Transplant Dilemma - New Pots Not Worth It?

Hello everyone, I hope everyone is doing well where ever you be at. I am about to go into flowering with all my ladies (all 22 plants I crossbreded turned out to be female). I ordered all the necessary supplies and Pots for the transplant but there's a problem. Out of all the big ones going into 10 and 15 gallon fabric pots, I have two large ones in Lowe's blue buckets (between 8-10 gallons idk exactly) and I am trying to transplant them into these 15 GAL fabric pots... Now as I compare the Lowe's buckets with my new 15 gallon fabric pots, they are the same height!!! My fabric Pots have a lot more width and circumference size. Wouldn't that be a problem for the plants??? The roots are at the bottom of the buckets so putting them in their new fabric pot homes would only give them maybe a few more inches of depth to grow, but a lot of room to grow outwards. So will my plants be fine and flower without a problem or affecting yield for the most part (will obviously affect height since roots can't grow down anymore?)? Or should I return these and find taller pots? Does height matter as much as width?

Thanks to all the help.

Oh no! The plant will fill the new, available space - no matter where it is....

The use of fabric pots. Will have no roots around about an inch plus between the fabric and the root ball. That comes out to wasted space.
The root ball will become a thickly matted mass in the center of the pot. Watering/feeding will soak partly in and roll off the root ball and out of the fabric - waste!

It will become impossible to get the center of that root ball watered and it will stay dry at the core...This is called "the umbrella effect".
Got interested in that when the run off was so bad. At harvest, took a root ball in the pot. Watered it normally, let it sit for a half hour and pulled it from the fabric, cut it in half and found a nice dry core......Don't like them.

I tested these things for a maker of them, back when they came being developed. Needless to say they didn't like my feedback much.

If using them for increased O2 to the roots.
Learn to water everyday the amount needed to carry you to the next day - at lights on. Best amounts of O2 to the roots you can do.

Wider pots are better than deeper anyway

If they are going outside, than use the fabric pots. you'll have to water more often but they will keep your root zone cooler than a plastic pot.

Craigson said:

Wider pots are better than deeper anyway

Click to expand...

I done a lot of reading into that and found it very subjective. Bit of an extreme example below but just the jist of it.

1 wide shallow pot could fill a 3x3. As I read wider root system allows wider lateral branch growth/canopy but a lower over all height. I dare say the physical space the pot takes up also contributes to that as it has no competition within that horizontal pot space for light. Seems to favor scrog growing.

4 deeper slim pots could fill the same 3x3 with less lateral growth but more vert growth. As they are closer together leaves have more horizontal competition so the plant grows more vertically. Seems to favor topping the applicable amount of times to the individual setup.

The wider pot tends to suffer more from evaporation due to exposed surface area (mulch can help). As the plant may be smaller in height, the root zone has less buffer space between canopy and floor temp. This could help or hinder depending on general heat control/ambient.

The deeper pots with taller plants have a better buffer from canopy to root zone temp but they can have more issues with ''wet feet'' or gravity draining water too quickly. Wicks can be a solution to that depending on medium and how much of an issue it actually is to said pot/grower.

Where 1 large wide pot could potentially offer a better root zone, it will take longer for the plant to fill out both the pot and canopy space. 4 deeper pots may not have the most optimal root zone conditions but they will fill out the root space and canopy much quicker.

My own conclusion. If you are on a 9 to 10 week perpetual, you can physically fit in more narrow deeper pots to fill up the canopy faster. If you are not on a short perpetual or are limited to plant count, wider pots with a longer veg may be more suited.

all the action happens in the first 4 inches of soil surface

leaping for the wider pots with greater sun /air surface allows the wet to evape off quicker

hence soil selection is vital add a quantity of sand or perlite

to allow that air and water in

as deeper pots with crappy soil will only encourage root rot

good luck

Thanks for all the helpful replies, I get a better bigger picture now of how it works, but I still need to know if you think it will bud out just fine without hurting the yield? I plan on transplanting them today into their new fabric Pots then flip them to flowering in 4-7 days after they recover. I hope this all works out in the end.