is this big enough??

Derrickb16

Well-Known Member
i was wondering can i use this 029W496776110001.jpg as a pot would it be big enough for one plant i'm planning on putting my kandy kush in there hoping to only transplant once! for less stress it pretty big too so what you think?
 

Brick Top

New Member
I never grow in pots smaller than 5-gallons, and most often use 7-gallon pots, and I never transplant. My seedlings begin their lives in the same pots they end their lives.
 

Derrickb16

Well-Known Member
I never grow in pots smaller than 5-gallons, and most often use 7-gallon pots, and I never transplant. My seedlings begin their lives in the same pots they end their lives.
I thought it was bad to start a seedling in a larger pot? so is this good to you?
 

Derrickb16

Well-Known Member
you should be able to flower in that. just wouldnt veg no more than 30 days in it or could end up rootbound.
yeah I don't want that :-P but i also want to veg in it right now it's in a small styrofoam cup I have to get way more soil tomorrow I'l post pics of my grows maybe you all can tell me how I'm doing? thanks for the quick reply also guys!
 

mane2008

Well-Known Member
I thought it was bad to start a seedling in a larger pot? so is this good to you?
some people love doing it like that. just so no transplant shock is induced. but it can be space consuming etc. I would only do that with established clones and not seeds, but that's just me.

I like to weed out the weak ones sometimes hopefully get some preflowers before goin on to the big pot.
 

Pipe Dream

Well-Known Member
I thought it was bad to start a seedling in a larger pot? so is this good to you?
Not necessarily bad but I prefer using smaller pots. The reasons are I can keep more plants in a smaller area and use less wattage bulbs in the beginning, It's a lot less work, it allows me to make the most of the nutrients in my soil and use less with unwanted plants like males and it's harder to overwater them. This works for me, and I'm not saying the other way is wrong but for my situation I feel this way.
On the other hand, a bigger pot allows bigger roots and if your growing outdoors or already have a lot of plants and clones or lights running you don't have the same concerns about light and space. It is much harder to underwater in a bigger pot and if your nutrients are not in the soil mix than there is no worry of leaching it out by watering unused soil. If your growing hydroponically in that for example you would likely run it in the same pot it's entire life. Your situation will determine what route you take, neither is wrong.
 

Brick Top

New Member
I thought it was bad to start a seedling in a larger pot? so is this good to you?
The belief that you should, or that it is better, to start seedlings in small containers and up-pot them a time or two, or whatever, until you finally put them in a pot size you will finish them in is one of the longstanding myths about growing.

If that were the case, if seedlings needed to or grew better when started in small containers please explain why plants grown outdoors, with the entire planet being their pot, they grow so well.

Some people say that seedlings need to create a nice small well formed root-ball to then be moved to larger sized pots for them to grow well. If that were the case don't you think that the thousands and thousands and thousands of years of evolution would have evolved plants to grow tight small root-balls in nature, when growing outside where root-space is nearly limitless? But that isn't how plants grow when allowed to grow as they have evolved, is it?

Along with four family members I am an owner in a pot-in-pot nursery, trees and bushes, not plants, that covers about 17 acres now. Because
there is a market for smaller sized trees and bushes we do grow in various different sized containers. Anything that does not sell before it needs to be up-potted is then moved into a larger sized pot. But because there is also a market for larger sized trees and bushes we do grow some just for that market. We cannot always rely on there always being enough 'leftovers' to keep up-potting to get the larger sizes we need so we do plant some just to grow to larger sizes and we put them right in large pots, some 25 gallon size and some much larger, and they love it and they grow great.

Ever since we started the nursery and went that route I started growing that way and I would not go back to small containers and up-potting. You never risk having a root-bound situation. You never risk shocking your plants when up-potting. You never risk damaging your plants handling them when up-potting.

People claim you risk an over-watering situation, too much moisture being available and possible root-rot problems. Well small roots that are only inches into soil can only access the moisture they are actually in contact with. Moisture deeper down and farther to the side does not cause any problems. It cannot rise up until the upper soil is dried out, and then it will slowly wick up, but not at a rate that is too much or fast enough to cause any problems. You can have a seedling in a 7-gallon pot where the bottom is very moist but the layer of soil where the seedlings roots are in can get more than dry enough that you will need to water. The surface soil can dry to dust and the lower part of the soil can be more than just moist.

It is not uncommon for me to have a small amount of water in the drip trays, meaning the lowest layer of soil is still very wet, and the upper layer is totally dried out.

The belief that plants need to be started in small containers, or that they grow better that way, is accepted because nurseries that grow plants, mainly in greenhouses, have to maximize their space so they start plants in containers that are as small as possible and they can then ship far more of them on each truck to the retail outlets. It all cuts cost and increases profits, which is why it is done, and not because that is how plants grow best.
 

LVTDY

Well-Known Member
Brick, I agree. Not that I have years of experience or any scientific reasoning for my choice in using the biggest pots available from the start - basic logic tells us that water that can't touch your roots isn't a threat to them. (in the grand scheme of things, anyway)
 

Cali.Grown>408

Well-Known Member
People claim you risk an over-watering situation, too much moisture being available and possible root-rot problems. Well small roots that are only inches into soil can only access the moisture they are actually in contact with. Moisture deeper down and farther to the side does not cause any problems. It cannot rise up until the upper soil is dried out, and then it will slowly wick up, but not at a rate that is too much or fast enough to cause any problems. You can have a seedling in a 7-gallon pot where the bottom is very moist but the layer of soil where the seedlings roots are in can get more than dry enough that you will need to water. The surface soil can dry to dust and the lower part of the soil can be more than just moist.
i agree but if people keep the plant small and have this huge pot they have more of a chance to get too high of a RH in their room..and root rot problems and what not are more likely to occur
 

Brick Top

New Member
i agree but if people keep the plant small and have this huge pot they have more of a chance to get too high of a RH in their room..and root rot problems and what not are more likely to occur
If someone is growing dwarfs or something they keep very small for something like a PC grow they do not need as large of a container, nor would they even have the room for them, but most people do grow in containers that are really too small for the plants they grow to be able to grow and produce as well as they otherwise could.

When it comes to what you said about root-rot ... it doesn't matter how large of a pot you use, if the soil has adequate drainage you will not be risking root-rot problems.

Just speaking for my own situation, high humidity is almost never, if ever, a problem. Where I live almost every year I switch right from heat to a/c, and both remove moisture from the air in my home so my humidity is always average to low. I know not everyone is in the same situation where their outdoors temperatures go so quickly from cold or chilly enough to need heat to being hot and needing a/c and might do the windows open thing and have higher humidity, but again, if there is proper drainage there will be no risk of root rot. So in my indoor conditions high humidity is almost never a factor and if it ever is it is for a very short period of time and not long enough to create any risk.

As I said in my earlier message, that is one of the mythical reasons for using smaller pots instead of larger pots. But think about it .... if high humidity keeps soil moist longer through slowed down transpiration wouldn't the same thing happen to soil no matter what sized pots someone uses? And since the point was mainly about seedlings, if say the upper third of the pot will dry out, which happens with me all the time, and the seedlings roots are only in that upper third, or less, of the pot, it wouldn't matter if the bottom third was a virtual swamp.

Water will only wick up so fast and it with good draining soil it will not wick up at a pace that will keep the roots of seedlings in soil that is too moist.

Now it is outside rather than inside, but when I grow on my deck I mainly use 15-gallon pots and I have a couple 25-gallon pots. Where I live the humidity is a BITCH, it is almost always high, as is the temperature, and I can soak my soil every single day, pouring water on them with a hose until it is flowing out the drain holes and I have never had a plant with root-rot.

Between good drainage and the fact that water from lower down in the pots will not wick up as fast as transpiration and evaporation will dry out the upper portion of the soil, there is no risk of root rot for seedlings or larger plants under that type outdoor conditions, even with the high humidity.
 
Top