Quick question for the gurus… my 1 gallon girls are starting to fill their pots and getting ready to move to 3 gallons… but I have some smaller clones ready to go into their 1 gallons from the baby pots. My question is, is it more beneficial to put those clones in the 1 gallon, let them fill that out, and then into the 3 gallon? Or just skip the 1 gallon and go to the 3. My thinking was that the smaller pots let’s the roots really fill in and make a nice rootball to take advantage of the room when it goes to 3’s. So, any advice? I understand going straight to 3 gallons will require more watering and real estate in my veg room… I don’t mind the labor of doing 2 transplants. Also considering the transplant shock twice instead of once. Thanks!
This depends on the type of container and the amount of branching you want, canopy circumference/drip-line. With fabric or air-pruning pots, probably the staged transplanting is best, unless you’re building framework for big trees outside>
Also maybe you meant less-frequent watering going straight to 3gal? that’s another advantage to stepping up, easier to mani[pulate wet-dry cycles to suit your environement and gardening style. Should be no ‘transplant shock’ if you use good methods.
I prefer to increase pot size incrementally (never from a 4” to a 3 gallon. I use a suitably sized pot for the size of plant only for control of substrate. You shouldn’t stick a 6” tall clone into a 3 gal and water till runoff. The portion of the substrate that won’t see significant root structure for 2+weeks will be losing water through evaporation only, causing a nutrient build up. When the roots finally hit the bottom, they are hit with a 4x dose of nutes plus whatever you are currently feeding.
I will note that proper transplanting practices can exhibit virtually no stress. I actually see an increase in growth if I gently open the root ball and transplant into a larger pot.
I go aero cloner to solo cup to 5gal or 3.5gal if I dont plan on flowering that particular strain. I top after she reaches 6 nodes while in solo cups, wait 2 more weeks, then up pot (see above).
Almost 10yrs and no probs.
There are tricks to allow plants to grow more bushy vs tall. It’s all about where the roots hit. But your not gonna get a stretchy lanky girl to Bush out with out some super magic in a bottle.
Thank you and I found that all very informative. I am going to up pot the 1 gallon girls to the 3 gallon, and the 4” pots to the 1 gallons for now. Thank you for your time everyone
to add a little more context to some of the above advice…
Im going from 1 gallon hard plastic pots, to 3 gallon hard plastic pots, to 15 gallon smart pots in a light dep greenhouse.
And ideally id like bigger bushier instead of tall. Im learning about topping and training… In my past experience working along side someone, the only real training we did was give them a topping at some point, and use trellis once they were in the greenhouse to push the branches down and spread them out to even the canopy. I will read into methods and things i can do now at this crucial time to really give them the best chance of success. As i said, they are intended for light dep in 15 gallon pots. Thanks again!
i go from clone cup into 3 gal.
2 weeks of growing roots. then really
take off. why shock them a few times.
i been doing it forever seems to work…
Lrus007
Just from what I’ve noticed in my rooms. the plants seem to get bigger and more full( more hedge like) if I go straight to big pots. When I up pot they tend to grow more vertical and not as wide. The important thing is dry down times on the first few waterings. This is critical for creating a nice heathy root zone. You trying to get roots to run/ search pot. Once they start catching Youll see the explosive growth.
Yea so far when I transplant, I go very light on watering and only water the outside rim. Before I even realized, I slid a plant out of the pot upside down, and it was full rooted all throughout the pot. One thing I had hammered into me in my previous experiences helping was “don’t overwater, people’s biggest mistake”
I really hate regular plastic nursery pots. The root circling in those is so counterproductive for a high performance root system, especially for transplants. Some people see the opposite of what @Pattypan01 said, but I think it depends a lot on how(where) you water if jumping straight to the big ones. You can control the drip-line by how far from the crown you water.
Mostly I flower in rolling beds with potting mix about 12" deep and another 3-4" of straw/cover-crop over that. The plants spend 1-2wks in 2gal air-pruning pots before the beds.
I agree. Rootbound plants also love to hermie out from the stress.
I love my nursery pots. I have 100-200
All sizes. Circle and square alike. .5g, 1g, 3.5g, 4.7g, solo cups.