Transplant shock can be caused by a number of factors, most commonly root damage, plant damage, or overexposure of the roots. Plants that are being transplanted may be more susceptible to contamination by pests and disease. Transferring plants in or to the wrong medium may cause transplant shock, overcrowding may cause undue stress and transplant shock. Plan the move well. Protect your plants by handling them carefully, and make sure that you are moving them to a safe, secure site with plenty of room to grow.
Digging a tree or shrub in preparation for transplanting involves several steps. Various digging techniques can be employed, but no matter what approach is used, these steps must be attended to. The information covered here includes just the bare essentials. There are many factors which should be taken into account if one is to realize the best possible results. These considerations include the species of plant being moved and its condition, the soil conditions, climate, season of the year, and accessibility of the site.
Transplanting can occur anytime from seedling stages to flowering. Here a seedling in a rockwool cube is being transplanted.
Plants that have undergone several transplants can be just as good as plants that have not if the transplants are done properly.
This giant wall of bud will produce a giant harvest.
For potted plants, the whole soil will come up with the plant and go directly into a new medium (unless the plant is being treated for transplant shock) and so digging it up will not be necessary and instead the trowel will just be used to make the hole in the transplant medium. If the pot has the capability, it should be lifted and checked for any visible roots. If any are exposed, a quick check for any blackening will reveal if the plant has suffered any cold damage already. If the roots have grown out of the drainage holes and are small, then check to make sure they are free enough to go back through the holes again as you pull the plant up, or else you may tear the roots along the way. If they are tangled, then you will need a knife to cut these small roots so that the plant can move freely through the pores. Big roots protruding from the drainage holes can be a problem because avoiding main root damage is essential to a stress free and successful transplant. It is far better to saw or cut a cheap plastic pot to free a large root in the drainage system than to cut the root. Protruding roots are usually a sign that the plant may already be going through some pot-bound stress. A pot-bound plant cannot find space to produce roots and so creates a winding wall of roots around the inside rim of the container. If the container is particularly small and the plant is big, then this pot-bound wall chokes the plant’s roots and can stress the plant to failure if left untreated.
Check the plan in your head. Work through what you will do with the plant after it has been uprooted. Once you are certain that you have a transportation route without obstruction, then you should start to prepare the transplant medium well before you dig up the plant. The transplant medium is entirely up to you.
Cannabis has a tendency to produce lots of root in vegetative growth if growing under optimal conditions. Measure the trunk diameter and multiply it by 20. This is a general formula for estimating how far the roots will extend out under the soil. After you find out how big they actually are, you can use this experience for next time. This same figure is also how far the root penetrates down into the soil.
Use the trowel to cut 1/6 of the way around the estimated root ball size—do it slowly. Use your hands to part the soil gently and observe any roots, if you can. If you have gone through roots or can see roots on both sides of the soil, then make the cut bigger until you find no roots. Roots can, and do, grow unequally and unevenly so care should be taken in cutting and checking that you do not slice roots. Slitting a smaller root does not mean that you will kill the plant but the more roots that get damaged, the greater the chances of inducing stress and limiting the chances of recovery.
Once you have cleanly cut through medium so you can lift the root ball out, you are ready to transplant. Clear away any roots attached to anything that can obstruct a clean uprooting. Plants that have intertwined roots because of crowded spaces will have this problem. If you can’t loosen the roots slowly, then you can either cut directly down halfway or salvage one plant’s roots more than the others by cutting away more roots from one to keep the other plant’s roots intact and intermingled with the separated ones. If you have done all these things, you are prepared for the lift.
Depending on the root ball size, the plant can be lifted without aid and the root ball stabilized with one hand and the stem with the other. It is possible and advised to bag larger root masses that are to be moved over longer distances. Canvas is always helpful.
Root pruning before transplanting is a debatable topic. There are two schools of thought: leave the roots alone and transplant, or clean them and prune them to fit the transplant medium. There are circumstances where restricted transplant space means that pruning is necessary. Simply plant into the new medium and clean your tools after.
Why not recycle? Old products may have some use if you are inventive enough with them. Keep it green.
Transplant Shock
During some transplants, the cannabis plant may go into shock, even if your transplant was done cleanly and quickly. If your plant is otherwise healthy, it should survive. If the plant hasn’t been looked after it may fail quickly. Transplant shock results in delayed or slowed growth and is caused by damage to or a disturbance of the roots. This is why you must always make sure to keep a firm hold of the soil during transplants. Also, refrain from feeding plants suffering from transplant shock for one week. The reason for not feeding the plant is because shocked plants cannot use fresh nutrients properly. The plant’s poor health, coupled with its inability to uptake and use the fresh nutrients, usually results in plant burn, which can be fatal to a shocked plant.
While there has been some criticism that normal growing temperatures or high humidity can have an adverse effect on transplants that find it hard to recover in a dry environment, it appears that many of these plants were not healthy to begin with prior to the transplant and suffering from heat drought in their original environment. It is essential to work with healthy, well watered plants.
Some growers like to clean down their roots before transplanting. Although this can be done with some plants, cannabis does not like it unless the root mass is small and undemanding. Cleaning cannabis roots is not needed, but should you wish to attempt it then it is best to do it between the first and second weeks of vegetative growth. Root size and complexity is very strain dependent. Since cannabis mostly produces a complex root system, it is nearly impossible to avoid some root damage when cleaning the roots, and in most cases where root damage has occurred, plant growth will be stunted. If the damage is severe, the plant could die.
There are some transplant feeding products available. One popular brand of growth hormone called Superthrive is used extensively by cannabis growers to help the plant through the transplant process and recovery from shock. Superthrive contains the vitamin B1, better know as the hormone “thiamine”—a proven root and growth hormone.
For step-by-step information on THC extraction, please refer to Chapter 17.
For more information about breeding cannabis,