Dealing with root bound chillis

[SimpleSimon]

Morning

This year I decided to try that 2 cup method with the hotter batch of chillis I sowed in Jan. I noticed lately they started to go a touch pale. Nowt major but decided to change the compost as a feed didn't sort it. Turns out I was way too late and they are badly root bound. The cups are pretty big so wasn't expecting it quite so bad. I'm gonna repot them into 1 litre pots today which is double the cup but wondering what to do about the root ball? Leave it be or try and loosen it up at the risk of damaging them. They'll be going into their final 10l pots around mid/end of may.

ta Simon

[Mark Rand]

I'd prize them apart. otherwise they will stay in the cylindrical shape and not grow out into the larger pot. Some will get broken in the process, but the plant will pick up rapidly.

Also, skip the 1 litre pots because the roots will fill one of those already, once you've teased them out.

[Ms-T]

I would loosen it up as well ,,I find they bounce really well...

[burnie]

My chillies are a bit like that due to the cold weather delaying potting on, they do seem to be quite robust plants if you keep 'em warm.

[ameno]

I wouldn't say that's too bad, actually. Just tease them out a bit, especially at the bottom, and you should be fine.
Obviously ideally you should have repotted them sooner, but as long as the roots are still white then they should recover just fine. It's not really bad until the roots on the outside start to turn yellow.

[SimpleSimon]

Also, skip the 1 litre pots because the roots will fill one of those already, once you've teased them out.

They won't be in the pots very long so just went with 1 litre. I don't have any pots bigger. Certainly not in the numbers i need. I'll be potting them on into their final pots in 2 or 3 weeks..