do plants roots grow during flower?

[Drizzle]

I just went from 5 gallon pots of dirt thats root mass was filled to 20 gallon pots a couple weeks ago. The plants have gotten a lot bigger since we transplanted them. They are loving the big pots. But how long will they take to fill the 20 gallons of soil?

will the roots grow during flower? I know I don't want to transplant while flowering. And I don't want to start flowering until the plants take full advantage of the 20 gallons of soil they got. So how long ya'll think I should wait until I start flowering? I was thinking another 2 weeks?

 

[joeca1i]

Think they do,but not as fast as veg..Think I read they slow down around the 5th week for reg strains..

 

[squiggly]

Almost certainly.

 

[El Cerebro]

unless some killer genes, def won't fill the 20s if you flip right away. and longer than 2wks, esp for soil.

could mix in hydroton for aeration/drainage? (and maybe some coco of you're okay with tweaking nute plan). IBA can really speed things up, it's hiding in all those magic rooting liquids/gels. main thing is constant gas-exchange and that'll be limited in less-aerated soil.

what's your feed/watering plan? frequency is key for high-performance roots

 

[Blaze]

Absolutely! I actually had a similar experiment earlier in the year with my light dep. I transplanted some Sour Diesels from 5 gallon to 30 gallon smart pots filled with soil a week into flower. Within three weeks there were roots out to the edges of the pot and down to the bottom. By the time they finished they had fully filled out the 30 gallon pots - so the root mass increased 5 fold during flower. You can see the pics on my outdoor thread if you want to take a look:

https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/blazes-2012-adventure.47218/

 

[WalterWhiteFire]

I veg two weeks max after the final transplant. You dont want them to get root bound! In my experiences they will grow and yeild better if they never get root bound. If you timed it perfect they would just be hitting the sides of the pot around day 30 of bloom. My two cents...

 

[El Cerebro]

not disputing you guys' results, but ime roots peeking bottom/sides is much different than 'filling' 20-30gals? i mean, i see that in about a week when transplanting from cups to 10gal smartpots, but if i flipped early like that i wouldn't get near taking full-advantage of the available rootspace by end of flower.

i tried this at 1-3 wks, decided i was wasting media/labor and folded the pots down halfway for same yields with less veg-time. with more light/time of course i could have grown bigger trees, but for the variables in place it didn't make sense (vert room, harvest 8-10 per plant).

this experience got me motivated to explore smaller container sizes with chowmix and more frequent watering, and have to say i'm still surprised/impressed with the results. plants showed no signs of rootbinding, but definitely a solid-packed mass of fine hair-roots afterward (air-pruning containers mandatory for this approach, can't imagine it would work well if they were allowed to start circling).

Blaze, how dense is your final 5x fill? and how much coco? mine are packed so full at the end it's difficult to break the chow apart and remove from the smartpot.

 

[WalterWhiteFire]

I wouldnt expect my results with a Tplant from cup to ten gal. I would guess that would need to be vegged for a whole month. I move from #1 pot to a NC 5. So about 3/4 of a gal to around 3 gal. I do like my #1 to get pretty root bound before the final Tplant.