Double potting Smart Pots?

[dankworth]

http://t0.invalid.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRdGuLgzK6iE_GzH80aw3ONdypoHe7lkCl7EMWYPVdKQleaG7O4
These come in 1,3,5,7 gallon size, and also have liners if you want.
You could do all kind of things with these and liners and smartpots.

 

[Dirty White Boy]

No question itll work, thats how they replant trees that are kept in mesh pots that you buy and put in your yard. When they get to large for there pot they just lift it up and set it in a larger mesh pot. If they have been sitting long enough when they lift the trees up there will be massive roots underneath the pot as long as its not on direct concrete. I have a friend who veg's with 1 gallon smart pots on a table then puts them straight into 5 gallon hempys.

 

[WalterWhiteFire]

They wrap tree root balls in burlap, a much more breathable/ biodegradable meterial. Even then i see trees struggle all the time that have been planted improperly by other landscapers. Having a fragile rootball is the complete downfall of smart pots!!!! Every time the pot is moved you damage a part of the root ball. The only positive I found using them is the easy transplanting. Just cut the pot off with some nice scissors. My gals always seem stoked to get some fresh CAP bennies and some more space. There is no question it would grow better without having its ball constricted.

 

[Blaze]

Definitely remove the smart pot. The roots can grow through it eventually but it will severely slow them down and retard root growth. Anything sturdy enough to make a pot out of is going to prevent the roots form spreading out quickly and easily. I've tried it a few times (with veggies too) and the results were disappointing - if definitely gimps your plants. We're not talking about a tree here that put out big thick massive roots and has year and years to grow though it's bag - we're talking about a fast growing annual with a shallow root system.

 

[Dirty White Boy]

That's incorrect I'm not talking about burlap. My family owns a tree farm. We use fabric pots, we do not remove the fabric when transplanting. There is still a rootball its just the layer closet the the edge that gets pruned.

 

[Blaze]

We're talking about growing cannabis, not trees. It works fine for trees but not very well for annuals. If I were to grow my cannabis like I did my fruit trees I would be getting some pretty poor results, they are totally different plants with totally different requirement. Planting cannabis or any other annual in a fabric pots is going to retard their root growth quite a bit, I have seen it many times. Yes eventually they will grow through the pot, but it takes an extremely long time compared to if they are not being restricted by the fabric. The faster those roots can grow and the bigger the root ball gets, the bigger the plant will get, and the faster it will grow.

 

[Dirty White Boy]

Wait I thought we were trying to grow trees........Lmao. I suppose I stand corrected.

 

[kolah]

Those EZ Root baskets look sweet.

 

[Blaze]

Wait I thought we were trying to grow trees........Lmao. I suppose I stand corrected.

LoL very true! Well you know what I mean though having grown many real trees, annuals like cannabis are quite a bit different than fruit trees and other perennial plants in what they like.

 

[Dirty White Boy]

If ya check these pots out its easy to see you can use a net or fabric pot of some sort and simply plant the pot to upsize. Thats all I was saying people already do it and its a rather accepted practice among commercial production facility's.

 

[WalterWhiteFire]

If ya check these pots out its easy to see you can use a net or fabric pot of some sort and simply plant the pot to upsize.

I have never seen those!!! Thanks for the link! Those would be much much better than double potting "smart" pots.

 

[Dirty White Boy]

Yea check all there stuff out the root prune pots have been around quite some time.

 

[El Cerebro]

Blaze's experience same for me. I've tested this with several different smartpot brands as well as coco linerpots and plastic netpots. Roots penetrated all of them, although the smartpot ones are slow/gimped/lame. TK you have some square with mesh on the bottom right? One of those will demonstrate everything you need to know. Even the loose-weave coco liners slow rooting way down compared to removing them, more-open mesh like the root-trapper bags would be much better (thx for link DWB, was looking for those).

 

[El Cerebro]

correction, not the root-trapper bags but the 'woven' ones on that website. looks like only 5" to fit in cinderblocks but maybe the material is available elsewhere..

 

[ttystikk]

If I was gonna run a coco/hydroton chow mix, and place my girls in 5 gallon buckets, would these root trapper bags work better as an inner liner, as opposed to doing a second 5 gallon bucket with holes drilled in the bottom?

 

[El Cerebro]

If I was gonna run a coco/hydroton chow mix, and place my girls in 5 gallon buckets, would these root trapper bags work better as an inner liner, as opposed to doing a second 5 gallon bucket with holes drilled in the bottom?

Fwiw, I played around with smartpots in a bucket like that and seemed like the fabric would be too waterlogged. I think one of the main benefits to air-pruning with chow is faster evaporation/wicking.

 

[ttystikk]

Fwiw, I played around with smartpots in a bucket like that and seemed like the fabric would be too waterlogged. I think one of the main benefits to air-pruning with chow is faster evaporation/wicking.

I guess I'm not really looking to air-pruning my plants' roots, since they're going to be down in the buckets anyway. Just looking for the easiest solution to my problem of converting RDWC to chow mix. Looks like the 5 gallon bucket inserts with holes drilled in the bottoms are the way to go.

 

[manicinmaine]

Does anybody have experience double potting or up potting in Smart Pots?

I want to go from a 1 or 3 gallon Smart Pot to a 5 or 7 gallon Smart Pot without trying to remove the smaller Smart pot from the rootmass. I just want to transplant the entire pot into the next size up...

I've seen my brutha Coloradro do it I think but not sure of the success..

Tex

i have done this but by examining the root mass after harvesting i don not think i would do it again, i was told but a professor in one of my botany classes to go around the outside of the rootball on the edge of the smart pot and drive the shovel in around and along the edge of ur smartpot then peel it down like peeling a banana. i tend to do this when root mass has dried out a bit so the mass stays together then after tp i water the hell out of them with soluble kelp and dyna grow silica amendment so as to reduce shock, ive also used house and gardens root excelurator for a week after tp, so as to boost root production. i have put a smartpot in another smartpot but then you have 2 smartpots in use as opposed to one, as i run perpetually this is a bad idea because 2x's increases overhead cost and thus reduces profit margiin. dont get me wrong it will work just not sure of the benefits. i should also mention since i switched to air pots i will never go back to smarties!! i run smarts up to the final tp then they go in the big airpots and i freekin love em!! twice the plant out of half the soil.

 

[ttystikk]

i have done this but by examining the root mass after harvesting i don not think i would do it again, i was told but a professor in one of my botany classes to go around the outside of the rootball on the edge of the smart pot and drive the shovel in around and along the edge of ur smartpot then peel it down like peeling a banana. i tend to do this when root mass has dried out a bit so the mass stays together then after tp i water the hell out of them with soluble kelp and dyna grow silica amendment so as to reduce shock, ive also used house and gardens root excelurator for a week after tp, so as to boost root production. i have put a smartpot in another smartpot but then you have 2 smartpots in use as opposed to one, as i run perpetually this is a bad idea because 2x's increases overhead cost and thus reduces profit margiin. dont get me wrong it will work just not sure of the benefits. i should also mention since i switched to air pots i will never go back to smarties!! i run smarts up to the final tp then they go in the big airpots and i freekin love em!! twice the plant out of half the soil.

This is great feedback- can you upload a pic of the air pots you're using?

 

[manicinmaine]

ill try :) not very tech savvy