When is the Best Time to Repot my Plant?

Smokin Moose

Fallen Cannabis Warrior & Ex Moderator
When the time comes to repot it is good practice to time the repotting with your water cycle. Having the plant root ball moist to semi-dry does make it a lot easier to pop the root ball out of the existing planter. After the repot one should give the plant a thoroughly good watering of PH adjusted water with a drop of B1 (B1 is optional to reduce any stress). This ensures that all the soil has even moisture content with no dry patches thus promoting roots to easily migrate to new soil. If one finds they must repot and the root ball is very damp/wet they should pre-water soil on the bottom and sides of new planter. Then after transplanting a nice but not heavy watering to even out moisture content.

One technique that works well in repotting is to have an empty pot the same size as the one the plant to be repotted is in. Fill new planters up with slightly moistened new soil, insert empty pot and pack new soil around it. Now gently lift out empty pot and place root ball into new soil and water.
 
Thank you!!!
 
;)
 
I repotted the girls the other day. Watered the plastic 1 gallon the were in. Soil held together cause of the roots. Had soil in airpot to support the new soil mass. I flexed the plastic container and the mass came out nicely. Watering helped. Made it easier. Glad I went with plastic before last move to final pot.
The girls look great this am. Guud luck!
 
So do we re pot when we see roots out the bottom of the pot or is there another way. Does it matter about what medium the pots have
Since the whole idea of restricting the size and successively uppotting is to force the plant to grow a rootball at each stage, I wait till this happens before moving up. Roots can come out of the bottom holes with a lucky hit on the 3rd day of life, so that certainly is not an indicator. Regardless of medium, the goal is to fill that space with roots.
So how do you know this has happened? By monitoring the water use. If the plant has roots strong enough that it can drain the container of all the water you can get it to hold, in 24-36 hours, it is time to uppot. If your wet/dry cycle is longer than that, it is not time to uppot... you are still building roots.
 
Also, if the roots are tightly packed (root bound), you should break them up a little before re-planting, otherwise they will continue to grow in a tight ball and it will take longer for the roots to spread away from the root ball. It will damage the roots a little, but they wil recover more quickly than if you just plant a tight root ball. This is for photo soil grows, I don't do hydro or coco. With autos the less re-potting the better.
 
I realized that I didn’t break apart the gallon size mass before packing them in with new soil. The mass was loosely compacted. I think it held together better cause I poured maybe 10 oz of water it plastic container. I’ll try to start a seed in those 1 gal pots next time. One less up potting for them to go thru. I say that now.....
 
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