Transplanting Autos Causes Stress. Myth?

[>Potato]

Coco fiber pots just plonk them into bigger pot, roots go right through

 

[olbobcat]

Coco fiber pots just plonk them into bigger pot, roots go right through

I have seen where the roots will wind before going through on coco, peat or poo pots.

 

[olbobcat]

I bought some 1L air pots which will be nice to try transplants. I can vary the volume by moving the bottom up and am hopeful they will air prune . I think that it will help to have a shallow bottom so they hit and produce a lot of lateral roots. A little wider air and shallow might be even better. I know when you spread plant roots out they want to go straight down when transplanted. I think we are looking at Mid May till I have a chance to try.

 

[GreenBean]

I've tried the coco and peat pots. I still use them for my veggies. I have seem them strangle roots on certain veggies when keeping them on. My trick to using them with veg or canna is to soak them in water for a little bit before the transplant and just peel the pots off. No harm to the roots as long as you don't leave them sitting in the pots for too long.

 

[olbobcat]

I've tried the coco and peat pots. I still use them for my veggies. I have seem them strangle roots on certain veggies when keeping them on. My trick to using them with veg or canna is to soak them in water for a little bit before the transplant and just peel the pots off. No harm to the roots as long as you don't leave them sitting in the pots for too long.

I always peel them off when they come on veggies and usually the root's are circled.

 

[GreenBean]

Do you buy your veggie seedlings? I grow my own from seeds I've saved. When I transplant, I normally don't have roots circling around. If you get them at a nursery of big box, I have seen that pretty much 99.9% of the time from sitting in the pots for who knows how long.

 

[EverythingsHazy]

Something to keep in mind about transplanting plants grown in any kind of solid media, is that regardless of how careful you are, even if you don't snap any of the roots, the root hairs will almost certainly get damaged, and those root hairs give the roots a lot of their surface area. If you are going to transplant, I'd try to move an entire rootball into a new pot, without letting the media crumble away.

 

[pop22]

The problem with doing this is it limits the potential root mass. For maximum growth you have to actually transplant..

View attachment 793224
Above is what I've started doing at 8 to 10 days - slicing bottom from the seedling pot. Just pop it into the final home and really happy with the result. Previous to this I'd do the transplanting at 14ish days when the roots had developed enough to hold the soil together when popped out of the seedling pot but clumsy fingers and or soil not dried enough would inevitably lead to some damage.

 

[pop22]

Rockwool is an interesting medium but how do you plan to recycle it? That's the catch that keeps me from using it.

Transplanting may stunt your growth but how would you ever know? Just because they don't die does not mean it was fully successful. I simply do not have enough farm space to do a truly scientific cannabis test. Extrapolating my 40+ years experiences with growing organic vegetables and cutting flowers I can state that any kind of transplanting reduces yields compared to seeds planted directly into the garden. Seeds started in greenhouses to get a jump on spring just do not produce as well. I am sure there are other factors besides "transplanting" working here. The question is this: why can't you just plant the seed in the container it will spend its whole life in? I do. My current grow is an exception to that practice as I have never grown in rockwool blocks so I followed GroDan's directions to the letter. The transplanting process is very root friendly but still is a transplant operation. I had 100% germination success with their method. Once again a pretty small sample to mean much. I am very happy with the Hugo blocks and the huge nutrient savings with the drip irrigation system ~ 70% over DWC.

 

[olbobcat]

Rockwool is an interesting medium but how do you plan to recycle it? That's the catch that keeps me from using it.

Some plants like transplanting and some don't. I would never not grow lettuce or beets and transplant. But tomato's yes. Broccoli yes. I have done autos both ways and very carefully methods and I would say that transplanting is not as effective, but sometime overall yield is better because I can implement them earlier in the space I have. So you can get 1 or 2 extra grows in a year. They will stunt way before they are even to the outside of the pots. They will also take longer in Veg and even seem to run longer. That being said. I would not transplant autos if not needed. It seems that you lose lateral branching in the upper layers as the plant progresses and therefore picking up less nutes. It seems to catch up later adding the roots but I feel you are losing some premium growth. I am not saying these plants are tiny but I feel that the growth was less linear than without transplanting.