The Real Truth about Rootbound and Transplanting

Zaehet Strife said:
so its settled, rootbound exists... and if you look for the tell tale signs i explained at the start of the thread you will know when and how to transplant. we understand that it is possible to grow bud in a small container from start to finish, but you will be reducing your harvest by a lot (depending on how rootbound your plants are) hope the pics helped and make sure you get them roots loose before you transplant. was only trying to help from the start and i hope the info is helpful.
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Who says it didnt exist? thats why theirs a word already defined for it. Its called "root bound". who hasnt heard of this. your the one who started this thread, Its not like someone started a thread called "root bound is a sham" why are you posting this? Im confused brother..

But thanks for your time and pictures, and you are right about problems caused by root bound plants.
 
Zaehet Strife said:
this isnt about plants or weed or anything for you, for you its about your EGO. am i a pro on rootbound plants? no i am not. do i have more information and knowledge and experience with figuring out how rootbound plants work than you, probably yes. you have to pick your battles man, yours is a loseing one. yes im a dick i know that and i really am sorry that i offended you, but when you comment about my tutorial with stupid comments like "but there is almost no way any plant got root bound within a few weeks, cup or not" you are wrong and it makes me angry. it makes me angry because you remind me of the kid i got the rootbound info off of when i first started growing. i wouldnt have posted this shit if i didnt do experiments man, i wouldnt have posted anything if i thought it was incorrect information or that this woulnt help people. i also wouldnt post anything in a thread without doing PERSONAL EXPERIMENTATION to figure out for myself.

there is so much false information out there and with comments like the ones you wrote, you are not helping the cannibis growing community but hindering it. think about that before you post again.
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Now this is good stuff...I don't remember getting offended though, think that was you :lol: This isn't about my EGO at all, it's about me pointing out the facts and then you getting all pissy over them. Now you're resorting to trashing my plants which you haven't even seen, instead of just asking what I meant :lol:

So here it is again...no one is saying root bound doesn't exist, but what I am saying is that for a plant to actually become root bound it takes some time. There is a point at which the lack of medium can be harmful to your plants, but that doesn't happen over a few weeks. You should take a step back and think about what else could cause the problems you think you're seeing, I'm not ragging on you I'm trying to help you understand.

How do you explain bonsai? If plants are so easily root bound than how do so many people keep mothers, I know for a fact not everyone knows to trim the roots...so how? The way you're explaining it a bonsai grower would be transplanting all the time, a one year old mother must have been transplanted like 15 times by your calculations.

I'll tell you how...cause it takes more than three weeks to become root bound :lol:
 
if you have a plant, say an indica plant in a 16 ounce solo cup and you water it as needed after 2 months you will have a plant that is 18 inches tall and needs nutes and water daily. if that plant was root bound ..you could put the plant in a large container and the roots would not grow..the plant is root bound... that is not the case with marijuana..if you take a plant in veg and let said plant sit in solo cup for 6 months and water every 18 hours and give nutes as needed then put plant in container..the roots will expand...marijuana does not get root bound some plant species do. marijuana does not. what you are calling stunted growth due to small root system is not root bound. good luck
 
There is no questioning the existence of the root-bound condition. Many growers plants survive in root-bound conditions because most growers grow in pots that are too small. The growers just never realize it because cannabis plants are tough so unless the condition becomes severe they do not experience major problems. But their final outcome would be better if they used larger pots .. and they don't need to start in party cup and then move them into small pots and then into medium pots and then into large pots. They can start their seedlings out in the largest sized pot they will be using and never re-pot. All the myths about that not being good and needing to start small and re-pot are just that, myths.

I never use pots that are smaller than 5-gallon pots and most times when growing indoors I used 7-gallon pots and when I grow on my deck I use 15-gallon pots and larger.

Healthy plants will have a 50/50 ratio of above soil growth and below soil growth. The above soil growth will of course be stem and branches and leaves and look very different than roots, but in volume, there will be as much below the soil as there will be above the soil. If you do not give your plants enough room for roots for that to occur, and that is without major pot circling and intertwining, your plants will never be as healthy as they could be or produce as well as they could produce regardless of how well they may appear to you to be doing and producing.

When it comes to re-potting you do not have to break up the soil of the old root-ball. All you need to do is take something like a razor knife, or a VERY sharp knife, and score/cut the old root-ball about an inch or do deep up and down the sides of the root-ball and across the bottom of the root-ball. The cut roots will push out new roots into the fresh soil.

If your plants are in some terrible soil that really should be totally or as close to totally replaced unless you have a major case of root-bound condition you can do a bare root transplant. You remove your plants from their pots and use a hose to wash away the old soil. If you have to do it all inside and can't use a hose you can use something like a 5-gallon bucket and almost fill it with water and repeatedly dip the root-ball into the water and that will remove at least a large potion of the old soil.

If you can gently separate the roots, without handling them much and in doing so damaging lots of tiny root-hairs it would be best to untangle them the best you can so when you put them into the new larger pots and add soil you will be able to get new soil between the roots and not have air pockets.

You can push down lightly on the new soil but after any type of re-potting it is best to water heavily, and of course allow it to drain well, but by watering heavily it will settle the soil making sure there are no air pockets and you are able to do that without pressing down on the soil hard and by doing so damaging roots or packing the soil too tightly.
 
djruiner said:
im not going to contest the fact that plants get rootbound....they do...except for the people that do air pruning. you know,as in growing in real buckets or smart pots with air getting to the roots...as in not in milk jugs.do that and being rootbound is never a issue if done correctly.now im not going to bother pointing out everything that was misinformation in your post.would take too long and probably wont sink in anyways.like i said before..not saying in anyway plants do not become rootbound..im speaking in reference to your transplanting tutorial.aside from the list of things wrong with that...your approach to all this is quite hostile and no one is going to take your information seriously with the harshness your tossing in with it.if you think your posting new info that anyone that can type "google" cant find then your sadly mistaken.and this comes from someone that has been growing for almost 15 years...not 1 1/2 years
so to sum it up..yes plants get rootbound...but thats where your thread should have stopped...the rest of your dribble does nothing to help your point
and thats just keeping it real,not saying i know it all,not trying to boost my ego,nor am i disagreeing with you.its just your views and attitude doesn't sparkle.
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They don't get rootbound as easily, but they will eventually. You can't grow a six month Thai in a one-two gallon smart pot and expect good results.
 
Brick Top said:
There is no questioning the existence of the root-bound condition. Many growers plants survive in root-bound conditions because most growers grow in pots that are too small. The growers just never realize it because cannabis plants are tough so unless the condition becomes severe they do not experience major problems. But their final outcome would be better if they used larger pots .. and they don't need to start in party cup and then move them into small pots and then into medium pots and then into large pots. They can start their seedlings out in the largest sized pot they will be using and never re-pot. All the myths about that not being good and needing to start small and re-pot are just that, myths.

I never use pots that are smaller than 5-gallon pots and most times when growing indoors I used 7-gallon pots and when I grow on my deck I use 15-gallon pots and larger.

Healthy plants will have a 50/50 ratio of above soil growth and below soil growth. The above soil growth will of course be stem and branches and leaves and look very different than roots, but in volume, there will be as much below the soil as there will be above the soil. If you do not give your plants enough room for roots for that to occur, and that is without major pot circling and intertwining, your plants will never be as healthy as they could be or produce as well as they could produce regardless of how well they may appear to you to be doing and producing.

When it comes to re-potting you do not have to break up the soil of the old root-ball. All you need to do is take something like a razor knife, or a VERY sharp knife, and score/cut the old root-ball about an inch or do deep up and down the sides of the root-ball and across the bottom of the root-ball. The cut roots will push out new roots into the fresh soil.

If your plants are in some terrible soil that really should be totally or as close to totally replaced unless you have a major case of root-bound condition you can do a bare root transplant. You remove your plants from their pots and use a hose to wash away the old soil. If you have to do it all inside and can't use a hose you can use something like a 5-gallon bucket and almost fill it with water and repeatedly dip the root-ball into the water and that will remove at least a large potion of the old soil.

If you can gently separate the roots, without handling them much and in doing so damaging lots of tiny root-hairs it would be best to untangle them the best you can so when you put them into the new larger pots and add soil you will be able to get new soil between the roots and not have air pockets.

You can push down lightly on the new soil but after any type of re-potting it is best to water heavily, and of course allow it to drain well, but by watering heavily it will settle the soil making sure there are no air pockets and you are able to do that without pressing down on the soil hard and by doing so damaging roots or packing the soil too tightly.
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Damn, man. You beat me by an hour. I came to post the same thing. It's actually much less stress on the plant as a whole if you just score the rootball 4-6 times vertically with a sharp razor blade. Only do this if there is spinout though, and I only go about 1/4" since I only want to cut near the end of each root to maximize efficient root mass. Overall I agree though, and I would much rather score a rootball than break one apart and end up tearing the main interior root branches and having a bunch of dead rotting root mass in your soil.

Also, I think it's important when using this method that you have a good microherd established and/or use a good enzyme product such as hygrozyme to break down the remaining dead root tissue.
 
Wolverine97 said:
They don't get rootbound as easily, but they will eventually. You can't grow a six month Thai in a one-two gallon smart pot and expect good results.
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Using an air root pruning pot is going to be a horse of a different color but that would still be way too small of a pot size for a plant of that age. Getting; "good results" is why people do not believe the root-bound condition exists, because cannabis plants can exist in pots that are too small and still give you; "good results." They they will never give you the best results and why should people settle for good when instead they can have the best?
 
Brick Top said:
They they will never give you the best results and why should people settle for good when instead they can have the best?
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Because it's not practical for everyone to grow in seven gallon pots, so we need to compromise. I'm not disputing at all that bigger pots make for bigger plants, I don't think anyone is saying that. To say that bigger pots make for better plants though...that's seems like a bit of a stretch, bigger yes, better...not necessarily.
 
Hubert said:
Because it's not practical for everyone to grow in seven gallon pots, so we need to compromise. I'm not disputing at all that bigger pots make for bigger plants, I don't think anyone is saying that. To say that bigger pots make for better plants though...that's seems like a bit of a stretch, bigger yes, better...not necessarily.
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I've grown since 1972. I'm part owner in a pot-in-pot nursery that covers about 17 acres of land ... where every bush and tree of all types are grown in pots. It is not a stretch, it is a fact and anyone who tells you otherwise either does not know or is lying.
 
if the plant has vegged for 3 weeks, i can get away with a 10l pot in flowering, 4 weeks, then i need a 15l pot (with exceptions)

2 month plant, about 25l pot.
 
Brick Top said:
I've grown since 1972. I'm part owner in a pot-in-pot nursery that covers about 17 acres of land ... where every bush and tree of all types are grown in pots. It is not a stretch, it is a fact and anyone who tells you otherwise either does not know or is lying.
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You know your stuff brick, only on my second grow and already learned myself about this condition from transplanting from 2 diff pot sizes. My last grow eventually ended up with my 1 fem plant in a Rubbermaid tote of soil it exploded in growth once I stuck it in there, I noticed that the plant will only keep as wide as the roots are and def helps vertical growth much like the massive trees I seen on Discovery channel where there roots went for miles just to support the tree.
 
this is what happens when you leave your plants in a cup for 6-7 weeks under 1000s.... no transplanting


IMG_2099.jpg
 
Okay if a plant gets root bound so easily I want you to explain bonsai growing to me Zaehet Strife, the way you tell it it can't even happen...and the way I've done it I can, so there's something missing in between.
 
Hubert said:
Okay if a plant gets root bound so easily I want you to explain bonsai growing to me Zaehet Strife, the way you tell it it can't even happen...and the way I've done it I can, so there's something missing in between.
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This is not an answer to your question since it was not directed at me.

Do you believe in evolution? Do you believe that plants evolve? If so after thousands and thousands of years of evolution, if not more, if plants grew better with small tightly restricted root-balls than they do when they have large amounts of soil for roots to spread in, why haven't plants evolved to grow tightly wound highly restricted small root-balls? You will not find that occurring in nature and you will not find that occurring when larger pot are used. Why? Because it is unnatural, it is not
how plants evolved to grow and how they evolved to grow their best.
 
One tidbit of information about true bonsai growing:

Bonsai... The millennia-old art form, still going strongly today!
z
In Japanese, bonsai can be literally translated as 'tray planting' but since originating in Asia, so many centuries ago - it has developed into a whole new form. To begin with, the tree and the pot form a single harmonious unit where the shape, texture and colour of one, compliments the other. Then the tree must be shaped. It is not enough just to plant a tree in a pot and allow nature to take its course - the result would look nothing like a tree and would look very short-lived. Every branch and twig of a bonsai is shaped or eliminated until the chosen image is achieved. From then on, the image is maintained and improved by a constant regime of pruning and trimming.
It is the art of dwarfing trees or plants and developing them into an aesthetically appealing shape by growing, pruning and training them in containers according to prescribed techniques.


If that is the goal of some cannabis growers, to dwarf their pants developing them into an aesthetically appealing shape by growing, pruning and training them in containers, well have at it. But don't expect Christmas tree yields. If someone wants to grow for a hobby and their priority is to make unique sized and shaped plants, then that is what they should do.



But when bonsai growing is performed properly the roots of a bonsai tree will need to be pruned and the tree repotted after the roots have filled the pot/container, having nowhere else to grow. If not repotted and roots trimmed the soil will become packed and dry making it impossible to water and feed effectively.
True bonsai growing is not just growing in tiny containers allowing the plants to become root-bound. True bonsai growing requires a plant to be trimmed/pruned AND the roots also trimmed/pruned so they have room and do not become root-bound.

As I have said many, many times, plants have a 50/50 ratios of above soil growth and below soil growth. There is equal mass/volume below the soil as there is above the soil, though of course in a different form. When roots are not allowed to keep up with above soil growth, or are not as in the case of true bonsai growing trimmed/pruned back as the above soil portion of a plant/tree is and in doing so retaining that 50/50 ratio you end up with plants having problems, various problems, sometimes many problems.



 
Brick Top said:
But when bonsai growing is performed properly the roots of a bonsai tree will need to be pruned and the tree repotted after the roots have filled the pot/container, having nowhere else to grow. If not repotted and roots trimmed the soil will become packed and dry making it impossible to water and feed effectively.
True bonsai growing is not just growing in tiny containers allowing the plants to become root-bound. True bonsai growing requires a plant to be trimmed/pruned AND the roots also trimmed/pruned so they have room and do not become root-bound.
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Agreed, but not every three weeks like has been insisted.
 
Hubert said:
Agreed, but not every three weeks like has been insisted.
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The point was that people who claim to grow bonsai aren't really growing bonsai, they're growing root-bound plant in tiny containers. They don't know what growing bonsai really is and they think they are doing when they are not.
 
Brick Top said:
The point was that people who claim to grow bonsai aren't really growing bonsai, they're growing root-bound plant in tiny containers. They don't know what growing bonsai really is and they think they are doing when they are not.
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And my point is that a plant doesn't get root bound in three weeks, I'm not arguing that it simply doesn't exist. To make it clear I will eventually do some root trimming when need be, but if plants got root bound as easily as is said in this thread I'd have to trim the roots every three weeks...which I don't and will never do because THEY DON'T GET ROOT BOUND IN THREE WEEKS. It takes months for a plant to get to the point that it's health will suffer due to it's roots being bound, for that point when you can safely say okay it's the roots and nothing else.

I'm also not saying it wouldn't be nice to have bigger pots either, what I'm saying is that not everyone can use 7 gallon pots...so they need to keep their plants in smaller pots simple as that. Bigger is nice sure, but not everyone has that much space.
 
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