Transplant Fail, Need advice

When attempting to transplant I ripped offthe root ends of one of my plants and damged the roots on another (stupid I know). After doing this, I did not continue with the transplant in hopes to let it recover. It looks like it will make it, but is still looking sad. I leave town tomorrow for 5 days and am wondering if I should transplant the girls now since they need more root room, give a good watering tomorrow and hope for the best (worried about stress and hermie with this option)? Or do I Leave them in the 1 gal, water good tomorrow, and hope they make it OK until I can transplant them next weekend? I am currently growing in 2 parts Happy frog, 1 part Ocean forest, 1 part coco. Plants are about 3 weeks old, only under 600wHPS for a little over a week. I've heard some suggest CFLs would encourage root growth, as well as slow down the loss of water from the leaves. Should I switch the lights sources and should I transplant are my questions. Your help is greatly appreciated.

I attached pics as well. The first is three of my plants, none of which were damaged but soon need more real estate. Second pic is the other three plants, the droopy two are the damaged ones. Third is the plant I damaged the worst and the final is the other one I damaged. It looks droopier right now, but does perk up more frequently and stronger than the other.

I had this same problem a few weeks ago. Snapped almost the entire rootball off. When did you do this transplant? The main things you want to do is limit the amount of heat and raise the humidity (dome if you have something available) to help from drying out. After a couple days you may lose some fans but wait it out. A week and a half is what it took for my clone to re-root itself and start growing again. Good luck with the little ladies man.

greenmonster2420 said:

When attempting to transplant I ripped offthe root ends of one of my plants and damged the roots on another (stupid I know). After doing this, I did not continue with the transplant in hopes to let it recover. It looks like it will make it, but is still looking sad. I leave town tomorrow for 5 days and am wondering if I should transplant the girls now since they need more root room, give a good watering tomorrow and hope for the best (worried about stress and hermie with this option)? Or do I Leave them in the 1 gal, water good tomorrow, and hope they make it OK until I can transplant them next weekend? I am currently growing in 2 parts Happy frog, 1 part Ocean forest, 1 part coco. Plants are about 3 weeks old, only under 600wHPS for a little over a week. I've heard some suggest CFLs would encourage root growth, as well as slow down the loss of water from the leaves. Should I switch the lights sources and should I transplant are my questions. Your help is greatly appreciated.

I attached pics as well. The first is three of my plants, none of which were damaged but soon need more real estate. Second pic is the other three plants, the droopy two are the damaged ones. Third is the plant I damaged the worst and the final is the other one I damaged. It looks droopier right now, but does perk up more frequently and stronger than the other.

Click to expand...

You can't get someone to water while you're away? If not then 1) leave them in those pots - that's a three week old plant in a 5 litre pot - they don't need transplanting yet and that's likely why you damaged them trying to take them out the pot - always squeeze around the outside of the pot to loosen up the soil, then take the plant low down on the stem, just above the soil, between forefinger and thumb and tip the pot sideways to ease it out. You really want your rootball to be filling that pot before you move it on.
2) stick them under the fluoro if you're off for 5 days and no-one else can water - temps will be cooler, evaporation less, rh higher - which will all be better in the circumstances

Good luck!

Cheers

honestly man i would leave them in there. they are pretty small still and a 1 gallon pot can take them fine for awhile.

when there ready to transplant slightly water them, hold the base of the plant between your fingers, flip the pot upside down and it should come right out all intact in a big root ball or cube.

if the roots and dirt are falling apart they are not ready.

now would be a good time to top your plants

Ok, thanks for the quick replies. I want to clarify a few things.

1st this all happened on thursday morning (a little over 72 hours ago).
2nd, they are 3 weeks in the soil, not 3 weeks from cutting. Probably 5 weeks since cut from clone. Had nice size roots when I transplanted, plus 2 weeks under CFL which I heard influences root growth
3rd, I dont know if they were rootbound or not, as this is my first grow and I am still learning. However, what I do know is that they werent responding to the watering (still looked droopy) after the soil was bone dry and not watered for 4-5 days. Usually, they would perk right up after a watering, here they were still droopy 12 hours later. Also, I pulled a third plant out at the same time as the others (properly this time, done as mentioned above with all soil intact) and the whole bottom of the rootball/pot was all filled with semi tangled roots.


I was actually not trying to transplant when I damaged the roots on the 2 plants. They weren't responding and so I went digging around the soil thinking it was a drainage issue while digging in there I noticed large patches of dry soil, despite the watering 12 hours ago. I kept digging around and trying to move the plant around and accidently damaged the roots. A super noob mistake I got anxious and over zealous

IF they werent rootbound, is it possible it WAS a drainage issue? I have 25% coco in my mix to improve drainage, but could this cause wet and dry spots?


Also, this is around when I wanted to start training but is topping them or LSTing them too much stress right now? I feel like it would be.

when you water dry soil it tends to leave pockets of dry soil in there water slowly and thoroughly. pick up the pot and see how heavy it is, just because water comes out the bottom doesnt mean your soil is saturated completely with water

When I transplant clones, roots are typically more than a foot in length. I ALWAYS rip the roots right off the end to result in a 4" length root ball. I then dip these roots in an RO water+Superthrive+Sea Kelp solution before transplanting directly into 1 gallon pots. I then water the one gallon pots with 64oz of a Vegetative solution. They take about 3-7 days to set into next pot.

You are experiencing transplant shock and some droop due to water loss. When you transplant a plant with some large leaves and you break the roots supplying those leaves, they will droop. it will go away, pluck off the crispy crunchy leaves and proceed on, soldier.

TheFuture

Also, if you really cant get anyone to water for you while out of town, braid some thick sisal twine, or some other natural rope, soak it in a reservoir of nutrient solution, and shove one end of the wick into the bottom of your pots' drain holes into your media about 3". Place the reservoir beneath the plants, as realistically close to the surface of the water as possible, and let the remaining end of the rope sit in the reservoir. The rope will wick the nutrient solution into your plants and at this age should be plenty sufficient to water them for the days you will be away.

TheFuture

So you think I should be watering 64 oz per 1 gal pot? I start to see runoff around 16 oz so this could definetely be an issue. Does this mean I am watering too much too fast for it to be running out that quickly?

Thanks for all the help and recommendations

If you are getting runoff at 16oz, leave that until the plant takes it up and the soil is dry to your fingertip at 1" depth. That watering alone might get you through the 5 days, haha.

That is the method I've been using but I'm starting to think maybe I was watering to much too fast, creating little canals for the water and it started draining long before the soil was saturated. This would explain why a huge chunk of my soil was bone dry 12 he after watering and perhaps why the roots weren't getting the water.

My current plan of action is to just leave them in 1 gals, give them a real thorough, slow watering tomorrow morning so the soil is completely saturated and let them be until I come back.

Are there any negatives to going back to floros other than obviously slower growth? I can keep heat under 75 with either hps or floro, but more worried about water evaporation and drying leaves. I have also considered leaving the hps on and throwing the damaged ones in the corner of the tent and try to keep them shaded.

i veg under t5s and flower under 4 1ks hps. if your just vegging i would throw them under the floros at let them bounce back.
you would be surprised at the growth i get under t5s they def get the job done. no negatives tho i wouldnt flower under them

OK time for an update. The morning I left town they were all looking really good except for the heavy duty fruity, which was the one with the most root damage. I decided to leave them on my 18/6 hps cycle. I gave them a thorough watering and stuck the heavy duty in the corner of the tent to lessen light intensity.

Left town, plane back was cancelled so I got back a day late. I came back and found the plants had some major growth and all were pretty perky except the heavy duty who was still droopy but no dead leaves or anything.

I watered them all thoroughly, this time with nutrients (first time). They all drooped for about 12 hrs after watering, but they also have been drooping through the last 6-8 hrs of the light cycle regardless of watering so that may also be the cause. Then they all perked up extremely through the dark cycle, except the heavy duty.

Now that was all yesterday. Today I woke up to find one of the previously perky plants (white rhino) was drooping pretty bad. Don't know why this would be, there is still moisture in the soil and it definitely hasn't been overwatered.

I attached pictures. First is the heavy duty after I got back, second is the heavy duty today (2days after watering, hasn't perked up more than that yet), and the third is the white rhino drooping today.

I guess my questions are why do the plants droop towards the end of the day cycle and perk up through the dark? What should I do to help the heavy duty restore its self? Could the white rhino be related to the first time using nutes? I'm using fox farm soils, but it has been around a month that I've had the plants in it. Also using general hydroponics flora line base nutrients in the amount listed for week 2 of veg in the feed chart.

Thanks