advice on watering big pots needed

in my grow tent i just transplanted 4 young ish plants into a 20 gallon pot ( all sharing the same pot) with 60% miracle grow and 40% mix of other soils.then i watered till i got some run off. it took 4 and a half gallons before i got run off. the plants are 3 weeks into veg and about 7 inches tall and 7 inches wide.do you think that amount of water will last a few weeks . the usual advice is to stick your finger an inch or so into the soil to feel for damp . would that rule still be applicable or should i stilck half my arm in to feel deeper down. temp is 80f and good ventilation. any advice would be great . this is only my 2nd grow

I wouldve made things much easier and gone with 4 five-gal buckets man... I hate to see intertwined rootballs... Did you already have them sexed before throwin em in one container? What if you had to move it? I'm tryin to wrap my head around the reasoning here... You can make a water level meter by placing a clear plastic tube down a pre-drilled hole in the soil, use a styrofoam ball that fits inside of it and have a very light gauge but straight wire sticking out of the top of your ball, and you can see where the ball is floating, depending on how much water is present... I'd re-think my method next time, and use five gal buckets, and just use the "lift" method. When you first water em, pick em up to see what they feel like, in a day or two pick em up again to see what they feel like when they are low... Then you can just know without any "Mr. Wizard"-esque bullshit... Try to keep plants separate, because if for no other reason, you may have a hermie and need to cut it out, and end up stressing the other three into herms too, or it could just kill them... Never a good idea to combine plants in single containers man...

warrik hunt said:

in my grow tent i just transplanted 4 young ish plants into a 20 gallon pot ( all sharing the same pot) with 60% miracle grow and 40% mix of other soils.then i watered till i got some run off. it took 4 and a half gallons before i got run off. the plants are 3 weeks into veg and about 7 inches tall and 7 inches wide.do you think that amount of water will last a few weeks . the usual advice is to stick your finger an inch or so into the soil to feel for damp . would that rule still be applicable or should i stilck half my arm in to feel deeper down. temp is 80f and good ventilation. any advice would be great . this is only my 2nd grow

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The most efficient way to grow is by the "Russian doll" method of transplanting. The Russian doll method of transplanting is a process of gradually tapering up ones pot size to incrementally increase potential root space. Start with a seedling trey, then transplant into a styrofoam or solo cup 8oz pot, then transplant into a quart sized cup when the plants roots spiral out the drainage holes, then transplant to a Half gallon when the plants roots reach the threshold of their pots and spiral through the pots' drainage holes, then transplant to a gallon pot once the plant reaches its threshold (once again, roots spiraling out the drainage holes is the signal that a plant has reached its threshhold for root space), then when the plants roots spiral through the gallon pot's drainage holes transplant Into a 2-3 gallon pot, then 5 gallon (if you haven't decided to flower yet). Do this Russian doll transplant method until your plant goes into flower. Begin the flower cycle Just after the plant is transplanted so as to leave extra rootspace and growing room for the early flower stretch.

Benefits of The Russian doll transplant method include: control over rhizospheric environment (which allows for accelerated growth of both roots and foliage while mitigating the potential for disease, pests, or pathogens such as fungus, soil gnats, root rot/dampening off. Your 20 gallon container is going to be soaked at the bottom and that moisture will sit unused and stagnant as a 7in plant will take weeks to months until its roots are able to access the anaerobically and stagnantly saturated bottom of their container. All sorts of problematic, detrimental threats to plant health fester in this moist, stagnant, anaerobic (oxygen deprived) environment. Prevent this dangerous predicament of having a plant enemy breeding ground by following the Russian doll transplant method, watering for root size rather than soil volume (this means you should only water your 7in tall plants a volume of water proportional to the size of your small plants root space, 7in tall plants would have a rootspace of around 300-700ml volume thus 300-700 ml of liquid will be a godly goldy locks middle path that your will foster your plant to thrive. As your plant grows larger imagine the rootspace growing larger. Think about how large the root space may be and then water according to your estimate. Within the course of a week or two your plants root space will have doubled in size, the roots will spiral out the drainage holes, the plant will reach its threshhold for rootspace, you will transplant and incrementally increase the amount of water in proportion to the size of your plants root mass.

If that doesn't make sense let me know and I will clarify.

With lovelight and holy harmony,

Soul Synergy

as a novice all i can do is get my info from the net and books . it's funny , all the opposing methods that crop up (and head spinning). i did a fair bit of research before i transplanted and athlough most people transplant a few times i have read from reliable sources ,like published books ,that you should only transplant once coz it stresses the plant. i hope i'm not sounding argumenative . i have no experience one way or the other.most people say one pot per plant but then i've read of people doing awesome grows with multiple plants in one big pot. i dunno , do growers exaggerate obout their yeilds?..
anyway my thinking was that a single plant in a 5 gal pot would be just fine so 4 plants in 20 gals equals the same thing, well that was my assumption anyway . and i selected soil that has the best airation and drainage ability( mostly coco) . they are all feminized and i got a 2 inch layer of gravel at the bottom so there can't be a puddle at the bottom which makes a styrafoam float device a bit pointless ( btw was you joking?). i'm glad you told me about deases and fungus and other problems that anaerobic soil can harbour but i'ts too late to go back . i'll just have to cross my fingers and hope they'll be ok .
btw the reason i did it was because aswell as a mh lamp above i got an led hanging on the side wall ,just like you hang a picture on a wall , pointing the light horizontally to catch the shady under parts and i got the whole pot sitting on a turn table so i can rotate the plants occassionaly to get an equal share of the led . my tent is too small to shift plants around in seperate pots once they're about 3 feet tall .
thanks for the advice , much appreciated , but i just bet somebody else on some other forum would say that what i've done is fine . it's just hard work as a novice to know who's advice to follow . oh well i'll know in a few weeks for myself , whether i've screwed up or not i'll have learnt something

I agree with GG, if only for the reasons of something happening to one plant, or finding one or more is male, and by that time, what happens to the roots that have grown?
Even if they are not entangled, you would have to pull it out VERY carefully to even know that.
And, what if you decide for some reason to move the plant(s)........... Maybe something happens to your tent, or maybe like another thread today, guy is having an inspection and has to move all his plants......

Kinda like putting all your eggs into one basket as the saying goes.

i thought i'd update you so i could pick your brains again. my 4 plants sharing a 20 gal pot are 7 weeks old now ( flipped to 12/12 four days ago..) guess how many times i've watered them in the last 5 weeks? none , zero times, zilch. they are 22 inches tall and 24 inches wide with plenty of quite large leaves all pointing slighly upward and healthy looking . i can't see hardly any of the stalks and stems without manualy moving the foliage to the side and having delve about ,so i think the greenary is full and dense enough for 315 watts of lighting or am i grossly mistaken and should have a lot bigger and lusher growth by now if they were in seperate pots. i dunno , are they doing shit or ok ? any advice would be great
to my mind everything seems fine so far, nice rich green coulor, no nute burn, do you think i'm being lulled into a false sense of security and all the reasons for not growing several plants in one large pot will reveal themselves in the flowering stage. please advise. also i'm waiting for the leaves to droop before i water but they just seem to be always nice and perky. is that a bad tactic?

picssssssss

warrick hunt said:

i thought i'd update you so i could pick your brains again. my 4 plants sharing a 20 gal pot are 7 weeks old now ( flipped to 12/12 four days ago..) guess how many times i've watered them in the last 5 weeks? none , zero times, zilch. they are 22 inches tall and 24 inches wide with plenty of quite large leaves all pointing slighly upward and healthy looking . i can't see hardly any of the stalks and stems without manualy moving the foliage to the side and having delve about ,so i think the greenary is full and dense enough for 315 watts of lighting or am i grossly mistaken and should have a lot bigger and lusher growth by now if they were in seperate pots. i dunno , are they doing shit or ok ? any advice would be great
to my mind everything seems fine so far, nice rich green coulor, no nute burn, do you think i'm being lulled into a false sense of security and all the reasons for not growing several plants in one large pot will reveal themselves in the flowering stage. please advise. also i'm waiting for the leaves to droop before i water but they just seem to be always nice and perky. is that a bad tactic?

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Nobody said the way your doin it wont work. theres just many reasons to have them in separate pots. some plants grow faster so you can stick somethin under the smaller ones to have an even canopy. If one plant gets sick it's easy to remove. I have put small plants in large pots before and had to water the top of the pot even though there was a lot of water sitting in the bottom half of the pot. I once had a healthy 5 foot plant in a 4 inch pot too but I wont do that again either. lol I wouldnt wait for the leaves to droop. When my plants leaves droop I feel like I waited just a little too long to water.

Four plants in a 20 gallon planter will do great if you don't grow them huge. Just because it's not a standard way to grow, does not mean it wont work just fine.

That said, I'm with everyone else. Individual planters allow you a ton more verstility, will be so helpful if you have to segregate one plant from the rest for whatever reason, and allows for the possible genetic diversity from a seed grow.