Root bound?

Hey Guys, I'm wondering if anyone as ever had a root bound auto? I don't think it's possible, but the last 2 days two of my plants have had really droopy leaves. I don't think it's a watering issue, since I only water when it's dry according to my moisture metre, and then I give a good drench until I get some runoff. I got em in 3 gallon pots, so I can't see them being root bound. They've been outta the dirt since Dec 13 or 14.
Medium is Sunshine mix #4, 400W HPS, temps between 72-79, humidity at 38%

See the pics..sorry bout the light but I was in a rush this morning.

Do you have drain hole in your pots? Have a look for any roots that may have breached.

When leaves droop as such, it may be from not enough water as well.

ya theres holes, and there is some roots poking out them. both pots still register moist on my metre, they were watered 3 days ago with a light feeding.

May not be bound, but they have for sure outgrown their mediums.

An available option is to take another pot, same size or larger, fill with your soil and place the girl on top giving her more room to expand her roots.

Another, allow those roots to go on through and feed the roots nutrient in your drip tray, a DWC feed type, while still top feeding at the soil pH.

thanks Key, have you had this happen with autos before? I thought a 3 gallon was more than enough space for them from what I've read.

Your welcome cdn, thank you, happy looking girls.

Not with autos. For sure though with root quality from seed. Sounds to me that your girls are healthy and have reached the depth available. That sunshine mix says to have a bit of mykos, from what I have seen with mykos, roots are very happy.

keysareme said:

May not be bound, but they have for sure outgrown their mediums.

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Explain.

What is the difference, I thought root bound mean the plant had outgrown it's medium?

Anyway they don't look root bound to me. A root bound plant has exhausted the soil space and can't grow any more roots. And for several soil and root biology reasons,the roots become inefficient in providing nutrients to the plant. The root to shoot ratio is off (too few roots for the foliage) and the roots it has begin to "malfunction" so to speak. It stops growing, or grows stunted tissue. The new growth looks like shit from immobile nutrient deficiency. The old growth looks like shit as mobile nutrients are robbbed. Everything just looks like shit and the plant will exhibit numerous symptoms of numerous problems.

Anyway my $0.02

what up Aim. Plants aren't showing any other signs of anything being wrong. I'll grab a few pix when I get home from my shop so you can see what they look like not under that god awful hps! I've done like 5 or 6 photoperiod grows, but have zero exp with autos.

Yeah I don't grow autos either, was just saying they didn't look rootbound to me.

Assuming they are green which you can't tell, they look decent although long internodes / a bit stretched for light. But again maybe that's how that particular strain grows.

Plants roots have reached the bottom of the pot, outgrown the medium.

AimAim said:

Yeah I don't grow autos either, was just saying they didn't look rootbound to me.

Assuming they are green which you can't tell, they look decent although long internodes / a bit stretched for light. But again maybe that's how that particular strain grows.

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fuck I know! One is bad, the other two aren't terrible. They've been grown under a 400W the whole time. I used MH for the first three weeks and switched to HPS when the flowers started.

huh? theres nothing wrong if your pot got filled up with roots..every single plant i have completly fills its pot with roots. autos only need 3g pots at the largest imo. if the pot feels heavy dont water it if it feels really light water it. has anything happened heat wise or humidity or cold? when this big cold snap came through my plants looked odd for a day when the humidity dropped off the map but looked normal 2 days later.

When a plants roots reach the bottom of a pot, its always nice to give them more room to grow deeper. The girl wants to grow, and so do the roots, yes they will still fill in and make their presence more dense expanding in the initial pot, once roots go out the bottom though, what do we do, either need to be fed directly or given more space.

they will get air pruned so you dont really have to worry about the roots going out of the pot if you dont want to. its the whole point of container gardening. you contain the plant to the pot lol.

but yes more root = more fruit but autos only have so much time to build roots. i find with 3g pots i get 2-3 ounce yields which is about all you can really ask for out of an auto. some yield more but ive only ran the freebies i get from orders.

so heres one of the problem plants. what do you guys think?

As far as root bound because of the size of your pot, I'd think 3 gal was more than enough room, I've grown out 3 autos so far in 2 gallon pots and if you look at the top of this thread, you'll see a whole hella lot grown out in 16oz solo cups

I'm a beginner but I don't think your plant is root-bound. It's hard to say exactly what it is but I'd put my bet on some type of deficiency or a problem with your PPM, PH, Water/Nutrients combination.

You also might want to take into consideration that it's an auto. Not always the largest yield per say, and maybe the leaves are just starting to age coming up on that end of the flowering cycle? Just my two thoughts.

Luffy

could be genetics, humidity, ph. not really sure usually ph isnt a problem in soil if theres lime in the soil. did you add dolomite lime to your soil before hand? also autos can be finicky with nutrients sometimes but if its gone this far without burn i wouldnt think thats it.

a friend uses 6" pvc 16" deep, rooted cuts reach the bottom of pot 2 days after planting. the op has other issues, not rootbound.

I wouldn't think it nutrients. they're getting about 1/2 strength, unless this could mean they're hungry...next watering I may up the dosage and see how it does. My PH is around 6 (I use the drops so it's tough to be exact), and Sunshine has lime added in it.