what are the effects of root lock

midget

Active Member
so with my first grow i started with two clones... they were and are doing well but one is acting a little different than the other... this is the one that I noticed had grown a huge dense root ball that when I watered it would not soak in... I replanted it and it seemed to be doing fine but now it has smaller buds than the other and it seems to have "matured faster" than the other as its trechs are mostly cloudy while its sister's are still clear.
is it possible she suffered from "root-lock"
 

videoman40

Well-Known Member
I can understand your not understanding it, as it refers to a PH problem in soil. Obviously this is not a problem in England according to you, and we here in the states are all very jealous.
If you get root lock, you lose growth and production.
Sounds like you had both problems! So your answer is yes.

Perhaps a good flushing is needed with PH'd water.
Peace


What is root lock ?
 

babygro

Well-Known Member
I can understand your not understanding it, as it refers to a PH problem in soil. Obviously this is not a problem in England according to you, and we here in the states are all very jealous.
It's not a question of not understanding it, it's a question of never having heard of 'ph problems' being referred to as 'root lock'.

It's probably some Americanism, that the rest of the world has never heard of. I keep forgetting that the world starts at the west coast of America and stops at the east coast.
 

videoman40

Well-Known Member
Now you have me confused baby.....and the effects of a PH problem over in England other than root lock would be what?
Peace
 

midget

Active Member
ok so it is my bad... I was thinking root bound.... I am sure my ph is good as i have always tested the water and used reverse osmoses filtering... so could the issues with my smaller plant be with it being root bound? as i said both are looking great one is just better than the other
 

Hydroflo

Well-Known Member
Lol is someone bashing the US? Cant be.... I mean... Who would so such a thing... It's like a middle schooler picking a fight with their father LMFAO.
 

babygro

Well-Known Member
ok so it is my bad... I was thinking root bound.... I am sure my ph is good as i have always tested the water and used reverse osmoses filtering... so could the issues with my smaller plant be with it being root bound? as i said both are looking great one is just better than the other
Assuming both clones are from the same mother plant, taken at the same time, it's hard to understand why, if they've been treated exactly the same, they would grow differently to each other. This leads me to wonder about two things -

1) Are both clones definitely from the same mother plant?
2) Can you recall if you've treated either plant differently to the other at any stage of their development?
 

midget

Active Member
Assuming both clones are from the same mother plant, taken at the same time, it's hard to understand why, if they've been treated exactly the same, they would grow differently to each other. This leads me to wonder about two things -

1) Are both clones definitely from the same mother plant?
2) Can you recall if you've treated either plant differently to the other at any stage of their development?
thanks for getting back on the point of my question! I can't be certain that they are from the same mother, I bought them from a med clone guy and didn't ask him... (again my bad) but as they looked the same when I got them I just assumed they were the same. and the only thing that happened differently was ones roots were much more dence when I replanted them i was afraid at the time that it had become root bound. I have looked very closley at both of them under a scope and the smaller one for sure has cloudy trechs and even a few amber ones while the other plant's are clear as can be. being this is my first grow it just kind of perplexed me. not a big deal as I am just going to harvest the one with cloudy trechs this week.... and start smoking my own bud just a little quicker....
 

babygro

Well-Known Member
thanks for getting back on the point of my question! I can't be certain that they are from the same mother, I bought them from a med clone guy and didn't ask him... (again my bad) but as they looked the same when I got them I just assumed they were the same. .
Well, that may well be the answer then. There should be no reason at all why two identical clones taken from the same mother plant and grown in the same environment should grow differently to each other unless they aren't clones from the same mother. Clones are exactly that - identical genetic replicas of the mother plant that will grow in the same way given the same environment.

I suspect you may have two clones from different mothers which may explain why they're growing differently to each other in which case - treat them differently.

A plant becomes rootbound when it basically outgrows the size of the pot its in. For a plant to grow healthily in a pot, it's root mass must be allowed to grow in proportion to the size of the vegetative growth going on above the soil, as the roots are the plants primary source of water and nutrients that enable photosynthesis to take place if the root zone cannot supply sufficient water and nutrients to the rest of the plant - slow and stunted growth is the result.

It does take a while for this to happen though and when we go through our 'potting up' routine, we're effectively allowing the plant to become 'semi-rootbound' before we pot it up into a larger size and give the well developed root ball more space to grow and fill out. Root growth slows in flowering as the plants energy switches to floral production and that's why the 'potting up routine' ideally needs to take place in vegetative growth - so the root ball is fully formed before flowering starts. The ideal potting up routine for clones is 2-3 weeks rooting in a root cube > repot into 4 inch pots for 2-3 weeks > repot into 8 inch pots for 2-3 weeks > repot into 12 inch pots for 1-2 weeks then flowering.

Each stage allows the root ball to fully form before potting up into the next size and this also has the effect of giving the plant another fresh set of soil and nutrients to use before we need to start feeding.
 

midget

Active Member
thanks for the info... not sure now what to think tho... oh well I shall taste what I hath grown soon... and the next batch shall be even better
 
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