Two Plants in One Pot - Bad?

[Tony Aroma]

Because of space limitations, I need to decide between having fewer, larger pots or more, smaller pots. But I don't want to reduce the total number of plants. Assuming I have 6 gal of soil and 2 plants -- would it be better to put both plants in one 6 gal pot or give each plant its own 3 gal pot? These plants would be grown from seed and vegged for no more than 6-8 weeks, then finish up in either the 6 or 3 gal pots.

 

[Endo]

i would say better 1 plant per pot.. with 2 per pot you run the risk of one choking out the other one... or. if one gets sick it might effect the other one.. and then you have a mass of tangled mangled root systems, and you might lose 2 plants instead of one.

how ever i have seen people run soil beds, just a tub, with probably 6-10 clones all in one bin evenly spaced out. like you would outdoors, you could do that but if you have more than one strain i wouldnt go through the trouble. and wouldnt do it with seed plants.

 

[smokn1]

What Endo said

 

[Storm Crow]

There was a study on plants recently (sorry, I don't have this one handy) that said that 2 plants from the same mother grew better together, than 2 plants of different mothers. Now this could just be because similar genetics = similar growth patterns.

Or it could be plants can discriminate between "self", "related" and "not related". Most folks think plants are passive- WAY wrong! They fight daily "chemical warfare" among themselves and different species- they give off chemicals that poison bugs or discourage herbivores, some discourage other types of seeds from germinating and so much more. Even among a single plant there is chemical warfare to be "top bud"- auxins from the terminal bud slow the growth of lower branch's buds.

We humans are just blind and deaf to what is happening between the plants.

Anyway, when I put two equal sized clones together in one tub, there's no problems. They grow at the same rate. But when I try with 2 seedlings, even of the same strain, one almost invariably crowds out the other. Your results may be different. Good luck!

 

[abirdintheair]

ive had to do exactly what your asking one run, were i had a few double potted trainwrecks. the tdubs potted together gave just as much as the solo wrecks in the same size pot. plus, a majority of the soil in the middle wasnt touched. if the pot/bucket is big enough try a few out and see what happens.

 

[ganjafarma]

not really 2 plants in 1 pot, but 2 plants in 1. lol
anyways, my plant topped herself at birth and when she was germinated she had a root that split in 2.... kinda mutant. but yea, its an Afghan and she's smaller than the others. her nodes and budsites are all along the main colas and go from bottom to top.... anyways, i dunno what this has to do with anything, but it sounded right in this thread i guess... haha, im high, so yea.
point is, i think you get less? with 2 plants in 1, so it might be true with 2 plants in 1 pot?

 

[Tony Aroma]

Thanks for the input. The reason I asked is in my current grow I ended up with 2 plants per pot. I grow from seed and hate to get rid of healthy plants, at least until I find out their gender. Like Storm Crow said, in each pot one plant was much bigger than the other, even though they started out pretty much the same size. I also had a couple of plants that showed some deficiencies midway through flowering. So it sounds like one plant per pot is the way to go. And after doing a little research on containers, it looks like grow bags might be my best alternative for squeezing more containers into my limited space. I should be able to fit almost twice as many of the same volume bags in the same space as my current round buckets.