Hi Spimp!
Great of you to swing through. So far so good, will have a fresh update posted tomorrow!
Hi SoilGirl.
Yes, Zilla was never transplanted. She has always been in her pot (since she sprouted in February). She was a part of my winter grow where I thought I was going to harvest quick autoflowers, was I in for a surprise! I'll tell ya, everything I ever grew in this raggity crappy looking half broken 30 year old pot has always been amazing. It does not even have good drainage, in fact, it is quite water logged. It is pure 100% rootball, and there is no root growth going into the soil below the pot. I know this because underneath the pot are plastic trays (which we used to cover the weeds so they didn't come up) and put gravel ON TOP of that. Turns out, with the accumulation of dust and morning dew/water from the ocean air, weeds (grasses) have sprouted up from the gravel, sometimes moss or algae will grow on it.
So yeah, it is quite amazing. And I have made a post on pot size before, about my 7-8 foot OG plant last year grown in a 1-2 gallon pot which harvested a QP dry. It's about the environment, you can grow big dank dense buds in a small pot if you have an amazing environment. I do it all the time
And yeah, with, what I call "purposeful rootbounding to constrain the plant" and keep my plants small in my little backyard and quiet neighborhood. In a case like this, the plant requires way more watering, depending on the heat and conditions, perhaps watering 1-2 times per day (which was the case last year for the OG plant), Zilla in particular has NEVER drooped her leaves, she has been extremely drought resistant, and she's been going without water for 3 days recently with no problems. Once they get that big, they have so much stored up nutrients, and synthetic machinery able to produce some of their own water (respiration) as well as closing off the stomata and synthesizing absisic acid (a stress hormone that forms during low water and helps reduce stress). Another thing that helps them fight drought is their cuticle, and the stomata is tucked in underneath the lower epidermal layer. Anyway, I watered her every 48 hours for a long time. She has been sprayed with basically the entire line of SNS, 604 A/B (veg/flower) to SNS 217 for spidermites, SNS 244 fungicide, a little bit of SNS-311, I threw everything but the kitchen sink into Zilla (early in flower - I don't spray when mid to late flower comes). On top of that, her probiotic teas are said to help protect against drought, with some of the natural components of it, as well as the bacteria and mycorrhizae in the roots.
So yeah it should stand as a firm example of being able to grow a decent sized amount of medicine in a small pot, in this case she really did all the work for me by growing so vigorous. If you think about it, she just needs some sort of vessel (uptake device) to exist, in other words she needs some kind of root ball. She has just that, she has the ability to take in water and nutrients. She does not need an endless root zone. So she uses her synthetic ability to build herself, using small supplements from me. Her main ability to store so much starch in her woody stems allows it to store water efficiently as well, with the fibrous structure of cellulose, though, it does require water if she wants to break down those starches and feed herself.
Pretty neat stuff!
2.15
Yeah I think you guys are onto it! Should be between 2-3 gallons, but I dunno, it may be less because the rootball doesn't occupy the entire pot.
...because our plants love to tease our set goals lol.
You're probably right lol
