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Why is transplanting cannabis important?

Transplanting cannabis
Homegrown Cannabis Co 16 Mar 2022

Transplanting cannabis is a vital skill. You won’t be able to truly grow cannabis until you learn to transplant properly.  If you don’t transplant cannabis when it needs to be moved, you could end up with rootbound plants and stunted growth.

Pot size is important when it comes to yield, you want your plants to finish in nice, big pots, but it’s not always sensible to start them this way.

Transplanting cannabis successfully is all about observation, practice and timing. 

You need to recognize when your plants are ready to be transplanted, and you need to know how to transplant without stressing or killing them.

For most photoperiod grows, plan to transplant cannabis up to and around three times.

We’re going to look at the full cycle of the plant, when to transplant weed seedlings and transplanting cannabis plants pre-flip, so they can enjoy flowering in their final home.

Article originally published via our content partners at Homegrown Cannabis Co.

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Why is transplanting cannabis important?

As plants grow above the soil line, the root ball expands below it.

It’s important the plant has enough room to grow in both these dimensions.

Important both for the quality AND the quantity of your final yield.

While it’s true that pot size determines how big your plants can grow, transplanting marijuana directly from a tiny container to a large one can be detrimental.

We’ll talk about this later on in our transplanting series.

The main advantage of transplanting cannabis is that it helps you perfect the watering cycle, allowing the rootball to expand at a manageable rate.

If you don’t transplant your cannabis when it needs to be moved, the roots might outgrow the pot – the plant can become rootbound. Rootbound plants struggle to absorb nutrients, oxygen, and water, often leading to sickness and death. Transplanting marijuana plants too soon will have the negative effect of your root ball falling apart.

Growing cannabis is all about providing the most comfort for your plants, allowing them to thrive. One of the best ways to do this is to learn how to transplant cannabis with confidence.

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How often do you need to transplant cannabis plants?

If you’ve germinated your cannabis seeds outside of the soil, your first experience of transplanting cannabis plants will be planting them.

Okay, so it’s not a major transplant, but you’re still ‘transplanting’ from the paper towel to the small pot or solo cup.

The first big transplanting decision is when to transplant cannabis seedlings to their first decent-sized plant pot. This will either be an intermediate pot, or their final pot.

Remember: transplanting pot is not something you can predetermine. You need to observe your plants, let them tell you when they’re ready to be moved.

Beginners should think about transplanting weed plants into an intermediate pot. This will help master the wet to dry watering cycle – the best way to water your plants!

Transplanting cannabis seedlings straight into a final container is best left to experienced growers (or those growing autoflowers). Unless your final pot is three gallons or less.

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When to transplant your cannabis plant?

You should only really transplant weed plants when:

  • Planting germinated seeds into their first pot.
  • Transplanting pot seedlings into intermediate containers.
  • Transplanting into a final grow pot ready for flowering.

The key determining factor in transplanting cannabis is the size of the plant, and, by proxy, the root ball.

You can transplant cannabis as much as needed during the seedling and vegetative stages, but each time you transplant weed, you risk cannabis transplant shock. This is why you need to know exactly how to transplant!

We’ll go into this in-depth later on, but for a quick guide and vital tips, you can check out Kyle Kushman’s transplanting video guide right now:

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