by Greg Green
Transplanting
During the stages between germination and vegetative growth the grower may find that he/she needs a bigger pot. Transplanting is done nearly always as early as possible. One example of a transplant is when the seedlings are ready in their Rookwool SBS tray. The seedling is lifted from the tray along with the rockwool cube and placed in another grow medium such as soil, or maybe even a hydroponics set-up (more about hydroponics later). That is called a transplant. There is not much of problem when transferring the cube and seedling to the soil. Just dig a small hole in the soil for the cube and place it in. Cover the cube with soil. The cube will not effect your plants growth and will add support if anything.
If you have started your seedlings in soil then you may want to transplant the plant to a bigger pot. The problem with transplanting is that people like to move the soil and roots along with the plant from one pot to another. This means that the plant must be lifted out with the soil in place. How is this done? Well there are two ways. The first way is that one does not need to remove the plant from the smaller pot at all. All you have to do is cut away the base of the small pot and place this pot into the bigger pot of soil. The roots will grow down through the bottom hole of the old pot and into the new one. The roots will always find their way down. The other way is too make sure that the soil is very dry. Delay watering your plant for a couple of days and let the soil settle hard. Then you can use a clean knife to cut around the inside of the pot. Cut deep, but do not damage the roots. When you have done this push your fingers down into the side and lift the plant and soil out. You will have some breakaway soil but this does not matter, as long there is not too much of it lost. Quickly place the plant into the larger pot and fill with soil. Give your plant some water so that it will take to the new soil. Never ever try to lift your plant by the stem. Even though the stem may look safe and strong this nearly always causes problems down the line. You should always have a firm grip of the soil when transplanting. Some people like to clean the roots, but I would not recommend it for cannabis. If your soil is very compact you maybe able to turn the pot upside down and tap the whole medium out as one solid mass.
During some transplants the cannabis plant may go into shock, even if your transplant was clean and perfect. If you have kept your plant well it should survive. If the plant has not been looked after it may fail quickly. A good grower always takes care of his/her plants. Transplant shock is caused by a disturbance of the roots. If the roots are cut or fall down, the plant does not respond well to this. This is why you must always make sure that you keep a firm hold of the soil during transplants. Also refrain from feeding them for 1 week if you can. There are some transplant feeding products that work as hormones out there and you may wish to have a look at those.