HELP! Transplanting clone from coco to soil

[herHIGHness]

When you plant a clone in a coco pot in soil, do you need to take it out of the coco pot first?

I got a clone in coco and the little pot it came in. There were a few roots growing down outside the pot when I got it. The guy who sold it to me told me to plant the entire pot in soil (all my plants are growing in soil, but this is the only clone that didn't come in rockwool like I'm used to). He said the roots would grow out of the pot into the soil.

It's been about 3 1/2 weeks and the one coco clone is not growing at the same rate as the other plants. It's healthy, but just not growing at the expected rate.

Should I have removed it from the coco pot and planted the root ball directly in the soil?

Thanks for your help :)

 

[Seamaiden]

Rockwool and coco behave differently. Is the coco pot already in the soil? Is it a different strain from the others? Personally, I probably would have removed the little pot. Perhaps you can try poking holes in it, if the problem is that it's caused the root ball to stay small.

 

[herHIGHness]

Thanks, Seamaiden. Yes, the coco pot is already in the soil. It's been about 3 1/2 weeks since transplant. I forgot to mention, I became more concerned about whether I had done the wrong thing by planting the entire coco pot in soil when I noticed a portion of 1 root that is protruding through the soil from the top of the coco pot area of the plant.

There were roots growing down, out of the coco pot when we bought the clone, but now I'm concerned the plant is rootbound inside the coco pot.

At this point, I don't know that I can remove the coco pot since it's been growing in the coco pot and soil combination for almost 4 weeks.

This is a different strain from the rest of my plants. It's a Chemdog's Sister plant. The others are 5 OG plants, 1 Matanuska Thunderfuck, and 1 Super Silver Haze.

The Chemdog's Sister is growing, and looks healthy, but the other plants have tripled in size (if not more), and this has only grown a small amount in comparison.

Any advice?

 

[Seamaiden]

How do you water/feed? If from the top, stop and try feeding & watering from the bottom, see if you can encourage the roots to dig down. I'd also take a skewer and poke some holes into the pot that one came in, shouldn't hurt anything as long as you don't get all Karen Black on it. As long as it's growing it ain't dead.

 

[antimatter]

Seems odd those things are supposed to grow roots through em.

Edit: Are you keeping the soil moist in and around the coco pot so its not air pruning ?

 

[herHIGHness]

Seamaiden - I water from the top of the soil, but that's an interesting idea to try watering from the bottom.

antimatter - Thanks for confirming that the roots should grow through the coco pot. I'm keeping the soil moist in and around the coco pot.

Thanks to both of you for your help :)

Last year the plant that started out the slowest actually wound up being my best plant, so fingers crossed that I'm over-worrying about the Chemdog's Sister this time around. Either way, I'm just happy that all my other plants seem to be doing great so far!!

 

[dican01]

those coco pots are trouble. takes a lot of work for the roots to push through them. it seems too late this time but i would stray away from coco pots in the future or take them out of the coco and then transplant. coco pots suck. they are way too expensive, you can't reuse them, and they seem to stunt growth after transplant.

 

[Seamaiden]

Yeah... I don't know, I've never really used those pots much either way. What caught my attention and what I think may throw growers for a loop is that coco really is different from other media, and if it's not handled properly the plants and yields suffer.

Next time, definitely remove the outer pot, and you may want to wash away some of the coco so as to get a more direct and immediate contact with the soil. Like a bare root type of transplant.

 

[antimatter]

Have you pulled the plant out of its current container to see if any roots are spiraling around? If you saw a root growing through it when you got it, that should mean the rest will do the same, some of the mpb guys were using those coco pots in there netpots and the roots were going right through like normal.

 

[herHIGHness]

I pulled some soil away from one side of the coco pot today to check out the situation. I immediately saw some roots growing outside of the coco pot, into the soil. They were little roots. Maybe it's just taking this long for them to really penetrate through the coco pot. I'll update in a week or so on the progress.

 

[antimatter]

I pulled some soil away from one side of the coco pot today to check out the situation. I immediately saw some roots growing outside of the coco pot, into the soil. They were little roots. Maybe it's just taking this long for them to really penetrate through the coco pot. I'll update in a week or so on the progress.

Be curious to see whats up, I bought a couple hundred little coco pots for doing some coco cloning, ive used peat pots and jiffy pellets in the past with no penetration problems.

 

[Seamaiden]

Peat pucks for me in the past and for veggies, but for Mary I've gone to coco/perlite/wc's in little cups. It's always weird to pull a plant and find the old netting from the peat puck around its ankles, ya know?

 

[herHIGHness]

The Chemdog's Sister' rate of growth has improved. The height increase in the past 5 days doubles that of the previous 8 days.

I still think the plant is/will be somewhat dwarfed because of planting it in the coco pot, but who knows. I'm staying away from coco pots in the future!!

I'll update again later.