Best way to re-pot and keep moms in coco??

I have a Nevilles haze mom thats pretty big.She's in a 2gal pot right now, its actually 3 diff cuts from the same "Magic Haze" Nevs mom.Anyway, I need to keep this cut and I want to set her up for some type of long term situation.I know the style might be slightly diff so I mentioned it was a haze.Shes not a giant plant that grows out of control huge but she 's my best haze, I only have 2oz left, damn it went fast!

Don't know why coco would be different.

Here's what I've done in the past with hydroton and soil mums....

Trim the growth back (take clones) and let her rest for a couple of days.

When moist/wet.... loosen the root ball from the container and cut away a few inches of root mass on the sides and the bottom. You can cut away quite a bit... but you'll need to go slowly until you find out what the plant prefers. The less you cut, the more often you'll need to do this.

Re-pot into the same sized pot with new coir or whatever medium you're using.


Essentially just treat it like a large bonsai mum.

Stay Safe!

Thanks dude, I was a bit unsure of how much root matter to cut back, I'm squeamish about that.I'll whack her back tomorrow and move foward.

I'm betting the next transplant will include heavier root pruning... but go easy on her the first time.

hydro-soil nailed it.. take cuttings and prune the roots, then transplant.. Coco is no different from soil in this application.

Take a well-rooted clone and let that be your new mom.

I cut all my roots down to about the size of beer cup, actually a little bigger. I also trim down all the growth, and only keep a little bit of greenage. I might try a little less next time to see if recovery is a little quicker. Usually takes about like two weeks, and I have a super healthy mama ready to give me clones again!


aod

CHACO said:

Thanks dude, I was a bit unsure of how much root matter to cut back, I'm squeamish about that.I'll whack her back tomorrow and move foward.

Click to expand...

You hear a lot about not damaging the roots etc. I was squeamish at first myself, then cut 2" or, better off the root mass, sides and bottom. Trust me, their was nothing delicate about the process, then replanted and everything went on as normal....

The trick is to match the root trimming with the foliage trim so that the plants transpiration rate matches its ability to uptake water. This isn't too difficult. Just use some common sense.

Pine

bignugs said:

You hear a lot about not damaging the roots etc. I was squeamish at first myself, then cut 2" or, better off the root mass, sides and bottom. Trust me, their was nothing delicate about the process, then replanted and everything went on as normal....

Click to expand...

Just wanted to add for a mother plant the super airpots work real good.
Your going to get a lot more root mass once you prune and with the air pot you can get a lot more mileage out of a mother...

my coco mothers in 5galls love floranova bloom, its all they ever need

Hydro-Soil's advice is right on point. i was hesitant to root prune to much at first but eventually found that i could really hack the root ball back a lot with no ill effect.

Best to go easy at first to see how your strain reacts - like Hydro-Soil said, but i found that a wide variety of strains i had recovered very well to very aggressive root pruning in coco.

Good luck

@ Thread starter.

Hi, CHACO.

We normally do not post outside of our sub-forum. If you would like for us to remove this post, please let us know.

We were reading your thread and considered that we might be to able to assist you in sustaining your cultivars, without `pruning`, or damaging the roots of your heirlooms. When you have the time please visit our sub-forum to review possible solutions further.

In short, it is possible to maintain a plant or tree through its life cycle, or indefinitely, without ever having to prune roots or extract it from its original container. From cutting to tree, and any size in between.

During experiments, we began a given cultivar in a 1 liter Square Root(TM) Brand Garden Bag (from cutting or seed), then simply placed the entire SRBGB into a larger sized SRBGB for the duration of that particular plant or tree`s cycle.

During experiments, we also maintained cultivars in 1 liter SRBGB`s until the plant or tree was well over 4 feet tall. At any point we could place the entire 1 liter, or other sized SRBGB into a larger SRBGB, without ever `pruning` roots, or damaging roots. This effectively eliminated traditional `extraction`-type `transplanting`, altogether.

See:
Square Root™ Brand Garden Bag - Roots Gallery
www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=207882

In the link above, there are depictions of the progreesion from 1 liter Square Root(TM) Bag, to 5 gallon Square Root(TM) Bag, to 20 gallon Square Root(TM) Bag. Roots grew through the several walls and bottoms of the 1 liter and 5 gallon Square Root(TM) Garden Bag into the surrounding media (mix of coco coir, pumice and perlite) of the 20 gallon Square Root(TM) Bag. The roots were never pruned, nor damaged during the processes. Roots continued to grow through the successive larger SRBGB`s.

This approach might offer a solution for sustaining your valued cultivars; short-term, intermediate-term or long-term.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to PM us, or visit the sub-forum. There might be other articles in the sub-forum that might also be helpful. Again, if you would like for us to remove this post, please just let us know. With all due respect. Thanks.

/SRGB/

Cool! Thanks ya'll for coming by and throwing in your helpfull tips.I hadn't come back to this thread for a bit because I didn't have the time to re-pot the Nevilles mom.I finally did it yesterday and from a round 2gal container I cut about 1.5" off each side and made a square about a gal in size(I cut the bottom too!).Then I transplanted into a 3gal pot with a lighter mix of hydroton and coco.When I flipped the mom over and pulled off the old pot which had been holding the coco since summer, I expected to find some brown roots and a few rot spots even though the plant was fine.The roots were as white as could be, all the heat, the crazy weather, hot then cold winter, stanky late summer/fall, no problem.Now I have 20 rooted cuts and a beautifull mom.This is the 1st day in a new pot.

Awesome!

Yeah.... I forgot to mention to cut stuff off the bottom as well, way to go with your intuition.

Is that a Chem leaf I see in the lower right?

Beautiful and healthy... they all look awesome in there.


Stay Safe!

Ever thought of keeping bonsai moms? If you're planning on taking loads of cuttings a big mom is essential but if you're only taking 6 or so then a bonsai will do and take up much less space/food/light. I've kept little moms in seedtrays for months just to keep them alive while saving space (tho obviously it's better to use slightly larger pots than that).

Up your bonsai container size to about a gallon and you can keep a 1' tall mum that will throw between 100 and 200 cuts at a time.

Can keep a LOT of mums under one light that way.

Stay Safe!

Yeah man I do use bigger containers (but a gallon is way too big for bonsai) I was just illustrating the fact moms can be teeny tiny if needed

hey chaco remember that coco is a hydro medium, you can treat it like dirt if you would like to but i have two moms downstairs that are in a 1 gal rose pot(smaller then a 1 gallon pot) and they are almost 4 feet tall right now still thriving. Now i might not recommend keeping them in such a small medium but the point is they dont need much.... 3 gal of coco can easily support a 4x4 mom or even bigger... and no one really needs moms that big.

Excellent information here....I am new to coc, and my moms are in coco as well, and now i see how to work with coco moms!!!!