mother in a hempy, you run the risk of salt buildup, and no amount of flushing can remove all built up ferts.
For this reason my mentor keeps his mothers in an ammended FFOF mix in a minimum 10gallon container. He will also root prune, and cut up to 40% of the root mass and transplant to a 20 gallon once they start to lose vigor. Using this method he does not have to supplement with nutes and gets by with plain water and occasional use of compost tea. He can keep a mother for 2-3 years this way before they become far too unmanageable.
If you are looking to keep more and smaller moms, hempys might be a good way to go, although the longer they are in vegging hempys they will definitely have vigor issues sooner than soil. Coco or some other soiless mix might work to alleviate some of this issue.
I will agree with FJG that plant size for container volume is much better in hempys than soil, but long term viability is easier and more consistent using soil. Hope this helps
Edit: To answer your question about plant size in hempys, my mentor uses 3 or 5 gal, all perlite hempys and has pulled 14-16oz of a single plant, depending on strain of course. He usually averages 8-12oz of a 3 gallon bucket, plants usually are much wider than they are tall, as he uses alot of LST.
Edit #2: Also when using soil or most soiless mixes (coco included), at some point you will have to deal with bugs. It is almost unavoidable, so for this reason he has a separate area for his moms. This is often not feasible for most growers so some bug prevention is neccessary.
