pots??

heres another what you might think is a silly question.
as a first timer why do have to always start off in a smaller pot only to re-pot it later can you not just plant it in the bigger pot at first...?
if not what is a recommended size for starting?

yet again sorry for my dumbness

youu go from a small pot because,you can controll the roots enviorment better,you can tell how much water is near the roots,and you can fert a little,without saturating a big pot that will hold ferts and water to long for the little roots on a little plant

start with a keg cup

Here are some guidelines:

Plant Age:

0 - 3 weeks: root cube
2 - 6 weeks: 4-inch pot
6 - 8 weeks: 2-gallon pot
2 - 3 months: 3-gallon pot
3 - 8 months: 5-gallon pot
6 - 18 months: 10-gallon pot.

It's also good to have white pots with the inside black so that roots can get no light and stay cool.

This is all from the Bible

i usually start in a big pot with no problwms but the reason for starting small is this: roots will grow out to the edges of the pot and then start the wraparound leaving the soil directly around the plant unused so you grow roots in smaller pot then go to bigger pot so the roots use more of the soil..... it gets rid of the dead spot in the center so it fills up the whole pot with roots

If your growing indoors, would you follow the same guidline since their growing faster? I'm going to veg my plants for about a month. Would that mean I stick with 3gl or would I move up to 5gl buckets?

merahoon said:

If your growing indoors, would you follow the same guidline since their growing faster? I'm going to veg my plants for about a month. Would that mean I stick with 3gl or would I move up to 5gl buckets?

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1 gal. per foot of growth you want
i use 5 gal. buckets and lst.... drill holes all around bucket top to tie off to works out well

Rollitup just posted an excellent write up on this subject,pot size does not have to be one gallon per foot or one gallon per month that the plant is going to live,that rule of thumb is correct but only to a point,it is what optimum conditions would be,these conditions can be manipulated by more frequent watering & a heavier regiment of fertilizers to make excellent use of smaller pots,i do not follow the one gallon per foot/month rule & get excellent results,infact i prefer smaller pots due to more frequent waterings,i use all one gallon pots & grow plants that reach 3tf high at harvest,with every watering comes fresh oxygen to the root mass,this is a very large step in the overall speed of the grow & will shave a week off of harvest time easily.

Something that alot of us experienced growers forget to tell noobs is this,pot size becomes less relevant to overall plant health & yeild depending on weather the plant is growing from seed or clone,clones are a more mature plant & need less growing medium over plants started from seed.

IMO its better for a begginer to start off with smaller pots,one of the biggest mistakes all new growers make is overwatering,this is much harder to do in smaller pots.

panhead said:

Rollitup just posted an excellent write up on this subject,pot size does not have to be one gallon per foot or one gallon per month that the plant is going to live,that rule of thumb is correct but only to a point,it is what optimum conditions would be,these conditions can be manipulated by more frequent watering & a heavier regiment of fertilizers to make excellent use of smaller pots,i do not follow the one gallon per foot/month rule & get excellent results,infact i prefer smaller pots due to more frequent waterings,i use all one gallon pots & grow plants that reach 3tf high at harvest,with every watering comes fresh oxygen to the root mass,this is a very large step in the overall speed of the grow & will shave a week off of harvest time easily.

Something that alot of us experienced growers forget to tell noobs is this,pot size becomes less relevant to overall plant health & yeild depending on weather the plant is growing from seed or clone,clones are a more mature plant & need less growing medium over plants started from seed.

IMO its better for a begginer to start off with smaller pots,one of the biggest mistakes all new growers make is overwatering,this is much harder to do in smaller pots.

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i agree with you on this one, i myself use 1 gallon pots aswell a lot of times with great results... rootbound does not effect the plant it can still finish with no problem i was merly giving a simple answer to a question, now i have grown plants in small containers and larg ones and ive found that larger pots are better as in a smaller pot yes you water mor because of more rootmass but then the roots are restricted to only getting so big then poking out of the pot and dyeing, when in a large pot your roots have room to grow deep and wide with no restriiction, ive grown pot for 8 years and found a larger pot to work for me as a small pot can cause a plants growth to get to a certain point(rootbound) then stop growing, a root bound plant will flower fully with no problem but you have to then whatch for deficiancys and ph problems, as they could occor more often. i like a bigger pot for my flowering plants and a smaller one for mothers i cant get 10 oz off of a 1 gal. pot but i can off a 5 gallon pot.... where was this article can you post a link or is it some top secret thing...

i like the 5gal pot also for the simple reason that i can water it and leav it alone for a week other than watering every week or so thats all i need to do and pretty much forget about em other than lst and raising the light i can just leave em to do ther thing and live my life because if all you got in yer life is watering a plant every 2 days it gets boring

tusseltussel said:

where was this article can you post a link or is it some top secret thing...

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Top secret,hehe,being that the search function here sucks balls its top secret for sure

It wasnt really an rticle it was a post that rollitup the site owner made,i thought it was a good post,it gives much standard info but the part i liked is that it reminded us that plants grown from clone do not allways follow the one gallon per foot rule, whereas from seed they need the bigger pot to mature properly.

I wanted to post in that thread so i could bookmark it then got sidetracked,the post was within the last week,i'll see if i cant dig it up around here,if i do i'll gladly post the link here.

tusseltussel said:

i like the 5gal pot also for the simple reason that i can water it and leav it alone for a week other than watering every week or so thats all i need to do and pretty much forget about em other than lst and raising the light i can just leave em to do ther thing and live my life because if all you got in yer life is watering a plant every 2 days it gets boring

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Wouldn't you want a smaller pot though so it sucks up all that water and allows you to feed the plants for nutes? I'm just a noob but I'm guessing if you keep it in a smaller pot, it allows you to get more progression due to the fact that your able to give it the nutrients it needs rather than just sitting on them for a week? I don't think you should keep them in there to the point of being rootbound. By the time they need to go to a bigger pot, would'nt they be able to suck up all that water/nutes in less than a week due to their size and requirements? Also can't you add o2 to the water to increase how fast your plants sucks it up? Things such as molasses make it easier for the plant to feed, am i right?

merahoon said:

Wouldn't you want a smaller pot though so it sucks up all that water and allows you to feed the plants for nutes? I'm just a noob but I'm guessing if you keep it in a smaller pot, it allows you to get more progression due to the fact that your able to give it the nutrients it needs rather than just sitting on them for a week? I don't think you should keep them in there to the point of being rootbound. By the time they need to go to a bigger pot, would'nt they be able to suck up all that water/nutes in less than a week due to their size and requirements? Also can't you add o2 to the water to increase how fast your plants sucks it up? Things such as molasses make it easier for the plant to feed, am i right?

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you dnt need to feed your plant every day once evry week or so is plenty. the roots use difrnt amounts of water at difrnt stages of flowering so a week is just a guesstamate. plants groww a lot of roots if ya let em.... deep well drained soil.
i use a mix of 1 5 gal buket of perlite 1 of composted horse manure and one of a quality top soil works great for me. plants grow fast and vigorously

panhead said:

snip

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This post set my mind at ease a bit since I went with 2 gallon pots my first time round. +rep for you good sir.

If I'm only vegging for a month or slightly longer, do you think it would be worth it to use the 5 gl pots per plants or stick with 3?

merahoon said:

If I'm only vegging for a month or slightly longer, do you think it would be worth it to use the 5 gl pots per plants or stick with 3?

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you be cool with 3 will work out well, i usually grow mine preaty big

whats a reasonable veg time to achieve 2 oz's or more per plant?

cheers people,sooperb .helped me alot thanks