Need some information on transplanting... Special Circumstances.

Discussion in 'Growing Marijuana Indoors' started by StaffOfPower, Mar 19, 2015.

  1. Okay. To keep this as short as possible, I have a bonsai mother plant that is in some coarse, woody soil.  As in lots of little wood chips.  I forgot about how wood chips lock  up nitrogen from the plant, and now my mother plant is really suffering.  Had about 12 starts that are all dust now, too.  
     
    I bought new soil, ZERO woody debris in this stuff, so now I just need to transplant it.
     
    Thats where my question is...
     
    The problem is, the roots have grown all through the woody soil that it is in now, in search of Nitrogen I suppose.  
     
    Question:  What would be the best way to transplant it?  Should I just stick her in a slightly larger pot, or should I try to remove the crappy woody soil from the root ball...? 
     
    If the latter option is best, what is the best way to go about removing soil? Knocking it off?  Spraying it off?

     
  2. Leave it. Dont disturb the existing root ball. Just make sure you transplant into a larger pot of better soil.
     
    Some chicken manure pellets will help to offset the N drain from the wood chips.  I had the same issue 2 years ago in my veggie garden and the chicken manure pellets (you can get a 25 lb sack chap from your local garden center) did the trick in 72 hours. My corn was yellowing and looking like it was dying after I had mixed a ton of manure mixed with stall bedding (wood shavings) into the garden. I worked a good fistful of chicken manure pellets into the soil around every damn corn plant (several hundred - took me hours lol) and then watered it all in well. Within a couple days the N starved corn was bright deep green and happy.
     
    GL man.
     
    j
     
  3. Got it. Thanks for the response.

    Did some more in depth thinking after I posted and I realized it probably wouldn't be a good idea to screw with the existing root mass after all. So I'll just pot up.

    As for the manure, that's really good to know. One guy at the collective I go to has cows (all organically raised) and he offered steer manure to me in order to help the issue.

    Would I be better off working some in (either chicken or cow) after I plant into the new soil, or would the manure be better used in the compost pile I'm building?

    - Yeah I know it's probably a little late to be building a pile now, but better late than never.

    Thanks again.
     
  4. #4 Kesey, Mar 19, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 19, 2015
    Decomposition requires a Nitrogen:Carbon ratio. Using fresh mulch or wood chips will most definitely pull nitrogen from living plants in an effort to facilitate the decomposition...
     
    I used to work at a plant nursery and I heeled in 50 10+ ft. green arrows and mulched em with the fresh chips instead of the old stuff. My boss was not pleased to say the least xD
     
    When in doubt, compost it [​IMG]
     
    Also something to look into...soybean meal converting urea to ureanese *winkwinkwink* or you might find some microbial strains that are used to help nitrogen fixation *coughcoughcough* and go with a multi-pronged approach :D.
     
    Good luck and stay safe :D
     

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