Roots coming out the bottom of container, what should I do with them??

rafaerj

Member
Hello again partners! Ive noticed that the roots of my babies are coming out the bottom of the container, but repotting is not an option since they are in the biggest container I could manage to deal with. So my question is, what to do with those roots?

Should I remove them and when they grow out again keep removing it?
If I do, will the "cuttings" affect the plant overall?

Or do I just let them stay there?
If so, will it give me trouble, like a disease, mold or fungus??
 

cranker

Legal Moderator, Esq.
Well, it's gonna mean your plant can't get any bigger for one thing. It could lead to bad things I'd really need to see a pic to figure out how bad and if there's anything you can do.
 

Bwpz

Well-Known Member
What stage are they in? If you can't repot idk man, they're not supposed to see light at all.
 

namtih024

Active Member
your plant is becoming root/pot bound. Its not nessasary to cut exposed root systems back as they will do whats called air pruning, the roots will turn green and harden and wont continue to grow without a medium. you should really try to repot. if repotting is not an opion then you will have to live with the fact that your plant wont get any bigger. an advanced option would be to prune the roots back and repot in the same pot with fresh soil, but as i said this is an advanced technique i learned from growing bonsai trees and have adapted mainly to hydroponics, its not recommended a newbie try it as trimming the wrong roots or handleing the plant wrong during trimming can cause severe stress. but if done right will promote new growth in a day or two.
just unpot the plant as if you were re potting it, then place the root ball on a clean surface. gently remove some dirt by brushing it away and trim the smaller roots with clean sharp scissors. you want to leave the main taproot untouched only remove smaller root systems on the bottom and sides of the root ball, and not too much either. remember your plant still needs enough roots to support it.
after reducing the root ball to 3/4 size or even 1/2 size ( i have trimmed off over 3/4 for a bonsai before) repot the plant in fresh soil and water immediately.
like i said not for newbs but you might try it on a smaller plant first to get the hang of it.
 

rafaerj

Member
That looks pretty awesome technique namtih024. Maybe I will try it! thanks man!

You asked about the size of the plants, but first I will tell you how Im doing it:
- Well, its a damm slow growth, I think its because I just let the plants outside in my backyard, in a 1,0-1,5 gallon container. Its some kind of cold too this time of the year, not too cold, just below what it should be for optimal growth of the plants. Also, there is like 4 hours of direct sunlight, the rest is shade. But this factors will improve when we get to summer. (yeah I started at the wrong time of the year)
- The soil medium is not especific, I just bought it at the local supermarket, but in the label it says premium quality, and Ive checked for the compositions and it looked it could work (there are worm cast, peat, lime, etc. a lot of stuff).
- Just water them once a week (I think because the growth is slow and the soil takes a longer time to dry out) and its been 3 months I planted them, with no use of fertilizers yet. I just use a Silicon based product that improves soil conditions once every 2 weeks.
-The seeds are not the best, one of the plants, the bigger and older one, is 100% sativa, from paraguay I guess (im in south america), and the other 2 I bought from amsterdam, they are 100% indicas, afghans. They are like 25 centimeters - 30 centimeters tall (too tiny for 3 months huh?). The leafs with 7 tips started to grow a week ago. Dammm slowwwwwwwww!!!
-And there arent a lot of roots coming out, I mean, there is like 3 or 5 roots hehe, very tiny little roots. They appeared 1 week ago.
-But the plants still growing, I can notice very small and slow changes every day or two.
-The reason I cant repot its because the pot is already too big, I dont know if its a 1 gallon for sure, we dont use this metric system here, but I tried to calculate and found out the containers can handle something about 5 to 6 liters.
 

Xcon

Active Member
A 1 gallon pot isn't very big, I just got done with a 12/12 from seed in 1 gal containers and I'll never flower in them again. I don't understand why you can't transplant? You can just lift the plant out of the pot at this stage.
 

rafaerj

Member
I dont have more space, but im not totaly sure about the 1 gallon, maybe its more, or its because I had never planted aanything in containers before, just little beans in cottom haha. I think my plants could be underdeveloped, because my friend that planted 2 months ago (1 younger) in a containner about half or even 1 third the size of my containners, he already managed to get it 1 meter tall, more than 3 foot, using a 40watts fluorecent lamp and some soil mix he got when he went to the agriculture store that I had already gone to and didnt have anything I needed. Also the plant is in a bathroom, with almost no ventilation. So, maybe my plants are Bonsais Cannabis hehe
But I will try to upload some photos so you can see what I mean as soon as possible.
And I dont know the stage they are, I think it would be a very early stage, it just started to get bigger and look like a real plant a few weeks ago.
 

Xcon

Active Member
Could be your soil, I got some plants from another grower a while back that were in some dense organic mix. I knew as soon as I looked at the soil and didn't see any perlite that there would be problems. They looked healthy, but didn't grow much at all. One of them stayed about 8" tall for 3 months even though I transplanted and put it in direct sunlight.

The roots need air, if your soil is too dense, then you need to add something to it. Can you get bags of sphagnum peat? It's pretty common and adding it to your soil 50/50 will reduce it's density and weight, but you still need to add perlite or something similar to help with drainage and getting air to the roots.
 

rafaerj

Member
Humm I see, the problem is that here in my country I could only find perlite for sail at just 1 particular store and is very expensive, like 30 dollars by kilogram. But I think I will start another one from zero, doing everything more right this time hehe. I will check this sphagmum peat, dont know what it is but I will find out. Yeah, what you said about the roots need a less compact soil, my friend's looks way more aired.
 

Mel O'Cheddar

Active Member
There are people who just buy a bag of dirt, cut the top open, and put plants into the dirt straight into the bag. I've seen people do this with vegetables (Tomatoes, squash etc) with decent results, and I'm fairly certain I've seen it discussed here somewhere.
Best wishes dude
 
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