why start in a small container?

[heythere]

Hey guys about to embark on a first try at growing marijuana planning on doing a basic soil grow with a couple plants in my closet. Heres what I don't understand though, how come everyone starts plants in tiny cup/containers, then transplants to bigger ones, and ive even seen people transplant there plants multiple times past that. Is there a reason for this? Do they require different soil when they are a seedling then once they are mature? Why don't people just start the seed in one big container that they plan on using the whole time? Is it common to transplant into a different soil for flowering? How many transplants are recommended? thanks guys sorry if this sounds noobish but ive been reading all I can and it isn't making any sense to me.

 

[BBFan]

Hey Hey Heythere (I feel like I'm studdering):
For me, it's all about not wasting soil- some plants will be male, others just might not make it, maximizing space in veg, requires less lighting (power).
Some people start with a group of seedlings, select the best of the bunch, and trash the rest.
Welcome to MP btw.

 

[ArtVandolay]

Hey, Hey. For me, I learned the hard way that you can't effectively water a tiny seedling sitting in a 2 or 3 or 4 gallon pot of soil. I've also found that seedlings do not deal well at all with nuted soil/perlite. So I plant seedlings in plain top soil and after a few weeks into the desired growing medium. If done properly, transplanting shocks the plant little, if at all.

 

[WeedHopper]

If ya have a seedling in ,,say,,a,, 2 or 3 or 5 gallon pot and you go to water. Your going to have to waste alot of water to make sure that the seedlings roots get the water. Know what I mean. Another words your gonna be using alot of water and stuff you dont need.

 

[JBonez]

start in 5 gallon pots, you will see why.

Seriously tho, say for example you are vegging, and you lights foot print is 4x4',
The bigger the pots, the more space between the plants. Now the highest lumen concentration is in the middle, so bigger pots means pushing your plants further away from the light as you will need more space.

The only thing that is awesome about starting in bigger pots is less watering times. The plants will take a while for roots to fill a bigger pot, so the soil will stay moist longer. I start in solo cups to keep the little guys huddled together under the middle most portion of the light.

But if you do use big pots and are growing from seed, count on wasting alot of soil when you kill the males, i wasted bags of soil at first. A solo cup will give you about a months time before you will need to transplant, some will disagree, but i know what ive seen, and they dont slow in growth either.

I would say start in 1 gallon containers, that will give you about a month and a half veg time, so its up to you.

smaller containers need watering often, i water every day-other day with them in solo cups, depending on the strain after about 3 weeks of growth, usually drink pretty quickly, hope this helps!

 

[heythere]

thanks for the help guys makes perfect sense now, is one transplant the most common? Like do the veg in one pot, then transplant to a bigger for flowering? I only ask because most books ive read only recommend one transplant because of stress on the plant.

thanks again everybody.

 

[blancolighter]

I do alot of cloning, and I want to make sure I don't lose vigor in my plants over time, so I'll take about 20 clones when I only need 5. I keep em in small containers so I can fit all 20 of em in a small space, then when I can see which ones are thriving, I get rid of the rest and put those 5 in bigger pots. If I just took 5 clones and put them right in big pots, my weed would go down the drain after a few generations...

 

[JBonez]

like art said, if you transplant correctly, it affects the plants little, just make sure you prep everything for the procedure, think of it as surgery, you want to make the transition as smooth as possible.

Prepare your containers, fill with enough soil that the plant can be put in and sit at the correct height corresponding to the rim of the pot. Try not to yank the plant out by the stalk, put your hand on the top of the soil, and turn it upside down, carefully letting gravity work plant out of its container, with any luck the root mass will contain the soil, making it easy. Then, put in the new pot, fill around the plants root mass with soil, make sure you somewhat pack the soil down around the root mass, not too hard but if you just fill it in, when you water, you will have a shallow trench around the outside of the plants root mass, the soil will separate from the top of the mass as you water, so fill in the sides and pack em good so the soil stays level after watering. good luck

 

[Black1269]

Really 20 and keep 5 how long do you wait before choosing your 5 (i need to do something like this)

 

[Lemmongrass]

As said, the water doesn't get used up completely enough to suck enough oxygen own into the roots. i set 7 plants back 2 weeks and killed 5 this way.

 

[heythere]

so alot of what you guys are saying is marijuana needs a dry period before you rewater it, and if you have a tiny plant in a huge pot it will remain damp and never dry up?

thanks guys, everything makes way more sense to me now.

 

[blancolighter]

Really 20 and keep 5 how long do you wait before choosing your 5 (i need to do something like this)

Well I start my clones in really tiny seedling containers, then when they root, I move them into 4 inch pots and put them under my t5s. At this point I stat watching them closely, and usually by two weeks, I've got a pretty good idea which ones are the most vigorous, and those I keep.

 

[Lemmongrass]

so alot of what you guys are saying is marijuana needs a dry period before you rewater it, and if you have a tiny plant in a huge pot it will remain damp and never dry up? thanks guys, everything makes way more sense to me now.

Exactly. Some say at least 2 in deep of dry dirt, mine tend to dry out all at once, so I do mine a bit differently.

1. You pour the water
2. Water diffuses pretty much equally within the dirt or root ball.
3. Roots pick up water nearest to the center of the plant.
4. Because of a physical property of water, the water in the dirt automatically defuses again to compensate for a new void to be filled.
5. Water that once was further out travels the direction of the water getting taken by the roots.
6. This causes all the water to cycle from the outer perimeter to the center of the root ball.
7. The action of the water constantly being siphoned by the roots not only makes the water move inward to replace taken water, but it then pulls air in behind that to make up from the lack of volume which once was used by the water.

Now as roots and specifically the root hairs need oxygen in order to live and function properly. These cells are not powered by photosynthesis; they are fed glucose from the photosynthetic parts of the plants. The roots intern use oxygen gathered from the dirt to break/burn the glucose molecule for energy.