Why do we pot on

[mrskp]

and i'll even keep notes to prove/disprove the hypothesis and will report back!

with a bit of luck the rootball will be solid enough to come out whole rather than falling apart. double whammy !

[wellie]

Hello mrskp!

If you keep anything in it's pot for too long, it will become 'pot-bound', i.e. the roots will just grow within the confines of the pot, and the plant will deteriorate as a result. You could 'liquid feed' the plant with a soluble plant food mixed with water, but this will only really give you a little extra time....

The trick is to grow things 'at the right time', allowing the plant to grow steadily in the pot, and then to plant it in its' intended place soon after the roots have filled its' pot, that way, the plant grows 'without check to its growth', and so never under adverse stress.

If your Marigolds are 'really busting' to get out of their pots, could you re-home them in a few windowbox/hanging baskets?
PS. Your seeds in the post tomorrow girlie!

[Peter]

I thought the whole idea of potting on was to encourage a root ball.
The roots grow out to the wall of the pot then go round and back on themselves.
By moving established plants up a pot size you repeat the process and develop a large amount of root.

[mrskp]

cheers muchly wellie bellie (well summit like that anyway) yours are on their way !

i realise that i've sown stuff far too early, but everything takes forever to get going up here and last year the marigolds took ages to kick off. once they'd got going, there was no stopping them but i thought i'd get a head start this year.

had i looked at last years diary before sowing (which i've just done), i would have realised that sowing 7 weeks early might be just a little too soon.

ah well, there's plenty more in the seed tub if they keel over.

[Matt.]

A lot of plants grow tap roots. By transplanting them we can break the taproot and make them produce a fibrous root system which will give them more support and and easier uptake of nutrients. Potting is best done in stages as they outgrow there allocated pot.

So is this the general practise to break the taproot purposfully? I always try to take great care to maintain all the roots and hadn't realised this was potentially detremental to the plant. Just repotted a load of sunflowers which had huge taproots...

[legendaryone]

I've never heard of breaking the tap root on purpose, i for one would need to read about it from several different sources before i start doing it.

[Snadger]

Naturally you don't want to go breaking taproots on things like carrots and parsnips, beetroot or swede. Thats why all the above are usually sown direct

Potting on in stages or transplanting from seed bed changes the type of roots formed by the plant to give a bigger surface area for uptake of nutrients and better anchorage.

My land has clubroot. If I start brassicas in pots it allows them to form a rootball which helps to keep the plant alive, even if the clubroot fungus attacks it. If I direct sowed them the clubroot would attack the initial deep searching roots and the plant would wither and die!

[goddess]

encyclopedia

dear s your knowledge and advice is always usefull .thanks for that .i was told we had clubroot in my little plot ,i wanted to grow kale & your point about sowing in pots sounds like wht i should do.g