I use pots that air prune my roots for me, I used to use these sort of canvas bags but I got the pots recently and they seem to work better and are more practical.
And you're absolutely correct that you should wait for pots to get significantly lighter but before wilting to water (unless running hydro).
I would advise if they're too circled to slash them vertically with a razor blade (not primary roots and not too deep).
But everything you've said is gardening 101...cos we were talking about tomatoes, right? Cos I don't grow cannabis, it's federally illegal (and this site seems to have a few cops).
I bet you were told to use x product for roots and y product for big buds and z product for...etc too?
Yup. Big green tomatoes. I need a card here saying they help my glaucoma.
I have heard to cut the bound roots up but I haven't let them get that far. Usually they have maybe 1 circled layer around the bottom quarter of the pot and have completely filled the rest of the space with roots. I want to be able to pick them up out of the pot by their stem even seedlings from the starter solo cup.
My favorite breeder has answered many of my questions when I started with excerpts from old French gardening books. He speaks French primarily and Spanish living in Spain and much rougher English and left the translating to me.
And I'm a dumb kid from America with one lousy language to think in. Lol.
But like his father trained him he made me put in the work to learn.
I keep getting told I have the basics down and I should try all of these different forum thread techniques and products for much better quality and results.
Problem is the experts with the instruction threads do not have better or more at all. And the respectable grows here tend to be of a classic method for the most part.
Or maybe I should shut the fuck up and boil my roots after mainlining my topped, lst'd, lollypopped, bloom boosted, too much additives added and of course then flushed and left in darkness for an arbitrary amount of time plant.