Cedar tree in nursery pot and weird roots

[maroun.c]

While preparing tees for a cedar forest I made I came across this small cedar tree which for the size of it had 10 times the root mass of other ones I worked. Weirdly it's all circular roots with white roots between soil and pot abd roots had little to no fine roots. Is this related to soil being bad abd roots trying to move away or is it just bad roots hence the length and crazy mass to supplement a tiny tree ?
How do u handle such roots ? They were about 30 cm or a.foot long with little to no bifurcations, do u cut them back to few cms? Cut a few abd leave a few intact till next repot ? Cut them all ?

 

[0soyoung]

Not weird. Common enough to be 'normal' for garden center nursery stuff.

The simplest way to handle it is to first knock/cut off the plastic pot and scrape the soil off the top to expose the root-collar/nebari, Then saw off the bottom quarter to one-third of that root 'ball' before you start combing and trimming the roots.

 

[Shibui]

I agree this appears normal. Roots naturally grow out from the trunk. In pot culture they hit the side of the pot then circle round looking for a way out so normally the majority of roots are at the sides and base of the pot. The longer the tree has been in a pot the more roots will be around the edges. Cedars are slow growers so this one has probably been in that pot for several years, maybe even more.
Having set a few cedars back badly with overenthusiastic root reduction I'd advise reducing slowly over a few years. Try cutting around half of the long roots short but leaving some others long with the growing tips intact then next repot shorten the remainder. 90% of new roots grow from close to the cut ends of roots so reducing them all just a few cm probably won't really achieve much.

 

[Scorpius]

^^^^ Agreed. Cedar's despise root work.