Not only seedlings should be treated this way. Any plant, regardless of propagation method, should be allowed to get just a hair rootbound, then allowed to dry out a bit, before gently upending the pot while supporting the soil and stem with a flat hand, rapping it on the bottom, and letting the intact rootball slide out.

Shown is what your root ball should look like when you transplant.
The next pic is a bunch of clones that have just been potted into 2.5" peat pots and can be carried around in a tray and stuck wherever there's a 1x2 foot bright spot in the grow room. I do the hardening-off during this period; the ones with domes are a week 'younger' than the ones without.
Next, is those same clones given a week or so of veg time to establish a healthy root system and stuck under a HPS1000 to grow on and flower- I don't want to re-pot them until they NEED it, so they are still in those little pots! lol
Finally, 2 pics of a flower room that shows new arrivals, month-flowering plants, and a few large retired moms in the back corners blocking off those dark edges of the room.
stinkyattic Reviewed by stinkyattic on . The importance of a continuous canopy: It's all about EFFICIENCY, baby! I wanted to write a thread about efficiency. We often see new growers planting a seed into a huge pot 'to avoid transplanting', assuming that the act of transplanting is traumatic to the plant. So first off, I'd like to say... IT'S NOT! As long as you do it correctly, the plant will benefit from a correct transplant schedule. So, why do we transplant? There are several reasons, and you should understand the theory behind all of them. First up is the plant's ability to use all the Rating: 5