I have a question about up potting

[Angela802]

I have four northern light auto girls that are 9 days old and I noticed today that on some of them, their roots are starting to poke out of the bottom of their jiffy pots. They aren’t that tall maybe 3inches max so, I’m not sure if I should go ahead and put them into 3 gallon pots or not.

 

[Emilya Green]

In normal plants, just seeing the deep seeking roots at the bottom of the pot is not enough justification to up pot... and especially moving all the way up to 3 gallon pots is not appropriate. These are auto's though, and usually you just uppot once into 3 gal... but be patient on this first move. Once the jiffy pots can use up all their water in 1 day, in a normal grow it is time to up pot to the next size up... possibly a 1 gal container. Growers need to be patient until those containers develop roots sufficient to USE UP all the water in 24 hours, and THEN up pot to the next size. In a normal plant, you would then Rinse and repeat... and when the 3 gal containers use up their water in 24 hours, uppot again, to 5 or 7 gal containers. Your goal is to develop strong roots throughout the entire container at EACH stage... it is not a race to up pot or a drive to get it done as soon as you can see a couple of roots at the bottom. Auto's are funny and the general advice is to up pot once into a 3 or 5 gallon... but my advice is to wait a bit and get those roots going strong in that first little pot before attempting to up pot, using their ability to uptake water as your sign as to when it is time..

 

[Angela802]

Thank you! I don’t want to kill them! So I wanted to make sure. They aren’t at that 24 hour mark yet so I’ll leave them be. Thank you!

 

[HydroponicFireman]

I up-pot as soon as the roots touch the bottom and I can see them on the holes of the pots. Some wait a bit longer but I personally like to make sure they never stop growing due to a lack of room to grow. I dont want them slowing down growth at all.

 

[Emilya Green]

I up-pot as soon as the roots touch the bottom and I can see them on the holes of the pots. Some wait a bit longer but I personally like to make sure they never stop growing due to a lack of room to grow. I dont want them slowing down growth at all.

Uppotting correctly does not slow down the plants one lick... to the contrary, it almost always produces a dramatic growth spurt immediately after the uppotting into fresh soil... unless you stress the roots while moving them because they were not in a solid ball and able to hold the soil together as you moved them.
How do you even get them to hold together enough to transplant, transplanting so early? If you start out in a solo/beer cup, within 3 days of the plant popping to the surface, the roots hit the bottom. This is a deep rooting plant, and that is its first job, to find the bottom. Just because you finally noticed that some of those roots are visible in the bottom holes doesnt mean anything... and to use this as an excuse to put the plants in slightly fresher soil, especially into a huge container, is incorrect logic.
Growing plants in a container is an art. The goal in a fruit/bud producing plant is to maximize final product, and the only way to make that happen is to maximize the roots. The roots will not form into a ball if we allow them all the room in the world, they will grow into their natural shape, roughly the same as the plant on top. Only by restricting the size of the container can we force them to ball.
Secondly, the soil in a container is a buffer so that we do not have to constantly supply water to the roots as in a hydro situation. The soil can hold (buffer) water for several days, reducing the need for constant maintenance, and allowing us to grow many more plants at one time. As the roots get stronger and stronger, the amount of time that the soil gives us between waterings gets smaller and smaller, until eventually our buffer reduces to 24 hours or less. This is the only good reason to uppot... when the plant tells us to, and when we desire a larger buffer. We then uppot into a container 1 to 3 times larger, and we repeat the process... restricting the roots so they grow into a ball, and watching our wet/dry cycle carefully to monitor how much of a buffer we now have.

 

[HydroponicFireman]

Uppotting correctly does not slow down the plants one lick... to the contrary, it almost always produces a dramatic growth spurt immediately after the uppotting into fresh soil... unless you stress the roots while moving them

Exactly, I up-pot early as to not stunt any growth and so the tap root never stops going directly down. By the time some roots stick out of the bottom, there are plenty of roots in the pot. At least in my experiences.

because they were not in a solid ball and able to hold the soil together as you moved them.

That's a root bound plant. Root bound plants encourage root rot and bacterial growth (How To Re-Pot Indoor Plants and 5 Reasons Why - Pistils Nursery part 2 - Better Watering, part 4 - Disease Prevention). I've never had an issue with wet soil holding together with that amount of root growth. Sure, some outer-lying soil at the edges sometimes falls off but that's just dirt where the roots haven't reached yet because they haven't wrapped around the pot yet....not an issue, I use that to backfill around the hole of the new pot.

How do you even get them to hold together enough to transplant, transplanting so early?

I always water before transplanting. It keeps the soil together for ease of transplanting and minimizes the potential for root movement thereby reducing potential to shock the plant.

This is a deep rooting plant, and that is its first job, to find the bottom.

I agree, which is why I always want the tap root going directly down and never encountering a bottom until in a 5 gallon pot, which is my end goal. I dont care if it gets root bound in a 5 gal pot because by that time its either usually in flower.

The goal in a fruit/bud producing plant is to maximize final product, and the only way to make that happen is to maximize the roots. The roots will not form into a ball if we allow them all the room in the world,

I'm not sure where you got that from, but that doesn't make sense to me in any of my experiences. Why would you want the roots to wrap around themselves in a smaller pot before providing more space? How would that encourage faster root growth when up-potted? They stop growing so fast when root bound because they are constricted of space: (multiple sources even add you should break up root balls when transplanting to encourage continued growth, ass shown below)

If the soil is almost entirely roots, your plant is likely root-bound and prone to rapid wilting. In this case you will need to gently tease the root mass into a looser, more open mass so that the roots will grow out into new soil instead of staying locked in a tight circle.

Secondly, the soil in a container is a buffer so that we do not have to constantly supply water to the roots as in a hydro situation. The soil can hold (buffer) water for several days, reducing the need for constant maintenance, and allowing us to grow many more plants at one time.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, it doesn't make sense to me. So by that logic, more soil = more water buffer for the roots and if the soil is mostly roots then you have to water more often because the water says in the soil less time. More roots = more uptake, how can more roots and less soil (with water in it) = longer time in between waterings? I only put one plant per pot, I'm not sure what you mean by that last part.

 

[Emilya Green]

a rootbound situation can be seen by reduced water uptake, while a visual inspection can not see inside the ball and tell you what is going on. A few roots wrapped around the bottom and the lower third of the container is normal, but that does not make it root bound. Rootbound is a condition that causes an inability to uptake water and nutrients. You are confusing the terms root wrapped and root bound. One is simply an observation, and the other is a problem.
I am sorry that your experience does not inform you that bigger and denser roots mean bigger yields. My experience is that this is true and I think that most experienced growers will agree. My experience shows me that by working to create a solid rootball at each successive uppotting, the very most rapid growth is seen, and at the end, the density of the roots explains why I get the yields that I do when compared to a plant that had root problems, started out in a large pot or was uppotted too early.
As far as the buffer concept, you have to understand the wet/dry cycle and why we water the way we do to understand. The reasons for uppotting successively into slightly larger containers have been understood for centuries, and are time tested to be the best way to grow a producing plant. The only way to determine the health of the roots in real time is to monitor the water uptake, and this simply can not be done in too large of a container where the length of time between waterings and the actual water uptake can not be accurately determined.
Everyone has their own style of growing and if you find that breaking up your rootballs to encourage continued growth works well for you, go for it.... but I am not going to advise anyone that this is the preferred way to grow a weed. If it works for you, fine, but I have legions of people who have used my watering and uppotting methods to grow superior pot, and I know that these time tested methods work every time they are tried. I will continue to support the method that produces superior growth in my tents and I will question anyone who comes up with a "better" method... I am always willing to learn from those who can back up what they say with sound reasoning and results.

 

[HydroponicFireman]

You are confusing the terms root wrapped and root bound.

I have never heard of root wrapped and cant find anything on the subject with a few searches, can you point out a place that defines root wrapped or discusses it?

I am sorry that your experience does not inform you that bigger and denser roots mean bigger yields.

I said nothing of the sort, please don't put words in my mouth. Bigger roots DO mean bigger yields, which is why I don't wait for up-potting weeks or months after it should have been done.
I stated that a root bound plant is a plant with stunted root growth which is why it shows such a large growth spurt after being up-potted...because its root growth slowed and can now continue to grow. Roots continue to grow more dense without being root bound.
When the plants are in their last pot (for me a 5gal), they can stop outward growth and grow denser in that last pot as to not inhibit growth rate.

 

[Emilya Green]

You are claiming that roots get stunted when they hit the bottom of of the container and I am arguing that this stunting does not occur, and that actually within days of sprouting a new cannabis plant's tap root hits the bottom of a starter cup. You say this is the time to transplant or the roots will stunt, and I say this is balderdash. We have a difference in opinion and mine is based on extensive documented study of this subject.
Regarding the term root wrapping, not everything is yet on the internet. My grandfather and father have used that term all of their lives in regards to transplanting, not just our plant, but trees, of which my grandfather is a known expert. Since, as I explained above, root wrapping is not a problem but just a visual observation, there is not much written about it, and doing one of those google searches to sound like an expert gives you very little to go on. This is a shining example where practical lifetime experience trumps the google search engine. Sorry that doing a search doesn't provide for you the validity of this concept, but that doesn't mean that I am wrong. There are a lot of things pre-1985 that are not yet covered on the internet.
Lastly, my practical experience, even in my current grow journal clearly shows that you are wrong. I am ruthless about waiting to transplant until my plants exceed the 24 hour buffer, and weeks after you would have already transplanted. Proof is in the pudding my friend... and I dare you to look at my 2 month old plants who have been treated this way and tell me that they were ever stunted.