Transplanting to 1 or 3 gallon

Should I transplant this into a 1 gallon or go straight to 3 gallon?

Either one would be ok. If it were me I would put them in the three gal.

1 would be ok save a little water and fert just a little till you go up to 3. or save time and possibly stress on plant and go straight to larger size. Also I just heard you can replace 5 gal plastic containers w 3 gal smart pots, just what I hear.

Yea I bought 3 gallon smart pots and they are huge compared to my 3 gallon plastic nursery pots. The best part is you can feel the sides of the fabric and feel the moisture to know when to water..

Artinian said:

Yea I bought 3 gallon smart pots and they are huge compared to my 3 gallon plastic nursery pots. The best part is you can feel the sides of the fabric and feel the moisture to know when to water..

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im looking forward to it, didnt know that. also twas said that because they hit mesh not smooth solid the roots continue so you have more per gal

That's what I heard but someone on here said the roots were growing out the bottom of his air pot and I'd never heard of that happening.

Artinian said:

That's what I heard but someone on here said the roots were growing out the bottom of his air pot and I'd never heard of that happening.

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Will be interesting to see .. I bet there are pots with wider mesh . I saw some that absorb some water and some that dont.. I would trim roots if they really start sticking out.
I still don't have mine yet so your grow might be ahead of mine. Peace monsters

This is my 3 gallon and it's crazy how much larger it is then my other pots.

Artinian said:

That's what I heard but someone on here said the roots were growing out the bottom of his air pot and I'd never heard of that happening.

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Yeah bro, by late veg on some autos I had roots shooting out the sides of my 3G smart pots about 1" from the bottom. I believe that is the idea though and the reason they mention "air pruning" as being a benefit. It worked. After the roots grew out about 1/4" they seemed to just stop. I think they hit the "WTF" moment and decided to pour resources elsewhere instead of tangling up. I will say that after harvest I noticed the entire 3G pot was filled with a dense yet consistent root system. I'm running 5G this round.

If it helps, I ended up going with Rootmaker's RootTrapper II 5G pots. They breath like smart pots with a fabric construction but have a perforated outer shell with 1" of exposed fabric at the bottom for extra draining. Here are mine cooking (organic this round) while my little guys grow in their 1G traditional pots in my tent.

slow_grow said:

Yeah bro, by late veg on some autos I had roots shooting out the sides of my 3G smart pots about 1" from the bottom. I believe that is the idea though and the reason they mention "air pruning" as being a benefit. It worked. After the roots grew out about 1/4" they seemed to just stop. I think they hit the "WTF" moment and decided to pour resources elsewhere instead of tangling up. I will say that after harvest I noticed the entire 3G pot was filled with a dense yet consistent root system. I'm running 5G this round.

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How big did your autos get in the 3 gallon?

Height wise my two king kush plants reached just under 4' including the pots. Here is a photo a week or so before harvest. The king kush are the ones in the center, they are on the floor and not raised like the white widow and candy kush on the left and right.

In hindsight this was plain lunacy being my first grow. I didn't appreciate nor understand their strain dependent needs and they all suffered because of it but thankfully I made it to harvest. I'm onto a photo based single strain this next round.

Looks good man. It's crazy how big those 3 gallon pots look.

It's crazy. The sizing isn't constrained proportionately like my simple brain assumed it would be. My 5G pots hold more than twice what my 3G pots did. I honestly thought a 3G pot fit 3 gallons of whatever while a 5G fits five gallons. Shit no, check this out:

3G smart pot @ 10" diameter and 7" tall = .3 cubic feet (started with these)
5G smart pot @ 12" diameter and 9.5" tall = .6 cubic feet (even sticking with smart pots your doubling your capacity from a 3G)
5G roottrapper II @ 12" diameter and 11" tall = .7 cubic feet (I moved to these, which is actually a true 5 gallon pot)

On a side note, this is why smart pots officially changed their packaging to say #3 or #5 and not 3 gallon or 5 gallon.

Does your smart pots have handles?

Artinian said:

Does your smart pots have handles?

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Nada although I think they now offer handled 3G smart pots. My new roottrapper's don't have handles either.

Yea it would be a lot easier to move with handles.

True although I don't remember missing handles when using my 3G pots. After about a month of settling/watering they kind of firm up their shape and can be pretty easily grabbed from the bottom and lifted. They slide around very easily too for re-positioning.

What kind of medium did you use?

FoxFarm ocean forest with a bit of light warrior in the center core of the pots for the seedlings. I started them in the 3G pots though. This round I re-amended the soil that same soil. Just posted it here an hour ago.