The Real Truth about Rootbound and Transplanting

Zaehet Strife

Well-Known Member
ROOTBOUND:

for some reason i lost the pics of the girls i started in 16oz cups. hardcore rootbound after 3 weeks in the cups. the picture of this plant- started in 16oz cup by seed, let veg for about 3 1/2 weeks before i transplanted into 1gallon milk jug. after being in the milk jug for just 10 days, yep 10 days. that is what the roots look like.

now some of you say rootbound doesn't exist well your wrong. im def. not a big fan of people who post false information that fucks up an aspect of my grow, my last grow really hurt because of the false info.

i was so confused about my last grow because shit was going wrong and i was doing everything perfect. rootbound plants start showing signs when the lower leaves start to yellow, making you think "fuck my PH must be off", or maybe i need to give them a nice shot of some nutes. After a few more days the tops of the plant (even the lower nods) start to thin out. the leaves become narrow and elongated. the leaves on the cola curl up making you think ahhh shit must be heat stress, or maybe my plants arent close enough to the light. your plants growth will slow tremendously, can even halt altogether. but you have to understand that all you have to do is transplant and you can save any plant, but you have to do it right if you want good results.

TRANSPLANTING ROOTBOUND PLANTS:

the pictures pretty much explain it all. you must be gentle, but not too gentle. the reason i cut away the jug is because the plant had just been watered recently, but i just got my new grow bags today so i decided to transplant while it was still wet. its easier to transplant when its dry, easier to break up the rootball without damaging the roots aswell, but can be done either way. first you want to loosen up the soil with your fingers by gently rubbing your palm across the sides to get those outside roots hanging off the sides. you want to ever so gently (yes it can be time consuming sometimes, took me about 10min of careful prodding and massaging to break up this rootball) pull apart the bigger root spots on the bottom of the plant, this is the most important part of all, and this is the part where it fucked me the most.

when you transplant rootbound plants you must losen up the root structure. as you can see im just making sure the roots arent going to keep growing in a circle around the plants. if you don't break up the roots it will eventually end up "strangling" itself and you will end up with a stunted baby or a plant that wasnt able to reach its full potential. after you break everything up and its all hanging lookin good, just gently set it in the pot/container, fill in the empty space with your preferred medium.. if dry, water with half the amount you usually do with maybe a pinch of ferts (i just make a lil worm poop tea) to give them a little extra help growing those new roots. if you water too much you could sink your soil and prevent the roots from gaining easy access to the bottom and sides of the container (you always want to water slowly, ive strangled plants before by sinking the medium, its also very hard to get oxygen to the roots when they are all mushed together) if the medium is wet before transplant just slightly water the soil you are going to set the plant on top of, then slightly water the sides when you fill it in.

roobound is real, and it will and does effect the health of your plant. yes you can grow a plant the whole way through in a 16oz cup from seed, but you will get half if not less the amount that you would get if you gave them the room they need to grow. even if you start w/seed on 12/12 in16oz cups you need to transplant after a couple weeks.

my truth from my experience, take it or leave it i just felt the need to put the correct info up because stupid info from stupid people really can affect your grows in a horrible way. thanks for reading and i really hope this helps.

be true to yourself, be positive and love your life- 311

ps. the plant i transplanted is a trifoliate female (3sets of leaves/nodes) the little plant pic is another trifoliate, with any luck i can take those two plants with the trifoliate genotype and breed them to make a trifoliate phenotype! that way all the seeds i will get off of the plants will be trifoliates!!!! what do you guys think? hopefully the little one turns into a male, been trying to stress it out as you can see from the cuttings lol. ty guys peace

RAMBLE:
So over the year 1/2 ive been growing i have figure out that 90% of the people on forums and pretty much that grow weed in general like to think they know it all. Actually 90% of the whole population in the world likes to think they know it all. The human race in general this thing called "EGO" People think they know what they only think, and if someone proves them wrong they get offended. Think about it, since we were children we have been ridiculed and made fun of for our ignorance. People dont get it that not knowing something isnt a bad thing, it just IS. Until you give someone the information how are they supposed to know? So before you go bashing oh Mr. Knowitall take into consideration that people in general are very ingnorant of EVERYTHING. if you think you know something you THINK you know something. Until you have experienced it first hand please dont tell me you know when you dont. this rambe is about people posting fucking false information, or information that they THINK is real but isnt, im here to fix the confusion about rootbound plants and transplanting. starting with seed useing a soil medium.
 

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Zaehet Strife

Well-Known Member
i will be posting pictures in a few days to show you how much of a difference in growth you'll see once the roots start to take off
 

Hubert

Well-Known Member
now some of you say rootbound doesn't exist well your wrong. im def. not a big fan of people who post false information that fucks up an aspect of my grow, my last grow really hurt because of the false info.
What you call root bound, I'd probably call something else. I'm not going to say it doesn't happen on occasion, but there is almost no way any plant got root bound within a few weeks, cup or not. I've personally kept plants in 16oz cups for about eight months, no root trimming. I've flowered plants in cups, I've kept mothers for over a year in less than a gallon of soil.

So before you make it out to be cold hard fact, do some investigating. I have a strong suspicion that your plants weren't actually root bound, and that you just needed a scape goat.


this rambe is about people posting fucking false information, or information that they THINK is real but isnt, im here to fix the confusion about rootbound plants and transplanting. starting with seed useing a soil medium.
Might want to edit that out, makes you sound hypocritical :clap:
 

Zaehet Strife

Well-Known Member
when i post the new pics you will see the difference in growth and in color, there is no other problem everything is perfect... the reason my plant looks the way it does, long skinny leaves curling at the tops and at the tops of the node shoot is because it is rootbound. you will be able to compare when i post the new pics in a few days.. i would like to see some pics of your girls that you grew 12/12 in 16oz cups from start to finish compared to some that you transplanted correctly and at the right time. this is just one plant that i am doing an experiment on for rootbound porpouses only, to get the truth out. try it out its easy, start to seeds in 16 oz cups. in 3 weeks transplant one of them into a 1gallon container useing the transplanting techniques i have shown. then watch and see. you will find out then what a rootbound plant actually looks like and how differently it grows compared to the other plant. sorry my uninformed friend, rootbound exists.

Roobound is real, and it will and does effect the health of your plant. yes you can grow a plant the whole way through in a 16oz cup from seed, but you will get half if not less the amount that you would get if you gave them the room they need to grow. even if you start w/seed on 12/12 in 16oz cups you need to transplant after a couple weeks.

its funny to me that the only comment i get about this is somone trying to tell me yet again that rootbound doesnt exist. well sorry huburt but it does, maybe you should try the experiment before you make a hasty remark. prolly one of those guys that thinks they know everything. and yes, i know exactly what your going to say when you reply to this, your going to ridicule me, make fun of me and probably call me some names or some shit, well the fact of the matter is that you my friend are wrong, and you are just going to have to accept that fact and go do the experiment.

your probably the person who is trying to say that rootbound doesnt exist
 

Zaehet Strife

Well-Known Member
would really like a comment from someone who actually has experimented/taken pics and documented the differences between growing a plant that is rootbound and transplanting a plant correctly. if you havent, then you should really take this information into consideration. you can increase your yield tremendously.

why do i grow? because i love to LEARN, i love to experiment and do different things, cut off fan leaves on different parts cut different shoots bend in different ways, you can do anything if you put your mind to it and commit to it. i dont grow to show off, i dont grow to sell, i grow to share with my friends. i grow to share knowledge that really helps people with their grows. i grow to feel like ive accomplished something, learning something different each and every grow, and being able to indulge on the fruits of your labor. so many people are so single minded about growing, so selfish and unmoving about their views. and i NEVER put up information that i havent personally experimented and documented.
 

SCCA

Active Member
ive never let my plants get root bound, you pointed out the exact reasons why. i don't know where the belief came from, but i think it has to do with people getting decent results from small plants in small pots, and from hydro systems producing super dense root balls. i have worked with plants for most of my life, and have never seen a plant thrive in root bound conditions. some plants dont flower unless root bound but that is not a very common attribute. when growing bonsai you maintain the tree at about 20%-50% root bound to slow the trees growth.
 

djruiner

Well-Known Member
im not going to contest the fact that plants get rootbound....they do...except for the people that do air pruning. you know,as in growing in real buckets or smart pots with air getting to the roots...as in not in milk jugs.do that and being rootbound is never a issue if done correctly.now im not going to bother pointing out everything that was misinformation in your post.would take too long and probably wont sink in anyways.like i said before..not saying in anyway plants do not become rootbound..im speaking in reference to your transplanting tutorial.aside from the list of things wrong with that...your approach to all this is quite hostile and no one is going to take your information seriously with the harshness your tossing in with it.if you think your posting new info that anyone that can type "google" cant find then your sadly mistaken.and this comes from someone that has been growing for almost 15 years...not 1 1/2 years
so to sum it up..yes plants get rootbound...but thats where your thread should have stopped...the rest of your dribble does nothing to help your point
and thats just keeping it real,not saying i know it all,not trying to boost my ego,nor am i disagreeing with you.its just your views and attitude doesn't sparkle.
 
So over the year 1/2 ive been growing i have figure out that 90% of the people on forums and pretty much that grow weed in general like to think they know it all. Actually 90% of the whole population in the world likes to think they know it all. The human race in general this thing called "EGO" People think they know what they only think, and if someone proves them wrong they get offended.
but since you know the REAL TRUTH, you are in the 10% that does know it all? which is surprising since you are using clear jugs for a plant whose roots hate light....but I must have heard that wrong as well.
 

djruiner

Well-Known Member
but since you know the REAL TRUTH, you are in the 10% that does know it all? which is surprising since you are using clear jugs for a plant whose roots hate light....but I must have heard that wrong as well.
theres one flaw....can ya name another one?...this thread is like a "wheres waldo" of fail
 

Zaehet Strife

Well-Known Member
but since you know the REAL TRUTH, you are in the 10% that does know it all? which is surprising since you are using clear jugs for a plant whose roots hate light....but I must have heard that wrong as well.
some people dont have the money to do grows as crazy and badass as you oh god of growing, i use what i can get with the little money i have. so fucking tired of people looking at a post and picking it apart, im giving out good information with pictures and i have personal experience with this problem. this is about rootbound plants, this is about people saying that rootbound doesnt exist when it does.

and the fucked up part about this is that somebody out there who hasnt grown before is going to read this, read your comments and be like MEH fuck it, i dont need to transplant it will be ok, when they are ultimately reducing their yeild by what could be a tremendous amount, (exactly what happened to me) how can you go about making comments about a very informative thread like that when it could affect badly on a very inexperienced grower.

people need to know about plants that are rootbound, about what happens to them if you let them grow while they are rootbound and how it can and will effect the final yeild of the plant. but everyone is just sooo big headed that they cant accept the fact that someone as inexperienced as me in growing can find something extremely useful for any grower.

if you already know about rootbound plants and how to handle them then GTFO. if you dont know about rootbound plants then i hope this info has helped you because ive increased my yeild twofold just by making sure my plants are in the right size pots.

and i dont give a shit if youve been growing for 50+ years djruiner , if you are growing in a soil medium it doesnt matter what type of pot you use, if it is too small for your plants roots your plant WILL get rootbound.
 

Zaehet Strife

Well-Known Member
words from bricktop from that forum:

Once again …. There is such a condition as root-bound. You can take that from someone who is part owner in a nursery that is now up to about 12 or 14 acres of trees and bushes which means thousands of trees and bushes.

Just to bring up a finer point, our nursery is what is called a pot in pot system. There are socket pots in long rows set in the ground that drain into drain tile setups. The socket pots are slightly larger than the growing pots that are then placed into the socket pots. So everything we grow regardless of size is in pots set inside socket pots so we do not grow in the ground and then dig them out when sold. We just pull the growing pots from the socket pots, sometimes with machinery because a 25-gall or especially a 50-gallon pot with a somewhat large tree in it is not exactly easy to pick up and carry. But because everything we grow is in pots we have often times seen the condition known as root-bound.

The thing is that marijuana plants are much tougher than most other plants so they can still survive and even do well is less than optimal conditions but if you give them optimal conditions what you now consider to be good results would improve because you will have happier healthier plants.

I sometimes chuckle to myself when I read about someone’s setup and they went to great extents to provide the very best lighting and reflection possible and the best ventilation possible and will keep the temperature and humidity levels as close to being perfect as is possible and will spring for the highest dollar nutrients and will have a cO2 setup on a timer that will periodically release cO2 around their plants and then they grow in 3-gallon pots.

I always have to ask myself why they go to such great extents to create optimal conditions if they are going to stop doing that when it comes to pot size?

Just by going with to small of a pot they will negate some of the rest of what they did to create what they believe is the very best setup possible and that means reducing their yield and to some degree quality too.

I say if you are going for perfection why not go for it? Why stop one-step short when taking that one more step would give you the whole nine yards?

Even if you cannot go for perfection, possibly due to cost, why not at least take advantage of the cheapest simplest easiest things you can do that will benefit your plants regardless of not doing all the other things that may be cost prohibitive or just impossible for someone to do because of some other reason or reasons?
 

sso

Well-Known Member
every plant ive grown,every strain of marijuana (its not so pronounced in many other plants)

shows exactly the same symptoms when i need to transplant.

droopy leaves that wont go away when i water or dont water and stalled growth.

though its bit different droopy look, nowadays i just know whether its a waterproblem or rootbound by a look.
 

newbforlife

Active Member
i didn't know ppl thought it didn't exsist
i can post some pics of 4 plants all the same age
2 male 2 female
the 2 male are still in the 1 gallon buckets
the 2 female are in 3 gallon buckets
but there is a huge size diff
if thats what were talking about but i can't do it till 6 my time
the whole 1 gallon per foot has held true for me
 

newbforlife

Active Member
2011-03-24 18.41.09.jpg2011-03-24 18.42.07.jpg2011-03-03 16.09.41.jpg2011-03-24 18.40.33.jpg2011-03-02 19.08.41.jpg2011-03-24 18.41.20.jpg2011-03-24 18.39.19.jpg2011-03-24 09.14.21.jpg2011-03-24 18.39.42.jpg2011-03-03 16.10.59.jpg2011-03-05 10.01.50.jpg2011-03-24 18.40.53.jpg2011-03-24 18.42.42.jpgso here it is 2 males 2 female from seed the only thing that changed it the females are in 3 gal pots and the males are in 1 gall pots
and the plants were put into flowering 4 or 5 days agoi wanted to flower then 5 weeks ago when i changed the pot but there was the clone issue (diff thread)but they got to big so i might have to start from seed again
 

<Grasshopper>

Active Member
Ok...I dont know for sure....but from what I have read and understand. The plant in your picture looks like it was overwatered and the soil near the bottom of the pot was very moist most of the time. Thast will make the roots travel down there and stay instead of continuing to grow through the soil searching for water and food. Did you let the dirt completly dry out between watering? I am just trying to help here and am no expert grower but am beginning to understand soil growing techniques.

Grasshopper
 

Zaehet Strife

Well-Known Member
so here it is 2 males 2 female from seed the only thing that changed it the females are in 3 gal pots and the males are in 1 gall pots
and the plants were put into flowering 4 or 5 days agoi wanted to flower then 5 weeks ago when i changed the pot but there was the clone issue (diff thread)but they got to big so i might have to start from seed again[/QUOTE]

are those clones newbforlife? and picture #7 shows it all. look at how much bigger and better the plant looks in the 3 gallon pot compared to the 1gallon pot, almost twice as big and looks twice as lucious. thank you so much newb, smoke on bro.
 
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