How do I Transplant in Hydro?

Indoor Growing Hydroponics
#1

Use case: RDWC

I have a 3X3 tent. It will only accommodate 1 large girl when vegged and trained for yield.

If I wanted to start 4 plants, and choose the most vigorous one of the bunch, how would I go about it?

I am theorizing a somewhat shallow tote with four 3" net pots, then make my selection after showing sex, and put the winning net pot in another 5 gal bucket type rig to finish growing her out. By using unions on the vessel plumbing I can switch vessels out pretty easy.

Would the roots be so mangled together by then to be a show stopper?

Is there a better way to achieve my goal?

I tried this on my current grow, with 2 seedlings in each 6" net pot, and then picked the best of the 4 seedlings, culled the 2nd plant in the winning vessel and yanked the other vessel out. Things got mighty crowded by the time I could determine sex. But now I have one girl totally filling the tent. I wouldnt want to put 2 seedlings in a single net pot again though, the decay of the roots ball from the culled plant concerned me.

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#2

maybe make a smaller scaled down system, 3" net pot in say, 1/2 to 1 gallon , plastic containers, (a sort of tiny GH Water Farm system), veg them until you see sex, then plop the 3’s into a larger net, or into your 5 g buckets.

Your not using medium, but if you did, all I did was to rinse the root mass in a bucket of water, just sort of giggling it about some, then add them to the lava rock medium I was using at the time.

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#3

I’ve never transplanted and just started in the netpot size intended for the entire run.

Granted this did mean top-feeding with either a pump on a timer or turkey bastor for the period where the roots have yet to reach the solution in order to feed but it’s always worked; just a little more effort in the starting weeks.

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#4

Would Fem seeds make your life easier?

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#5

Yes, and indeed that is something I am considering.

I still would “love” to start with my legal limit of four plants though, and then select the pheno I want to grow to term.

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#6

I like it, will give that some thought.

#7

Fem seeds and don’t worry about up potting. My homemade net pots were of softer plastic and the roots just pushed it aside to get bigger. The pot is only there to hold the plant in place, in hydro the rez will determine how big your root system is, not the net pot.

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#8

Not much you can do without mangling the roots. I spent along time going over this in my head pretty recently wanting to pheno hunt in a few totes. Decided against it because what I was planning to run were regs and the options were cut the males down at the trunk and leave dead plants in my reservoir or mangle the root balls trying to get them separated.

I chose fems instead lol. I had shit all planned out too till someone brought up the issue of culling males.

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#9

Also, you could start your seedlings in plugs or rockwool in little trays with water on the bottom(Ice cube trays are the perfect size for peat plugs, Tupperware for rockwool) then send leaf snips for sex testing its like $20/plant I think.

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#10

My first grow I used make shift netpots out of plastic cups, just burned a bunch of slits with a hot butter knife. It worked, but by the end I had to strap the plant to the ceiling to keep it from falling :sweat_smile: definitely use real netpots, much easier, I was just super broke :sweat_smile: now that I’m only kinda broke I get to do things “right” :joy:

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#11

I have ripped single plants out of crowded aero/nft and aeroplanes with success… you can cut the majority of the root mass off and transplant in any system, with or without a medium. The concern of the decaying root mass left behind is real, if you are using a beneficial bacteria solution, but not so much if you are adding pool shock/etc…

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#12

The bigger issue I’ve had with the system you posted, was getting a full flush, or cleaning the lines… I used to run the Waterfarm buckets, and that was always a pain in the ass. Especially when I had different plants with different nutrient needs it was hard to keep them all happy…

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