Growing in coolers first time - Q on moving plants and roots

My plan is to start plants in a propagation setup, then move them to coolers with 2 plants per, for four weeks of 12/12. Up to that point they would be in a tent under 250-400w. Then I would move them to a larger grow area where they can be trained, under 600w and to coolers with just one per cooler. My concern is that at 6 weeks the root mass may be too big to get out of the 3.5 inch hole, and then into another 3.5 inch hole.

Anyone dealt with this and have a trick?

Yea 6 weeks should fill those buckets fast. Only thing i can think is somehow suspending a smaller netpot inside a much bigger netpot and cutting the bottoms out out the bigger net pot.
For instance i veg in a 12 site tub with 4 inch pots. From there they get maybe a couple week till i retransplant to 3.5 gallon buckets with the prebuilt 6 inch lids all i do is cut a 3 inch ring out of the bottom of the 6 inchpots and place the 4 inch over the hole and back fill around that pots carefully so clay doesnt get in my buckets n clog my pumps..
Could be done.

onthedl0008 said:

Yea 6 weeks should fill those buckets fast. Only thing i can think is somehow suspending a smaller netpot inside a much bigger netpot and cutting the bottoms out out the bigger net pot.
For instance i veg in a 12 site tub with 4 inch pots. From there they get maybe a couple week till i retransplant to 3.5 gallon buckets with the prebuilt 6 inch lids all i do is cut a 3 inch ring out of the bottom of the 6 inchpots and place the 4 inch over the hole and back fill around that pots carefully so clay doesnt get in my buckets n clog my pumps..
Could be done.

Click to expand...

I was hoping it might be easier but was thinking along the same lines. Except my idea was to have a larger hole in the final coolers, and then have a ring of some kind of material, maybe sheet metal and probably in 2 parts, that would come around under the edges of the 3 5/8 netpots and suspend them.

My other thought was trim the roots as needed. I don't like that but hear many growers say you can trim 1/3 of the rootmass and not have a slowdown or effect final yield. Do you agree with that?

I have trimmed my roots and it wasnt ever a problem. However i wouldnt reccomend doing it unless u plan on giveing them plenty enuff more veg time to grow them roots back before going to flower see what im saying...? Sounds like ur gonna do it right and veg some monsters so removeing rootmass before flower and not vegging them roots back would be kinda defeating the purpose of a nice veg IMO..
Trimming roots is fine for me especially when they grow together in my little tub i described which does happen if i dont retransplant up to the buckets quick enuff but like said they get ample time too recoop and grow them back.