4 Inches is all them girls need?

Cold$moke

Cold$moke

Well-Known Member
led1k said:
I thought fabric pots air pruned by design. No need for a screen.
Click to expand...
Agreed even though my fabric pot exp is small

I have found lately that i can air prune seedlings quite EASY in rockwool in the little 2x2 blocks they airprun themselves

Then when i go to a 4 inch block (i dont use rockwool just playing with it) it roots up well

If you plant straight into a 4 inch block a single tap goes straight down then has to air prune before sending off secondary roots and it takes longer to fill the block with roots

So now im going to keep doing this for seed runs anyway

Clones are even easier in an aero cloner

Just nip the roots at 4 inches long for a few days up to 2 weeks (after that i beleive it slows them like bonsai) :)
 
Cold$moke

Cold$moke

Well-Known Member
Not if its not a breathable pot

If its hard plastic roots will circle which isnt desired either

Check out dr whitcomb root vids :)
As said the results are super easy to replicate just by sprouting your seedlings in a SMALL 2x2 sized rockwool block or similar

Then when you see the roots break off into multiple runners you up pot :) now youll have a fibrous upper root system with multiple "tap" roots :)
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
I just cut the bottom of the rootball off with a bread knife and shave down the sides if there's long roots when I uppot. By the time they get into a final 4gal pot they are just a mass of fine feeder roots and never have long roots in the bottom at harvest.

RootPrune01.jpg
RootPrune02.jpg

:peace:
 
led1k

led1k

Well-Known Member
Cold$moke said:
Agreed even though my fabric pot exp is small

I have found lately that i can air prune seedlings quite EASY in rockwool in the little 2x2 blocks they airprun themselves

Then when i go to a 4 inch block (i dont use rockwool just playing with it) it roots up well

If you plant straight into a 4 inch block a single tap goes straight down then has to air prune before sending off secondary roots and it takes longer to fill the block with roots

So now im going to keep doing this for seed runs anyway

Clones are even easier in an aero cloner

Just nip the roots at 4 inches long for a few days up to 2 weeks (after that i beleive it slows them like bonsai) :)
Click to expand...
So if I want to have the tap root send out secondaries asap I would start in 1" cubes then into 4"?

Nipping roots (or pruning new growth) seems like it would slow down growth pretty much any time hence my obsessions with air pruning and LST :-)
 
Cold$moke

Cold$moke

Well-Known Member
led1k said:
So if I want to have the tap root send out secondaries asap I would start in 1" cubes then into 4"?

Nipping roots (or pruning new growth) seems like it would slow down growth pretty much any time hence my obsessions with air pruning and LST :-)
Click to expand...
Thats what im switching to i use the grodan mini blocks to start then into 4 inchers when the taps shoot out secondaries and it shouldn't skip a beat.(for seedlings i use an aero cloner for my cuts)


As for clones and the slowing of growth comment.

With my clone exp i put them in a dwc setup and
Basical would get almlst an inch of new root growth daily

And i trimmed it back for about a month straight


From my observations it helps keep the plant compact but it doesnt stop new growth if that makes sense.

Now after about 2 weeks worth i noticed the top side of the plant was starting to slow and get pissed by that time there where tons of secondary roots with lots of fishbone roots

After that i think it hurts more then is beneficial



Im just now getting ready to chop the clones that where in the experiment and they did well for the abuse i put them through

But now im convinced that the root pruning at 4 inches to be beneficial

Cause they really get a large root system going alot faster at least it seemed like i didnt have a control plant in the system to compare to


But it wont hrt clones at all to nip their roots at 4 inchs for one week straight :) its pretty cool to whatch as you snip the primary root it branches off and when you nip those they branch off as well

almost like when topping for mutliple colas

Any questions let me know ill try to answer as best as i can.

Im pretty sure i have a bunch of photos in this thread :)
 
Cold$moke

Cold$moke

Well-Known Member
led1k said:
So if I want to have the tap root send out secondaries asap I would start in 1" cubes then into 4"?

Nipping roots (or pruning new growth) seems like it would slow down growth pretty much any time hence my obsessions with air pruning and LST :-)
Click to expand...
Haha short answer yes.

And nipping roots wont hurt a clone for a week straight i hadnt tried cutting a seedlings roots



But on this last batch of seeds i had a few beans decapitate themselves and i got one to survive

So it got "pruned" directly under the cotyledons:)

Its finally rerooted suprisingly
 
led1k

led1k

Well-Known Member
Cold$moke said:
Thats what im switching to i use the grodan mini blocks to start then into 4 inchers when the taps shoot out secondaries and it shouldn't skip a beat.(for seedlings i use an aero cloner for my cuts)


As for clones and the slowing of growth comment.

With my clone exp i put them in a dwc setup and
Basical would get almlst an inch of new root growth daily

And i trimmed it back for about a month straight


From my observations it helps keep the plant compact but it doesnt stop new growth if that makes sense.

Now after about 2 weeks worth i noticed the top side of the plant was starting to slow and get pissed by that time there where tons of secondary roots with lots of fishbone roots

After that i think it hurts more then is beneficial



Im just now getting ready to chop the clones that where in the experiment and they did well for the abuse i put them through

But now im convinced that the root pruning at 4 inches to be beneficial

Cause they really get a large root system going alot faster at least it seemed like i didnt have a control plant in the system to compare to


But it wont hrt clones at all to nip their roots at 4 inchs for one week straight :) its pretty cool to whatch as you snip the primary root it branches off and when you nip those they branch off as well

almost like when topping for mutliple colas

Any questions let me know ill try to answer as best as i can.

Im pretty sure i have a bunch of photos in this thread :)
Click to expand...
It would be great if you could try the cloner with a snip vs no-snip. That would ease my mind and hopefully provide hard evidence that my obsession with air pruning is over blown.
 
Cold$moke

Cold$moke

Well-Known Member
led1k said:
It would be great if you could try the cloner with a snip vs no-snip. That would ease my mind and hopefully provide hard evidence that my obsession with air pruning is over blown.
Click to expand...
I can almost guarantee that snipping the roots will produce more roots .....

And i got my hands full atm with some seed runs

But when i get some clones going again here soon ill try and do that for ya


If not you can and post it here :)
 
rob333

rob333

Well-Known Member
Cold$moke said:
Hey all ,
After a little research I've decided to try air pruning roots of seedlings to hopefully encourage faster root growth..

If your interested look up DR. Whitcomb air pruning roots .
Lots of neat info here.

But basically he says a tap root is a evolutionary defense for plants so they can survive harsh environments by sending its tap root down deep
In search of water.

... but he says that the tap root is unnecessary in the grow room because we provide all the plant needs and is a waste of plant energy.
He says a large fiberous root system is best

I encourage to watch the video for impressive test results and im not quoting him just giving you the jist of it.

Other studies show roots can actually sense gravity and naturally go down even around obstacles (duh)

Anyways being one that always heard you need to keep that tap root happy
I never would have thought to intentionally reduce the length of the almighty tap root.

So i took 6 seeds (freebies)
Dutch passion auto blackberry kush 1
Seedism exodus 2
Seedism lemon gold drops 1
Thseeds bubblegum 1
And blimburn green crack 1

I put them in 4inch rockwool cubes that are elevated on a rack .

They popped right around Christmas
And i observed in a day or 2 the tap root went almost straight as an arrow to the bottom of the block then a few days later another ect.

Now a little over 2 weeks the blocks are filing nicley and i intend to keep them in the blocks till its mostly roots :)

Then i will transplant into the final systems..
Hopefully they will explode with roots since they will be allowed to grow as big as they like.

Which after seeing DR. Whitcombs results im quite hopefull

So i know other people have done this but has anyone here done it?

If so was it worth it?

I know after finding out about it from a youtube guy. Grow pot cheap .

His video is called the first 4 inches is all you need.
Hence the name of my title is a shout out to him

He grew some nice trees that where supposedly autos.
Ill post pics later as im busy today
Just seeing if anyone eles has done this

:)
Click to expand...
use to no this old girl years ago that would prune the roots off the dwc and toss it thru a salad i never seen any ill effects of her doing this nore i seen any positive
 
InTheValley

InTheValley

Well-Known Member
man, i use fab pots, i dont like the mold buildup on them. salt, whatever, dont like it.. going back to plastic 1 gallons and drilling a thousand holes in them, there, now they can breathe, lol..

whats the trick with the fab pots anyways? Spray them down everyday on the outside, to attract roots?
 
Cold$moke

Cold$moke

Well-Known Member
I only ever used fab pots a few times


As long as your media is wet roots should grow till it hits the dry bag then they will air prune ...at least in theory..

Your probably just seeing salt build up

But i agree its one of the few things im finding out i dont like in rockwool is algae or mold what ever it is :)

But i only use the rockwool for seedlings
As i hate buying media and after i find the cuts i want to keep i switch to hydro of some type
 
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