Transplanting is moving a plant, with its root ball, from one container or site to another. The aim is more root room without breaking roots. Transplant shock is the pause in growth that follows when roots are damaged, dried out or exposed to a sudden change of medium, temperature or light.
In practice
Water the plant a few hours beforehand so the root ball holds together, pre-moisten the new medium, set the plant at the same depth (or slightly deeper for leggy seedlings), and keep light a little gentler for a day or two. Transplant when roots reach the walls but before they circle.
For photoperiod plants, a careful transplant costs very little. For autoflowers it is a different story.
Don't confuse with
- Up-potting: one specific kind of transplant, into a larger pot of the same medium.
- Hardening off: acclimatising a plant to outdoor conditions; often done before an outdoor transplant, but a different step.
Myth check
House position (grower practice): for autoflowers, transplanting is almost a no-no. Autos run on a fixed countdown from germination, so any setback costs time they cannot make up, and in the founder's experience their taproot reacts worse to disturbance than a photoperiod's. Sow autos straight into the final pot. See transplanting and photoperiod vs autoflower.
A seedling is a young cannabis plant from emergence of the cotyledons until it has several sets of true leaves, typically the first 2-3 weeks.The daily length of light versus dark; photoperiod cannabis flowers when nights grow long enough, rather than at a fixed age.A day-neutral cannabis plant that starts flowering by age, usually a few weeks after germination, regardless of light schedule; the trait is mainly recessive.Up-potting moves a plant into progressively larger containers as its roots fill each one, instead of starting in the final pot.Hardening off is gradually exposing plants raised indoors or under a dome to harsher conditions, such as sun, wind and lower humidity, so they adapt without shock.Germination is the stage where a viable seed absorbs water, splits its shell and pushes out a root (radicle), usually within 1-7 days at 20-30 °C.The dominant primary root that grows straight down from the radicle of a seed-grown plant, with lateral roots branching from it.A root-bound plant has filled its container so densely that roots circle the walls, water runs straight through, and growth slows or the plant wilts fast.Pot size is the volume of medium a plant roots into; bigger pots give bigger plants within reason, but feeding frequency can let small pots punch well above their size.
