Root scoring/pruning autos

[Purple2thepeople]

I was listening to a podcast (the cannabis and science cultivation podcast with Chad hussey) and they had a well renowned horticulture professor Don Marshall who spoke about how its incredibly beneficial to score the roots when transplanting.

Essentially roots will shoot new growth out wherever they have been cut, rather than circling around and maintaining the shape and size of their previous container.

I have scored roots of photo plants and had great success, so I got to thinking how would this apply to ruderal cannabis strains? Will this cause a large amount of stress the plants can't handle, or will it prove incredible beneficial by stimulating much more root growth to fill the pot much quicker and establish a stronger overall root system?

He also mentioned that multiple steps of transplanting are better than 1 or going to the final container for similar reasons, much stronger root development aswell as being easier to get watering right which also helps roots develop.
I wonder if solo cup to 1 gallon to 5 gallon would be better than going right into the 5 gallon from seed or solo cup with autos?

Theoretically this could be a game changer for autos in a sense, because they could have much stronger growth in the pivotal early stages of their life cycles. I believe that scoring a little less may be the way to go, 2-3 cuts vs 4-5. They don't need alot of cuts, but they will grow in all directions from each cut into the new medium of the larger containers.

I'm curious if anyone has tried this on auto varieties and what results they had?

I am going to attempt to score the roots of some autos when I start my next grow in a few weeks and will document some of the results to share.

 

[Bob's Auto's]

I was listening to a podcast (the cannabis and science cultivation podcast with Chad hussey) and they had a well renowned horticulture professor Don Marshall who spoke about how its incredibly beneficial to score the roots when transplanting.

Essentially roots will shoot new growth out wherever they have been cut, rather than circling around and maintaining the shape and size of their previous container.

I have scored roots of photo plants and had great success, so I got to thinking how would this apply to ruderal cannabis strains? Will this cause a large amount of stress the plants can't handle, or will it prove incredible beneficial by stimulating much more root growth to fill the pot much quicker and establish a stronger overall root system?

He also mentioned that multiple steps of transplanting are better than 1 or going to the final container for similar reasons, much stronger root development aswell as being easier to get watering right which also helps roots develop.
I wonder if solo cup to 1 gallon to 5 gallon would be better than going right into the 5 gallon from seed or solo cup with autos?

Theoretically this could be a game changer for autos in a sense, because they could have much stronger growth in the pivotal early stages of their life cycles. I believe that scoring a little less may be the way to go, 2-3 cuts vs 4-5. They don't need alot of cuts, but they will grow in all directions from each cut into the new medium of the larger containers.

I'm curious if anyone has tried this on auto varieties and what results they had?

I am going to attempt to score the roots of some autos when I start my next grow in a few weeks and will document some of the results to share.

Seems like an interesting experiment. You should also have a couple of "control group" plants so you can compare. I think that and seeds from the same cultivar and hopefully the same batch. Normally you would do that with clones, but in Auto's that's not practical. I'm not saying cloning can't be done, but it would only interfere with the experiment.

 

[Purple2thepeople]

Seems like an interesting experiment. You should also have a couple of "control group" plants so you can compare. I think that and seeds from the same cultivar and hopefully the same batch. Normally you would do that with clones, but in Auto's that's not practical. I'm not saying cloning can't be done, but it would only interfere with the experiment.

I was thinking that would be best aswell, I do have a few packs of mephisto to try this out with, although I may have to wait a bit to perform with controls as I can only grow about 4-5 at a time and I'd like to do at least 2 "control" and 2 scored plants of the same pack.

My next grow will likely be a mix, but I plan to do a proper attempt at a experiment, I'll use 5 seeds from the same pack, 2 control and 3 scored. I'll try to pick a more stable strain that is consistent.

I have 5 or more of SS, cdlc, fs, 3bog, avt, orange biscuits, aswell as the most recent illuminatuo drop and some freebies, so there are a few good choices there I'm sure.

I have a load of samsquanch×forum stomper freebies I should use them for the experiment perhaps. With them being f1 it may lead to more consistency between individuals I think?

I'm quite excited to get some quality Auto's growing and this will just make it even more fun!

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Cloth/air style pots also effectively prune roots without the setback of intentional root damage at transplant. :smoking:

 

[Budsbandit]

Its what fabric pots are for.

 

[The Iconoclast]

Another alternative 'game changer' would be to grow them for 3 weeks in an Eazyplug Pyramid Mini, then plant the entire plug in a final pot. If it's explosive developed root growth you require you will not do better.

 

[Purple2thepeople]

I love fabric pots and use them for all my cannabis plants already, they really are fantastic!
I have found though in the past there are some plants which don't seem to fill the pot as much with roots, and in turn they are usually smaller than other plants.

I wonder if the light scoring may still be beneficial as this will cause the roots to diverge in all directions much earlier than if they were pruned by the pot, which will lead to even greater air pruning aswell.

I will check out the easy plugs you mentioned @The Iconoclast thank you for the suggestion.

I have seen some dwc autos that are absolute monsters, and they seem to be enabled by much larger root systems, I am going to set some dwc up down the road but money is tight now so using what I have is fine for the time being.

I wonder though, what if we were able to achieve larger root systems in pots+soil/mix? I have scored roots of almost all other plants I grow to great success, it hardly seems to stress most plants.
So I got to thinking what if we are treating our plants too delicately in a sense? I'll certainly be performing some experiments and posting results, and if they're favorable perhaps others will try too.

I need to read more on ruderal species root development, as I am unsure if it is essentially equal to photo cannabis roots or if there is more to it.

 

[GreenBean]

I have seen some dwc autos that are absolute monsters, and they seem to be enabled by much larger root systems, I am going to set some dwc up down the road but money is tight now so using what I have is fine for the time being.

What is your goal? Bigger plants and yields?

 

[Purple2thepeople]

What is your goal? Bigger plants and yields?

Overall quality and yield are the main things, I notice that when there is a large dwc container the auto plants are so much bigger, but with soil/mix it seems like there is a point where diminishing returns make it not worthwhile to continue increasing container size.

I'm sure this happens eventually in dwc aswell, but it seems like the plants being able to develop larger root systems is the main thing to larger auto plants.

I haven't grown autos since 2016, but even then I found some would not fill the 3gallon fabric pots I used completely with roots.

It's been shown that transplanting can be beneficial for autos, and so I wonder if this technique which is widely used in the horticulture world would have use for auto cannabis?

I would be interested aswell if I could achieve the same size plant in a 3 gal as a 5 gal for example with scoring at transplant.

 

[GreenBean]

Overall quality and yield are the main things, I notice that when there is a large dwc container the auto plants are so much bigger, but with soil/mix it seems like there is a point where diminishing returns make it not worthwhile to continue increasing container size.

I enjoy experimenting a lot. So nothing wrong with trying new things.

I can tell you that I grow fairly large plants and get decent yields. So maybe try a run with some different approaches? Last run of 3 autos yielded 20.5 oz, 13.4 oz, and 9.9 oz. The 9.9 oz would have been bigger, but it ended up getting shaded out by the other 2. 3 plants pretty much consumed a 4x4 tent.

Biggest differences for me was experimenting with pot size. On that run above, the largest yielder was in a 10 gallon pot. The other 2 were in 5 gallons.

Shortly after (or during) that run, I had another plant in the 4x4 in a 7 gallon and it was taking up almost the entire tent once she had it to herself. Unfortunately we got wind with little notice that we had to move, so I had to cull it.

I also use coco. Not too much early LST is another thing I finally figured out halfway into the last run. Top, then let them go until they start the stretch, for the most part. Then canopy widening and lower branch defoliation.

Here is a photo of that run, I have successfully been able to duplicate the results - for the most part - in my current run. So it is a repeatable process I am finding.

Not to dissuade you from the scoring. I think you should try it because why not. Just other options to increase your yields.

EDIT - Noticed you mentioned not growing autos since 2016. Genetics have come a long way. I try to push them to yield more like a photo. That's a lot of fun for me. I've slowly dialed it in over time. And continue to.

Strains in this photo -

Fastbuds Orange Sherbet - Back left - 10 gallon pot - 20.5 oz dried and cured.

Twisted Tree Alien Moon Rocks - Back Right - that's the one that I had to cull = heartbreaker. 7 gallon

Night Owl Sage Scout - Front Left - 5 gallon -9.9 oz. Got shaded out by the...

Mephisto Strawberry Nuggets - Front Right - 5 gallon - 13.4 oz. That was an interesting one because they claim she would stay small. But she didn't. Dunno if I got lucky or not. But similar results

Outdoors I am mostly organic. Indoors I use synthetics.