Soil options for transplanting seedling to larger pot

Discussion in 'Growing Marijuana Indoors' started by x1pitviper1x, Oct 26, 2016.

Tags:
  1. #1 x1pitviper1x, Oct 26, 2016
    Last edited: Oct 26, 2016
    So this is my first grow and I'm still trying to fully understand everything, especially soils. I am a little over 2 weeks since sprouting my germinated seeds in FFOF and I want to get a better understanding of soils before moving the plants.

    I have 3 seedlings from germinated pineapple express bag seeds growing under CFL lights in 5 inch pots with FFOF in them. I'm unsure of whether I should transplant into 1 gal pots of the ocean forest or does anyone recommend anything else? I read that to minimize shock to blend the new soil with the FFOF.

    I also dug through several threads about super soils or organic soil blends but everyone has personal preferences for adding amendments so it has me lost. I found this company called Digitsoils.com who are local here in the metro Detroit area and sell for $2.50/gal but I'm nervous about trying it since this is my first grow.

    If anyone has any suggestions or input, it would be very helpful!
     
  2. Fox farms works great and makes caring and feeding really easy the first month or so. After a month or so of growth they will use up all the good stuff and you will need to start adding It. Now..as far as pot size that depends on your setup. I have 4x4x6 tents and I use 5 gallon pots. Generally the bigger the pot the bigger the plant. I would just keep using fox farms. Honestly I have seen no reason not to though I'm still only about 3 weeks in to my grow.

    Sent from my 0PJA2 using Tapatalk
     
  3. As far as putting together a truly organic soil base....use a tried and proven recipe and stick to it! For pre-mixed formulated growing soils, the two you mentioned are good and I want to suggest Roots Organics Original to you. It's insanely expensive, but in all the years I've been doing an indoor grow, it's about the best out there available to us, in my opinion. You can take a plant all the way through it's entire life on just this soil, if you understand when a plant is ready to repot.

    Too many new growers get the idea that they have got to continually pour chemicals (nutes) into their plants to get a good outcome at harvest time. This is simply untrue. Nutes are simply plant food and contain the basic nutrients that these plants need at different stages throughout their life. But if you start out with a really good grow soil that was specifically designed for growing these plants, you can rest in the fact that the soil already has everything in it that the plants need. No plant needs repotted until it has outgrown the container it is currently growing in. How do you know when it's time for a repot? When you plant itself becomes larger than the container it's growing in (wider and taller than), that's usually a good indicator that it's time for a change and you'll need to go up in size slightly with the next one you're going up to.

    The first thing a plant does when introduced to soil either from the seedling stage or from being cloned, is to build a root system. The more soil you start the plant off in, the longer the rooting in will take. So keeping the container size and plant size relative gets you faster foliage growth throughout veg. Start your small seedlings in Solo cups and give only good pH'd tap water (we don't treat with chlorine in the US anymore, so no worries about letting it sit for 24 hours to evaporate off. In EU, they still use chlorine and you do have to let the water sit to evaporate it off for 24 hours) and light. The soil will feed your plants for you until several weeks into veg. NEVER EVER EVER water your plants until they feel like they're DEAD dry when you lift the cup or container they're in. A really dry plant can be spotted because the soil will pull away from the edges of the container. But they don't like moist conditions around their roots all the time and letting them dry out enough between watering episodes is imperative.

    When your plant outgrows the cup, go into a 1 gallon container with it in fresh soil. Water it in, put it back under the veg lights and do nothing until it uses up the water to a point of being almost dead dry. You'll have to wait on it to redo it's roots after the transplant and while it's doing that it doesn't use food or water much to speak of. We go from a 1 gallon container to about a #3 nursery pot or a bit larger from the 1 gallon pots...depending on the size of the plant at the time. You just don't want to go from a Solo cup to a 5 gallon bucket. It just slows the plant down because of all the time it takes to root into that much soil. Does this make sense to you?

    The only time you have to worry much about the grow soil is when you put new seedlings into it. They almost all will burn the plants just a little bit because they have nutrients in the mix. If this happens, no worries. Just keep on going like I told you above. We veg for about 10 weeks. While my flower rooms are doing their thing, I'm vegging clones to resupply it with and we take clones about 2 weeks before harvest...so I guess, technically they're growing for about 12 weeks during veg before going into the flower room. I don't keep mothers but take clones from my plants I'm prepping to flower next.

    The soil you're using is fine. Any of the more popular grow soils out there will work and no, you don't have to change anything or add anything. Once you get your plants through the seedling stage when they are most at risk for problems and rooted into the soil medium you opt for, your plants will be good. We don't usually start any nutes at all until a couple of weeks before the flower cycle. I can only give them at about 1/4 the recommended strength by the nute maker and I stopped using those expensive liquid nute packages years ago and started using "Jack's" by J.R. Peters at the recommendation of a grower friend out in Southern California. I've never looked back. If you use a good enough quality soil, the soil does 90% of the work for you...if you'll leave the plants alone and let it.

    If your plants start to wash out in color and turn more a yellow/green than the rich blue/green that is normal, then they're likely starting to get hungry. You look for this on NEW GROWTH. Old growth eventually dies off and you don't make judgements by what happens to it. The health of your plant can be determined by what the new growth is looking like...so that's what you keep an eye on.

    Good luck! TWW
     
    • Like Like x 1

  4. Thank you for such an in depth reply! I think I'll try the roots organic soil. I have done a fair amount of research and figured out when to transplant, etc. I have some leaf discoloration, but I'm letting it ride out until I water again in another day or so and it's gotten better already on its own. I have some nectar for the gods sample nutrients arriving early next week so I'll try them out a little bit down the line as needed.

    Before you transplant, do you water the new soil until some runoff and let it sit for a day or so before transplanting?
     

Share This Page