what are the symptoms of a plant outgrowing its container?

banks dank

Active Member
Badass plant bro cant wait to see how
She turns out!

That main stem looks ridiculous! Lets see some pics with a lighter for scale that is intense...
 

ThorGanjason

Well-Known Member
Alright, I've had a really busy day with work; trying to start a small business and its killing me lol. I'll get the lighter pic when I get back to the house but for one reference shot you can see part of my foot, and I wear a 13. The things definitely jumbotron.
 

ThorGanjason

Well-Known Member
So has anyone ever had a plant outgrow its container and have similar symptoms? I'm really wanting to think that my problem is environmental; the leaves started out by yellowing, taco-ing, and pointing up (I've read leaves up= environmental, leaves down= nutes, water, etc).

I've got the thing under a thousand watts in a relatively small tent, maybe she's just too close to the light.
 

AimAim

Well-Known Member
Symptoms = Stunted growth, narrowing of leaflets, extreme lateral branching, susceptibility to pest and disease, etc.
This pretty much nails it. Any container grown plant can overgrow the pot. MJ, tomatoes, houseplants etc.

Generally they slow down, then they shut down and start looking puny. Small leaves, less than optimal color, slowly gets worse, succombs to something due to weakened condition like ThaDiggidy said, they are prone to insect and disease problems.
 

althor

Well-Known Member
Symptoms are just about everything. If your plant is outgrown, your roots will be as well. In that case you cannot keep up with the demand and you are deficient in almost every category.
 

AimAim

Well-Known Member
Symptoms are just about everything. If your plant is outgrown, your roots will be as well. In that case you cannot keep up with the demand and you are deficient in almost every category.
Yeah, thats it! To paraphrase, they just look like shit overall and slowly and steadily die.
 

ThorGanjason

Well-Known Member
Awesome guys, hanks for the good info. I'm definitely experiencing extreme lateral branching; some of the lower branches are literally shooting straight out to the side and then pointing up right at the tip, with h very puny bud growth. In fact, I should've lollipopped this plant much more. It has a ton of punt stuff underneath that I was just going to use for bho, and it probably would've been better able to distribute its nutrients that way and been less likely to overgrow it.

I'm gonna get you guys some more recent pics soon. I am in the process of moving to a bigger space, got my tent setup today but I was too busy to move it all so hopefully tomorrow.

Again, thanks for the help everyone. I'll throw some rep as soon as I get a minute.
 

ThorGanjason

Well-Known Member
I had the same prob with yellowing leaves early into flower

I gave abit more N like advised
It didn't really slow though
By the time i harvested , the plant dropped all big leaves for me
Didn't do my plant much harm
View attachment 2902059View attachment 2902063View attachment 2902064View attachment 2902065
I must've missed this post somehow last night. Yeah, that looks a lot more like regular nitrogen deficiency, with the leaves yellowing at the bottom. My leaves are yellowing more towards the top (especially now that its getting worse). Thanks for throwing up the pictures man, I actually tried feeding some super nitro bat guano (15-1-1 npk) a little over a week ago with little help. Again, thanks for the post
 

ThorGanjason

Well-Known Member
The lighter shot, for he who asked lol
IMG_20131122_114520.jpg

Edit: those ties are from where I broke some of the branches a little bit when I was trying to supercrop it and make it wider. I'm a believer in super cropping, dunno if it helps lock the nutrients in the brnanch or whatever but it definitely helps the plant get nice, thick stalks and branches so that they can support plenty of weight
 

Popcorn900

Well-Known Member
The lighter shot, for he who asked lol
View attachment 2903521

Edit: those ties are from where I broke some of the branches a little bit when I was trying to supercrop it and make it wider. I'm a believer in super cropping, dunno if it helps lock the nutrients in the brnanch or whatever but it definitely helps the plant get nice, thick stalks and branches so that they can support plenty of weight
Are you using a mini bic? lol nice TREE bro.
 

robnarley1111

Active Member
Beautiful plant you got there!! Have you tried popping the plant out of its pot to see if the roots are circling the pot like a huge ball of yarn? Or do you have roots sticking out of the drain holes? One thing I notice with my plants when becoming rootbound is the leaves start to droop, and won't really "pick up" no matter what. My Super Skunk is actually doing that right now. A day or so after a transplant into a pot several sizes up, the leaves go back to normal. I also notice patches of yellowing inconsistent with what I know to be nutrient deficiencies.

Usually with a nitrogen deficiency the lower leaves yellow, so you're pretty much right that it doesn't necessarily look like a nitrogen issue. My theory is the roots wrapped around the pot are unable to hold much water and nutrients since they aren't really in the medium; they are circling around it searching for nourishment! So maybe any branches tied to those roots (for a lack of better wording), will in turn have yellowing leaves etc. That's just my beginner opinion...

Potent looking plant you have there, I'm sure it will turn out just fine!
 

ThorGanjason

Well-Known Member
Popcorn, yeah it totally looks like a mini bic lol but its a 7 gallon smart pot so its all pretty big. Plus those ties are like 12 gage wire with really thick rubber around them, they are kind of hard to work with but really strong.

And narley-- where I'm using smart pots I don't get the root circling, but there are other ways to tell that the plant has filled it up and it definitely has (when I transplanted it, I pulled it out and it was one big circle the same shape as the pot). But yeah, I'm really thinking I'm going to have to just put it in a tub.
 

dannyboy602

Well-Known Member
I didn't read all the posts. I think 7 gallon is more than adequate. 5 was good too. normally I would tip the pot over and pull the plant out to look at the roots but not that late into flower
 

ThorGanjason

Well-Known Member
Damn thats outta this world...
Dare i say asgard?

Keep it up bro!
Hahaha, duuude that's awesome. I actually started my first grow journal as "nugs of Asgard", but didn't find it quite worthy of the songs of Valhalla so I kind of let the journal go.

But yeah, this plant is just a beast. I hate that she's gotten sick during this crucial time in flower BC I can already tell its seriously hurting my yield (as if the fact that its og kush hasn't hurt it enough already). But it is just sooo sticky, and soo stinky that I know its going to be so.e truly killer smoke.

I grabbed a couple pics of what the worst leaves progress to as they continue to yellow.
IMG_20131117_121122.jpgIMG_20131117_121100.jpgIMG_20131117_122320.jpg

And as always (in my busy life), these pics are a few days old. Some leaves are even worse, with the tips of them already brown and crunchy.

Last night I said fuck it and transplanted to a 20 gallon tub, using ffox ffarms ocean forest and perlite, plus some super cheap soil that is mostly like clay (just to tone dcominge fox farms a little bit). I'm really thinking that she just got too big for her container, hopefully I'll see her coming back to life here soon. It kind of sucks BC the buds almost look identical to what they did over a week ago. Anyways, how long do plants take to bounce back from a deficiency? Remember, my nutrients are organic (slower acting) but I do have some of botanicares kind line for my aeroponic setup so I might try feeding a little with that.
 

RIKNSTEIN

Well-Known Member
Ok, I've really been needing to make this thread for a while now, and my plant is continuing to get worse. Its an og kush from hso, and I vegged it for a little over 2 months and the thing got massive. It started getting some random leaves that were starting to yellow, and now the leaves are dying and its reached the gaurd leaves.

I've thoroughly flushed the thing for about a week now, so I really don't think its from over feeding or pH problems. I had a couple other plants from bag seed exhibiting similar characteristics, with bottom leaves dying too quickly and whatnot and they were DEF in containers that were a little too small. The OG was in a 5 gallon smart pot and I was trying to keep from transplabting since I'm halfway through flower. I went ahead and switched it from a #5 smart pot from one company to a #7 from another compan, and they wound up being almost the exact same size. Lemme post a few pics.

View attachment 2901911View attachment 2901912View attachment 2901913View attachment 2901914View attachment 2901916View attachment 2901917

The leaves startedyellowing, but as you can see began to form brown, small necrotic dots. Its actually gotten even worse, these pics are several days old--now some of the leaves are completely dead on the tips and curling up. They started yellowing pretty randonly, but now its looking like mostly the tops that are hurting the worse, so it prolly has something to do with an immobile element.

I doubt its a deficiency BC I feed with the roots organic line from aurora. Again, its been flushed for over a week now and getting worse, so I'm gonna go back to feeding it a little. Do you think it might just be outgrowing its pot? The thing is massive. Its too big for a five gallon bucket so I would probably have to put it in a tub of some sort, but I hate giving it fresh soil high in nitrogen this late in flower. Lemme know your thoughts, hopefully someone can help me figure this out BC this plant is daaaank. It smells amazing and has been frosted up since the second week of flower. Thanks for any input.
Hey nice job Thor, it looks good man, and yep the OG will do that, it's askin for more nutes buddy...just finished a crop (about 30) of OG #18...it was a nute hog at the end with me almost doubling the dose of nutes they got...I stopped at week 7 and did a 1-1/2 of just water, and all the leaves (just about) went yellow...good luck man and enjoy :weed:
 

RIKNSTEIN

Well-Known Member
Hahaha, duuude that's awesome. I actually started my first grow journal as "nugs of Asgard", but didn't find it quite worthy of the songs of Valhalla so I kind of let the journal go.

But yeah, this plant is just a beast. I hate that she's gotten sick during this crucial time in flower BC I can already tell its seriously hurting my yield (as if the fact that its og kush hasn't hurt it enough already). But it is just sooo sticky, and soo stinky that I know its going to be so.e truly killer smoke.

I grabbed a couple pics of what the worst leaves progress to as they continue to yellow.
View attachment 2905082View attachment 2905083View attachment 2905084

And as always (in my busy life), these pics are a few days old. Some leaves are even worse, with the tips of them already brown and crunchy.

Last night I said fuck it and transplanted to a 20 gallon tub, using ffox ffarms ocean forest and perlite, plus some super cheap soil that is mostly like clay (just to tone dcominge fox farms a little bit). I'm really thinking that she just got too big for her container, hopefully I'll see her coming back to life here soon. It kind of sucks BC the buds almost look identical to what they did over a week ago. Anyways, how long do plants take to bounce back from a deficiency? Remember, my nutrients are organic (slower acting) but I do have some of botanicares kind line for my aeroponic setup so I might try feeding a little with that.
Ohhh buddy, never transplant in flower...she'll spend some energy trying to fill the pot with roots instead of producing bud :o...damn I was just about to give you some more rep too...lol...naw I gave it to ya...
 

ThorGanjason

Well-Known Member
Thats nice flowering already if u only nearing 4 weeks flowering - hopefully they should all swell well - but yeah, u will deffo need some feed for sure & also CalMag likely a good idea too still.

And with the Calmag, i dunno if u in UK or can order it, etc but wanted to say i use PlantMagicPlus Calmag & thats got a good few other bits including N in it, and more relevantly, its formulated for hard water area's so avoids excessive salts, etc. Certainly recommend any plantmagic stuff anyway.


And also, i guess u seeing the example now of what difference in quality u can get between seedbank seeds and random bagseed! 1 of the best bits of advice i read on here early on was that if ur only doing a few plants grow, then pay out for decent seeds as it'll likely eliminate a few possible problems, and ur much more guaranteed a healthy, sturdy & quality plant. Bagseed can come good but definitely less guaranteed & more possible time/resources wasted.
Ohhh buddy, never transplant in flower...she'll spend some energy trying to fill the pot with roots instead of producing bud :o...damn I was just about to give you some more rep too...lol...naw I gave it to ya...
Maaaaan I know, I transplanted one in my first run and it totally quit flowering, and just shot up for about 2 weeks (went from like 14 inches to like 30 inches in two weeks). It really hurt the yield, BC of the time in flower it spent stretching.

That's why I was really trying to avoid it, but I was afraid that with 4 more weeks to go in flower that the deficiency would wind up reaching the buds and ruining this killer dank.

Damn I wish I would've waited one more day to transplant, and I would've heard you say that lol. BUT, I was definitely laying heavy on the nutes and the leaves were startong to yellow anyways. That's why I started flushing, and after a week or ten days with it still getting worse, I figured my best chance at salvaging it was to just transplant.

Four weeks into flower just seems way too early for the leaves to be turning this yellow--and I never saw my leaves get the brown spots like this one. Not when they started giving their color up in flower, ya know.

I'm in the middle of moving, plus trying to open a business and so half of my grow is at one place, the other half is somewhere else and all of my time has been elsewhere. Hopefully I can spend tomorrow and get all my shit together, solo much easier taking care of my plants when they're all in one spot.

BTW Rik, I would've looooved to see how those #18's turned out. I've seen pics of your massive crops and they always look AMAZING. This og definitely has some killer genetics, if I can just keep her healthy she's gonna provide some top quality smoke while I wait for my big harvest to go into flower.
 
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