Transplanting help

[kittycatsammy]

My plants have quite a bit of stretch, 4 inches or so. I'm ready to transplant and my question is this.... can I bury some of the stem like on tomato plants, or will it rot the stem? I don't know the answer and don't want to kill my plants with such a simple thing. Thanks in advance to anyone who helps me with this small query.
Granny

 

[NuttyProfessor]

iare you growing under lights ? if so if they are not to warm move them down a bit closer to the plants

 

[NuttyProfessor]

also adding a pictuer will help , you can see the link on my sig , HOW TO UPLOAD YOUR PICTUERS

 

[Major PITA]

Yes - you can bury the stem some, but pictures would def' help.

 

[kittycatsammy]

I was, but I have hardened them off to outdoor and it's time to transplant. I just don't know if I can bury a bit of the stem, maybe 2 inches or so. If I do that do I run the risk of the buried stem rotting?
Granny

 

[Dan Ultra]

I was, but I have hardened them off to outdoor and it's time to transplant. I just don't know if I can bury a bit of the stem, maybe 2 inches or so. If I do that do I run the risk of the buried stem rotting?
Granny

Nope, no issues at all. Every time I transplant I bury all the way up to 1" under the first node.

 

[kittycatsammy]

I don't have a working camera. They are very healthy little plants, I just didn't have the proper lighting and they stretched about 4 inches before the first set of leaves set. I just thought it would give them a little more stability to bury them a little dee
Granny

 

[Major PITA]

I've never gone that much deeper but I don't see why not.

 

[madmarv0525]

You definitely can bury the stem and it will root not as quick as a tomato but the same idea

 

[Ofis]

Occasionally, with some plants I'll bury some of the stem too. I've only had a few small harvests so far, but have noticed while cleaning buckets out that roots had grown on the stems above the original soil lines after their transplants. So I've got a question:

When burying some of the stem at transplant, to encourage faster and more robust root growth on that soon to be newly buried part, would it hurt to scar/scratch the stem similar to the way some (me included) do to the stem of a cutting when cloning?

Or would that just add stress to the plant at a bad time, when it needs to use energy to make roots? Probably better to not complicate things and let mother nature do the rooting in her time frame. Maybe I'll test out the theory on a plant next time I upcan.

 

[madmarv0525]

I've never tried scraping the stems first but it should work, maybe even put some rooting gel over that part.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Occasionally, with some plants I'll bury some of the stem too. I've only had a few small harvests so far, but have noticed while cleaning buckets out that roots had grown on the stems above the original soil lines after their transplants. So I've got a question:

When burying some of the stem at transplant, to encourage faster and more robust root growth on that soon to be newly buried part, would it hurt to scar/scratch the stem similar to the way some (me included) do to the stem of a cutting when cloning?

Or would that just add stress to the plant at a bad time, when it needs to use energy to make roots? Probably better to not complicate things and let mother nature do the rooting in her time frame. Maybe I'll test out the theory on a plant next time I upcan.

Well there's a cloning method called air-layering that works in a bit of the same way. Imagine if you scraped off the skin on a cutting and applied rooting hormone and all that, but you had never actually cut it off the plant, and instead of putting it into a rockwool cube, you tie a bag of dirt or something like that around it. The plant will still root out on the spot where the skin was scraped off. So I am guessing that behavior at the stalk is just the same mechanism that controls that.

I would suspect though that you'd be creating hormonal changes in the plant so it probably wouldn't really harm it or stress it out but it would probably slow vegetative growth down and not really add any real benefit except some small root growth at the top soil. My guess is it's just some kind of survival mechanism that evolved after being trampled on by animals... I mean you figure IF a plant could survive being ran over by a cow hoof, it would have even a greater chance if the parts that got trampled down into the mud could put down new roots and keep growing. That's just my theory anyway, but yeah I'd say it's probably similar to air layering.

 

[Dan Ultra]

Well there's a cloning method called air-layering that works in a bit of the same way. Imagine if you scraped off the skin on a cutting and applied rooting hormone and all that, but you had never actually cut it off the plant, and instead of putting it into a rockwool cube, you tie a bag of dirt or something like that around it. The plant will still root out on the spot where the skin was scraped off. So I am guessing that behavior at the stalk is just the same mechanism that controls that.

I would suspect though that you'd be creating hormonal changes in the plant so it probably wouldn't really harm it or stress it out but it would probably slow vegetative growth down and not really add any real benefit except some small root growth at the top soil. My guess is it's just some kind of survival mechanism that evolved after being trampled on by animals... I mean you figure IF a plant could survive being ran over by a cow hoof, it would have even a greater chance if the parts that got trampled down into the mud could put down new roots and keep growing. That's just my theory anyway, but yeah I'd say it's probably similar to air layering.

I'd say that's an excellent theory, sir!

 

[AKgramma]

I've had clones root above the soil in the cloning dome. I just bury them deeper on transplant without doing anything special to them. They were just fine. And burying them deeper to correct the stretch works very well without scraping the stem or adding roottone. Once, I even had to lay the plant on its side and bury most of the stem. Again, there was no problem.

 

[Ofis]

I've had clones root above the soil in the cloning dome. I just bury them deeper on transplant without doing anything special to them. They were just fine. And burying them deeper to correct the stretch works very well without scraping the stem or adding roottone. Once, I even had to lay the plant on its side and bury most of the stem. Again, there was no problem.

I'll scrap the idea about scraping the stems. Probably just be a wrench in the works instead of helping.

Laying the plant down and burying most of the stem is a great idea to deal with a stretched seedling or clone. Thanks and I applaud you because I hadn't run across that remedy yet.