First soil grow (rootbound pics)

there is no such thing as root bound, ...........








reading books works really good if you are just going to draw pretty pictures of gardens.

if you want to grow big plants, you gotta get your hands dirty.

Man, I didn't mean anything by what I said earlier. You're right tho, I've only read about rootbound, and don't have any experience for myself. So yah I guess you're right. I'd like to apologize if I've offended anyone. Take care guys, and thanks for all the advice I guess I'll just experiment, and figure stuff out myself

itzCESAR* said:

Man, I didn't mean anything by what I said earlier. You're right tho, I've only read about rootbound, and don't have any experience for myself. So yah I guess you're right. I'd like to apologize if I've offended anyone. Take care guys, and thanks for all the advice I guess I'll just experiment, and figure stuff out myself

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you didn't offend me, you gave me a chance to show-off. thank you.

itzCESAR* said:

I think brick top may have a hidden website he pulls all his info from I've read the same response from you before. Probably not exactly the same, but I remember the part about the woman, and the man part. Anyways I always find your responses helpful. So I appreciate them. Thanks for all the help everyone.
I just have one more question. I'm just wondering how often I should feed? Every watering, every other? I have Jorge's book so I should just get back to reading that. Thanks everyone

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Actually most all of my information comes from our family owning a nursery, trees and bushes, not plants or taking care of kids, and having a brother in law, a sister and a niece with botany degrees, actually there was a fourth botany degree added to the family that I keep forgetting about when my niece got married last August, and learning general plant knowledge from them and then adding my own personal experience to it.

My brother in law brought home the most stunning pot I ever smoked when he returned from Vietnam and for a number of years grew it for himself and a few friends so he knows how to grow pot. My sister doesn’t and didn’t in the past get high but she is cool. My niece used to get high but stopped and her hubby still gets high so if I run across something I do not know about normally my first step is to ask them and if I cannot find out what I need there I research online.

I will not say I am in the category of the top growers by any means but then I started growing pot decades before some members here were nothing more than a gleam in the eyes of two strangers at a Guns and Roses concert so I do have some experience under my belt. Combine that with what I have learned from my family and what more they can tell me and what I have researched and what people like Uncle Ben and others who are very experienced have taught me and I think I may know a bit about growing.

Something I like to do is to try to make things easier and simpler and streamlined and things that reduce risks of some problems occurring and what I have found that works really well I try to pass it on. If people want to do it that is great because I know it works and it will make things easier and better for them and if they do not and want to change and want to stick with what they have always done or what most people do that’s cool and the gang with me. I just know that there is more than one way to skin a cat and some ways are easier so since that is the case why not use them?

I also like to toss in somewhat slightly humorous analogies partially for my own amusement but also because they tend to stick in people’s memories better and easier than technical information does.

fdd2blk said:

so when i show a pic of a pound and a half + plant in a five gallon pot you are still gonna tell me my growth is stunted and slowed? =/

small pot problems:

they tip over
you have to feed and water more often



that is all.

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To me for most strains a 5-gallon pot is the absolute smallest that can be grown in and then in my opinion you should not veg long. I have grown some shorter strains in pots as small as 4-gallons but that was rare. Normally 7-gallon pots are the smallest I will grow in and when I would grow outside on my deck I never used anything smaller than 15-gallon pots.

In any type of plant the above soil growth is pretty close to being matched 50/50 by in soil root growth.

A way to consider if you may be using to small of a pot is to look at your fairly large plant and imagine pulling it out and turning it upside down and trying to cram it all into your pot and then ask yourself if things might be tight or not.

If you look at it and say it just couldn’t be done, even if your plant would be flexible enough to twist it and to shape it into the pot shape and there still be room for enough soil to hold moisture and nutes for more than just a very short period of time for your plants to survive on, then you are growing in to small of a pot size.

Brick Top said:

To me for most strains a 5-gallon pot is the absolute smallest that can be grown in and then in my opinion you should not veg long. I have grown some shorter strains in pots as small as 4-gallons but that was rare. Normally 7-gallon pots are the smallest I will grow in and when I would grow outside on my deck I never used anything smaller than 15-gallon pots.

In any type of plant the above soil growth is pretty close to being matched 50/50 by in soil root growth.

A way to consider if you may be using to small of a pot is to look at your fairly large plant and imagine pulling it out and turning it upside down and trying to cram it all into your pot and then ask yourself if things might be tight or not.

If you look at it and say it just couldn’t be done, even if your plant would be flexible enough to twist it and to shape it into the pot shape and there still be room for enough soil to hold moisture and nutes for more than just a very short period of time for your plants to survive on, then you are growing in to small of a pot size.

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so how do i do it?

fdd2blk said:

there is no such thing as root bound, ...........

Click to expand...

Once again …. There is such a condition as root-bound. You can take that from someone who is part owner in a nursery that is now up to about 12 or 14 acres of trees and bushes which means thousands of trees and bushes.

Just to bring up a finer point, our nursery is what is called a pot in pot system. There are socket pots in long rows set in the ground that drain into drain tile setups. The socket pots are slightly larger than the growing pots that are then placed into the socket pots. So everything we grow regardless of size is in pots set inside socket pots so we do not grow in the ground and then dig them out when sold. We just pull the growing pots from the socket pots, sometimes with machinery because a 25-gall or especially a 50-gallon pot with a somewhat large tree in it is not exactly easy to pick up and carry. But because everything we grow is in pots we have often times seen the condition known as root-bound.

The thing is that marijuana plants are much tougher than most other plants so they can still survive and even do well is less than optimal conditions but if you give them optimal conditions what you now consider to be good results would improve because you will have happier healthier plants.

I sometimes chuckle to myself when I read about someone’s setup and they went to great extents to provide the very best lighting and reflection possible and the best ventilation possible and will keep the temperature and humidity levels as close to being perfect as is possible and will spring for the highest dollar nutrients and will have a cO2 setup on a timer that will periodically release cO2 around their plants and then they grow in 3-gallon pots.

I always have to ask myself why they go to such great extents to create optimal conditions if they are going to stop doing that when it comes to pot size?

Just by going with to small of a pot they will negate some of the rest of what they did to create what they believe is the very best setup possible and that means reducing their yield and to some degree quality too.

I say if you are going for perfection why not go for it? Why stop one-step short when taking that one more step would give you the whole nine yards?

Even if you cannot go for perfection, possibly due to cost, why not at least take advantage of the cheapest simplest easiest things you can do that will benefit your plants regardless of not doing all the other things that may be cost prohibitive or just impossible for someone to do because of some other reason or reasons?

Brick Top said:

Once again …. There is such a condition as root-bound. You can take that from someone who is part owner in a nursery that is now up to about 12 or 14 acres of trees and bushes which means thousands of trees and bushes.

Just to bring up a finer point, our nursery is what is called a pot in pot system. There are socket pots in long rows set in the ground that drain into drain tile setups. The socket pots are slightly larger than the growing pots that are then placed into the socket pots. So everything we grow regardless of size is in pots set inside socket pots so we do not grow in the ground and then dig them out when sold. We just pull the growing pots from the socket pots, sometimes with machinery because a 25-gall or especially a 50-gallon pot with a somewhat large tree in it is not exactly easy to pick up and carry. But because everything we grow is in pots we have often times seen the condition known as root-bound.

The thing is that marijuana plants are much tougher than most other plants so they can still survive and even do well is less than optimal conditions but if you give them optimal conditions what you now consider to be good results would improve because you will have happier healthier plants.

I sometimes chuckle to myself when I read about someone’s setup and they went to great extents to provide the very best lighting and reflection possible and the best ventilation possible and will keep the temperature and humidity levels as close to being perfect as is possible and will spring for the highest dollar nutrients and will have a cO2 setup on a timer that will periodically release cO2 around their plants and then they grow in 3-gallon pots.

I always have to ask myself why they go to such great extents to create optimal conditions if they are going to stop doing that when it comes to pot size?

Just by going with to small of a pot they will negate some of the rest of what they did to create what they believe is the very best setup possible and that means reducing their yield and to some degree quality too.

I say if you are going for perfection why not go for it? Why stop one-step short when taking that one more step would give you the whole nine yards?

Even if you cannot go for perfection, possibly due to cost, why not at least take advantage of the cheapest simplest easiest things you can do that will benefit your plants regardless of not doing all the other things that may be cost prohibitive or just impossible for someone to do because of some other reason or reasons?

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you still can't tell me how i do it, eh? i'm chuckling now


i get it you are hella smart. now, how do i grow a 7 foot tall plant that puts out over a pound and a half of dried bud in a FIVE GALLON POT? how do i do it if the roots have no room.

how much better do you want?

fdd2blk said:

so how do i do it?

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I am sorry but your question was too vague for me to be sure how to answer it. Did you mean how do you pick a proper pot size or what?

If you meant how do you pick the best pot size you have to consider that in many cases there will be space restrictions that will at times keep anyone from using the very best pot size. As I have said when I grow on my deck I never used anything less than 15-gallon pots and have used larger. I would love to have the space to use 15-gallon pots inside but I just don’t to there is an example of not being able to go whole hog and doing the very best that you can to.

But look at the area you have to grow in, the area where your lights will give adequate light coverage to and figure out how many plants you will grow which of course tells you how many pots you will need and then figure out how many of the largest sized pots you can fit in the area.

I like feminized beans myself so I don’t have to use more pots to grow in to get enough females because some will be males so I don’t then end up removing a third of whatever of the pots and then either have to leave my gals in smaller pots than they could otherwise be in or repotting which is something I very much try to avoid.

So in my case if I am going to grow 4 plants from feminized beans I pick a pot size that will fill up the entire usable light space. If I am growing 5 or 6 plants from feminized beans I have to downsize slightly to fit them in but again I still go with the largest possible pot size and I do it from day one planting my germed beans right into the largest sized pots they will ever be in and then never have to repot unless I end up with some soil problem that can only, or best, be rectified by repotting.

Now there are exceptions that I should have mentioned before. If someone is growing SOG where they will be jamming as many plants together as possible and only going for top colas and do not worry about or care about getting light to the lower portions of their plants and getting production from them and they will veg for a very short period of time and never have big plants then yes they can use smaller pots and it will not be detrimental, or at least not enough to make an appreciable difference.

I go for bushes so that is what I write about and at times, most often in fact, I forget to mention that and fail to say that in certain systems of growing what I say is not applicable or at least not totally applicable.

I have known people who grew SOG and used 3-gallon pots and have seen the root-balls after the plants have been harvested and have to believe that if they just went up to a 4-gallon pot size they would have been better off in a number of ways and in general overall.

The size of the pots is not much different so it may mean one or two fewer plants but the production they would get would make up for the loss of one or two more plants and they would not have to be so careful about keeping up on watering and feeding because that extra gallon of soil would retain more moisture and nutrients so that would give them some buffer or leeway and flexibility and if some unexpected situation came up where they could not water for several days it could likely be enough to get them by without having major wilting problems or worse.

Most people never consider such events but when I ended up in the hospital for emergency surgery and could not be home for several days and I did not have anyone to tend to my plants at the time I did not come home to dried up withered plants. Of course in that particular case the day I went into the hospital I should have harvested and by the time I came out the trichomes had turned from the milky white that I prefer to all amber so the high was not what I wanted the most but still the plants were standing up proud and strong.

So not everyone can go for the gold and use major pot sizes but you do the very best that you can with the space and lighting and the rest of the setup you have. If 5-gallon pots are the absolute largest pots that you can use because of lighting coverage or because anything taller would cause height problems then the best you can do it use a 5-gallon pot and you just try to make the most out of it. If you can bump that up to 7-gallon pots and it will not cause a problem with light coverage or height problems then by all means move up to a 7-gallon pot and so on. Just use the largest size that you possibly can without causing some problem or so restricting your number of plants that you will not get the yield you want.

Of course if you read Uncle Ben’s topping instructions you will find that you can, if properly done, grow one or two massive bushes that will out produce a number of plants that are not topped so again there is more than one way to skin a cat.

You can buy a pack of 5 or 10 feminized beans and only grow two plants at a time, or even one, and if properly done get a higher yield from the one or two plants than you will from thee or four or maybe even five if you have them jammed in tightly and lose the lower plant production. That maximizes your overall yield for all your beans, you will get more from each bean/plant so it makes what you purchased a better value.

That is of course unless you are keeping mothers and growing from clones and in that case you can make it an even better value for your dollar by popping several feminized beans and only keeping the best plant or maybe two plants and use them for years if you know how to keep them alive that long. That is really getting your dollars worth out of your beans.

Brick Top said:

I am sorry but your question was too vague for me to be sure how to answer it. Did you mean how do you pick a proper pot size or what?

If you meant how do you pick the best pot size you have to consider that in many cases there will be space restrictions that will at times keep anyone from using the very best pot size. As I have said when I grow on my deck I never used anything less than 15-gallon pots and have used larger. I would love to have the space to use 15-gallon pots inside but I just don’t to there is an example of not being able to go whole hog and doing the very best that you can to.

But look at the area you have to grow in, the area where your lights will give adequate light coverage to and figure out how many plants you will grow which of course tells you how many pots you will need and then figure out how many of the largest sized pots you can fit in the area.

I like feminized beans myself so I don’t have to use more pots to grow in to get enough females because some will be males so I don’t then end up removing a third of whatever of the pots and then either have to leave my gals in smaller pots than they could otherwise be in or repotting which is something I very much try to avoid.

So in my case if I am going to grow 4 plants from feminized beans I pick a pot size that will fill up the entire usable light space. If I am growing 5 or 6 plants from feminized beans I have to downsize slightly to fit them in but again I still go with the largest possible pot size and I do it from day one planting my germed beans right into the largest sized pots they will ever be in and then never have to repot unless I end up with some soil problem that can only, or best, be rectified by repotting.

Now there are exceptions that I should have mentioned before. If someone is growing SOG where they will be jamming as many plants together as possible and only going for top colas and do not worry about or care about getting light to the lower portions of their plants and getting production from them and they will veg for a very short period of time and never have big plants then yes they can use smaller pots and it will not be detrimental, or at least not enough to make an appreciable difference.

I go for bushes so that is what I write about and at times, most often in fact, I forget to mention that and fail to say that in certain systems of growing what I say is not applicable or at least not totally applicable.

I have known people who grew SOG and used 3-gallon pots and have seen the root-balls after the plants have been harvested and have to believe that if they just went up to a 4-gallon pot size they would have been better off in a number of ways and in general overall.

The size of the pots is not much different so it may mean one or two fewer plants but the production they would get would make up for the loss of one or two more plants and they would not have to be so careful about keeping up on watering and feeding because that extra gallon of soil would retain more moisture and nutrients so that would give them some buffer or leeway and flexibility and if some unexpected situation came up where they could not water for several days it could likely be enough to get them by without having major wilting problems or worse.

Most people never consider such events but when I ended up in the hospital for emergency surgery and could not be home for several days and I did not have anyone to tend to my plants at the time I did not come home to dried up withered plants. Of course in that particular case the day I went into the hospital I should have harvested and by the time I came out the trichomes had turned from the milky white that I prefer to all amber so the high was not what I wanted the most but still the plants were standing up proud and strong.

So not everyone can go for the gold and use major pot sizes but you do the very best that you can with the space and lighting and the rest of the setup you have. If 5-gallon pots are the absolute largest pots that you can use because of lighting coverage or because anything taller would cause height problems then the best you can do it use a 5-gallon pot and you just try to make the most out of it. If you can bump that up to 7-gallon pots and it will not cause a problem with light coverage or height problems then by all means move up to a 7-gallon pot and so on. Just use the largest size that you possibly can without causing some problem or so restricting your number of plants that you will not get the yield you want.

Of course if you read Uncle Ben’s topping instructions you will find that you can, if properly done, grow one or two massive bushes that will out produce a number of plants that are not topped so again there is more than one way to skin a cat.

You can buy a pack of 5 or 10 feminized beans and only grow two plants at a time, or even one, and if properly done get a higher yield from the one or two plants than you will from thee or four or maybe even five if you have them jammed in tightly and lose the lower plant production. That maximizes your overall yield for all your beans, you will get more from each bean/plant so it makes what you purchased a better value.

That is of course unless you are keeping mothers and growing from clones and in that case you can make it an even better value for your dollar by popping several feminized beans and only keeping the best plant or maybe two plants and use them for years if you know how to keep them alive that long. That is really getting your dollars worth out of your beans.

Click to expand...

LOOK AT THE PICTURE!!!!!!!!! that plant is 7+ feet tall. that pot is barely 5 gallons. i got a pound and a half of dried bud off of it. it gets NO better.
ROOTBOUND IS NOT A BAD THING!!! whatever it really is.

this is really funny

since rootbound doesnt really occur, then i wonder if you could plant 2 plants in the same pot even though everyone says not to because they will fight and get tangled and shit....wut do you guys think?

FDD for the win lol pictures say it all

weedaweedaweed said:

this is really funny

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it's like 2 threads in one. lol

fdd2blk said:

LOOK AT THE PICTURE!!!!!!!!! that plant is 7+ feet tall. that pot is barely 5 gallons. i got a pound and a half of dried bud off of it. it gets NO better.
ROOTBOUND IS NOT A BAD THING!!! whatever it really is.

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Ok, you know better. Four botany degrees in the family and years of experience in growing thousands of trees and bushes at a time and a little over three decades of pot growing experience doesn’t mean a thing or prove anything when compared to your picture.

You win, I am totally wrong. Jam those roots in if you want the very best plants you can possibly get.

Giving your roots optimal conditions will in no way create a healthier happier plant with higher yield than cramming roots into to small of a pot.

Everyone please ignore everything I said about pot size. I have been shown the light and will be sure to tell my family members with degrees in botany that they are full of it and that they know nothing and what has been done with many thousands of various types of trees and bushes was all done wrong because I saw a picture of a plant that grew well in a pot that was to small for it and I will also totally forget about the three plus decades of experience I have because of the picture I have now seen.

Thank you for setting me straight on pot size and roots.

Zig Zag Zane said:

since rootbound doesnt really occur, then i wonder if you could plant 2 plants in the same pot even though everyone says not to because they will fight and get tangled and shit....wut do you guys think?

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the problem there is male/female.

it's hard to pull a male growing around a female.

other factor also.

but if someone wants 2 per pot yes you can do it, it just better to 1 plant = 1 pot

at home i tell MrsRocket we have 2 laps, so 2 kittens no more cats.

RandyRocket said:

the problem there is male/female.

it's hard to pull a male growing around a female.

other factor also.

but if someone wants 2 per pot yes you can do it, it just better to 1 plant = 1 pot

at home i tell MrsRocket we have 2 laps, so 2 kittens no more cats.

Click to expand...

yeah but say, there 2 fem seeds...im wondering if they two plants will actually struggle or grow slower...like is that just a myth? ....since rootbound isnt real....why would the two plants do worse?

RandyRocket said:

the problem there is male/female.

it's hard to pull a male growing around a female.

other factor also.

but if someone wants 2 per pot yes you can do it, it just better to 1 plant = 1 pot

at home i tell MrsRocket we have 2 laps, so 2 kittens no more cats.

Click to expand...

If someone is going to plant two plants in one pot, something I do not recommend unless the pot is massive and you use feminized beans, what you have to do is put in a plastic divider cut to fit snuggly to the sides of the pot so each plants roots will not be able to grow into each other, or at least not more than in a very minor amount that would not cause a problem, if you use mixed beans and you get a male you can then yank it and also yank the divider allowing the female’s roots to then use the entire pot.

But of course since root-bound plants grow better maybe you would want to leave the divider in place and leave the pot size cut in half.

That or since root-bound plants grow better the thing to do would be to grow everything in one gallon pots and let those roots get really jammed in and then you would get great plants and major yields since it has now been proven to me that smaller is in fact better than larger is.

oh yeah, they will kill each other. MURDERS!!!!!!!!!!

i have NO botany degree, imagine if i did. woooo hoooo !!!!!!!!

i didn't "stuff them in there" silly, they grew into it themselves.

Brick Top said:

If someone is going to plant two plants in one pot, something I do not recommend unless the pot is massive and you use feminized beans, what you have to do is put in a plastic divider cut to fit snuggly to the sides of the pot so each plants roots will not be able to grow into each other, or at least not more than in a very minor amount that would not cause a problem, if you use mixed beans and you get a male you can then yank it and also yank the divider allowing the female’s roots to then use the entire pot.

But of course since root-bound plants grow better maybe you would want to leave the divider in place and leave the pot size cut in half.

That or since root-bound plants grow better the thing to do would be to grow everything in one gallon pots and let those roots get really jammed in and then you would get great plants and major yields since it has now been proven to me that smaller is in fact better than larger is.

Click to expand...

i never said a smaller pot is better or root bound gets more yield. i simply said "it's not really a problem".


why don't my plants die in small pots?










see, i put them in those small pots because i did NOT want them to get 7 feet tall. everybody always said a "root bound plant will stop growing". so i tried it. i put my seedlings in those pots and called it good. guess what? they just kept growing, and growing, and growing. i was kinda upset. they got too big and the neighbors saw them. i pulled it off, but to this day have no idea wtf "root bound" is.

so, you can continue to wave your alma mater, or you can try to help me understand why my plants just kept growing even though they were obviously "root bound".



rant on.