Can I or should I keep the pots small?

What happens if I keep the pots small?

Im starting up a bunch of plants and want to keep them real small while they veg.(i have limited space) I play on trying LST and maybe ScrOG or SOG.

But for now i wanna keep them in small cups. Would the roots simply run out of space and not grow anymore until i transplant or would it stunt the plant/ cause future iincorrectable problems?


Any takes

Probably end up with overcrowded roots, and they will strangle themselves.... You need to transplant to the size of the plant....

It will not cause any permanent damage, although it will stunt the growth of the plant until you re-pot it. You can encourage further growth by giving stronger nutes if required though.

Small pots are a good way to control the height of plants in a SOG setup with limited space.

And I wouldn't be too worried about the size, if you're doing a sea of green you'll be controlling how and where they grow anyways... Make the transplant at the right time so they have sufficient time to recover from the stress. I can only imagine transplant in flowering would stunt bud growth.

Nocturn3 said:

It will not cause any permanent damage, although it will stunt the growth of the plant until you re-pot it. You can encourage further growth by giving stronger nutes if required though.

Small pots are a good way to control the height of plants in a SOG setup with limited space.

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Good good.

importfr87 said:

And I wouldn't be too worried about the size, if you're doing a sea of green you'll be controlling how and where they grow anyways... Make the transplant at the right time so they have sufficient time to recover from the stress. I can only imagine transplant in flowering would stunt bud growth.

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Well i would transplant right before they went into flowering. And I wouldn't let them strangle themselves, just let the root ball get nice and thick.

have you ever untangled a bunch of roots all stuck together...oh it sucks

Nope cant say i have I dont see how i would need to since the plants are all in serparate pots. Im not untangling those tangled within themselves.

rootbound plants can flower fully and lead a healthy life no problems you may have to water more often

No need to pull apart rootbound roots completely -- just tease in some loose areas around the edge the root ball with a fork. The plant will find its way from there. Some badly bound pots will have masses of very fine but dead roots right at the bottom crease of the pot -- pull these off. They should come off really easy. If not, they're live roots and should be left alone. Replant by gently packing in soil around that root ball and watering thoroughly to assure root / soil contact, and watch your plant take off anew after a couple days of recovery.

Yeah I got that. Ive got them sprouting in opaque cups alittle bigger then an average waterbottle. More like those big red cups, but anyway. Im probably only gunna veg for a week or 2 maybe, what do you guys think about that?

My reason is i wanna know if its female, I want it to flower quickly, dont really care to much about quantity of bud. I just wanna get this mother up and running quick. Is there such thing as premature flowering?

dude, use 6" round pots i pulled over 1- O per plant, now im gonna do more with my hps.. i can fit 8 per cab, im only letting them get 20"-24" tall too, very healthy buds in small container, gotem on ebay CHEAP

yes. you can flower anytime but you'll stress your plant a whole bunch needlessly. always give a good veg. 40+ days.
herms!

indianaman said:

yes. you can flower anytime but you'll stress your plant a whole bunch needlessly. always give a good veg. 40+ days.
herms!

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God damit thats like rain on my wedding day. Those damn herms, better safe then sorry though, thanks for the advice.\


Oh and to kingb420 - how are you keeping them so short, just the pots or do you do ScrOG or lst or something?

skippy pb said:

God damit thats like rain on my wedding day. Those damn herms, better safe then sorry though, thanks for the advice.

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If you have room for a small mother/clone area, you can safely flower clones from a mature plant straight away. Just pick a good female, keep her bonsai'd, and she will supply you with guaranteed females that can be safely flowered whilst nice and small.

look up fimming topping in the ''search''. or just type your question. maybe someone's already asked it.

In my experienceit is easier on the plant if you pick your size of pot and stick with it. Putting a plant into shock by transplanting it and messing with the root wad before bud can and most likely will cause it to yield less and give you more work to keep it going. As far as a plant growing fine with a crowded root wad, yes, I have seen it. But generally a crowded root wad will cause the plant to do things you dont want it to do. And trying to fix that by watering more or hitting it with more fertalizer doesnt normally have the outcome we want. Unless you want a bunt plant or ultimatly a plant that will not yield what your expecting or wanting.
If you are using clones I say go from your pod directly to your pot that you will use to bud. If infact you are doing a sea of green you can control the root wad size by forcing the budding stage early and expect to yield around 2 ounces a plant. The benefits to a sea of green is turn around time and space.

badger59er said:

In my experienceit is easier on the plant if you pick your size of pot and stick with it. Putting a plant into shock by transplanting it and messing with the root wad before bud can and most likely will cause it to yield less and give you more work to keep it going.

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I'd say that's only true if your final pot is small. If not, it's a bad idea to put a small seedling or clone straight into a huge pot.

Because of height issues, I also have thought much about this.
I'm working on a SOG that will be in 4 21 inch trays.
I'm using the www.superoots.com air pot #1.
From my research, their pots and the way the roots grow are like that of a pot nearly twice it's size. I'll let you know how they turn out. I'm not up and running 100% yet.
You will need to feed more with smaller pots.

flamdrags420 said:

Because of height issues, I also have thought much about this.
I'm working on a SOG that will be in 4 21 inch trays.
I'm using the www.superoots.com air pot #1.
From my research, their pots and the way the roots grow are like that nearly twice it's size. I'll let you know how they turn out. I'm not up and running 100% yet.
You will need to feed more with smaller pots.

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Good info. I've read about air pruning systems before, and would be curious to see if they work as well as advertised. Do you have a grow diary up and running?

skippy pb said:

God damit thats like rain on my wedding day. Those damn herms, better safe then sorry though, thanks for the advice.\


Oh and to kingb420 - how are you keeping them so short, just the pots or do you do ScrOG or lst or something?

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when the plant flowers it grows like 3x its current size. i did the math, let them get 6-8" tall and flower them in the pots. im only in a 3ft H cab minus the room for the hps...lol its a science