When to repot seedlings in grow containers

spadesofj

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Hi,

New to the forum, a little anxious about repotting since it's my first go at it, but figured I really should get advice on this. These have been growing for about 2 months now, first planted September 24th and they're starting to grow their second layer, true leaves all sprouted. I feel like I should be repotting these as they've likely outgrown the small grow pods they're in, but I've seen lots of posts saying best to wait until spring to repot so it doesn't affect their growing season. The 3 healthy ones in a row are Colorado Blue Spruce, and the one in the bottom left corner is a Japanese Black Pine. Should I be repotting these ASAP so they have more room to grow?

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Good question.

For me, I would have to pop one of them out of the container and see how dense the root ball really is.
If the dirt falls apart and the roots haven’t started to circle the little pot, I would leave them.

If you have escape roots through the bottom holes, you could always set these trays on another shallow tray of soil.

Others with far more experience will probably chime in soon. 👍
 
First of all, CONGRATULATIONS!!! It is always a fantastic accomplishment to grow a tree from seed. Know you are helping to fight many of the horrible things we have all inflicted on the planet.
If these were my trees and given where you live, I'd wait and just let these seedling develop until you have milder weather. Yes, I know it's frustrating and not part of your plan. If you have a heated area/greenhouse that you can consistently keep at 60 degrees F or better, It is possible to repot to about a 4 inch pot. But, it may be better to wait until your weather wants your seedlings to grow. Admitting I live in 8a, you don't. Please be aware your babies want more light, not decreasing light as it will be for another month.
Good luck, whatever you decide.
 
IMO it is too soon to try to repot these now.
They are pretty fragile at this point and still lots of room to grow in those containers.
Some people do seedling cutting to help form a better root system but Ive never done that myself so I cant really advise you on that technique
 
Hi,

New to the forum, a little anxious about repotting since it's my first go at it, but figured I really should get advice on this. These have been growing for about 2 months now, first planted September 24th and they're starting to grow their second layer, true leaves all sprouted. I feel like I should be repotting these as they've likely outgrown the small grow pods they're in, but I've seen lots of posts saying best to wait until spring to repot so it doesn't affect their growing season. The 3 healthy ones in a row are Colorado Blue Spruce, and the one in the bottom left corner is a Japanese Black Pine. Should I be repotting these ASAP so they have more room to grow?

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They are fine till spring, I always wait until the second set of needles is established before transplanting and trimming off part of the tap root. Plan on moving them into 3 inch pots for the next stage . I prefer the inexpensive plastic ones pictured below.
 

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First question is where in the world these seedling are.
Northern half is heading into winter so not a great time to transplant.
Southern hemisphere is mid Spring which is an excellent time to transplant. If it's still Spring I would definitely be potting these on.
I can see that some seedlings have already curled up and died which means there's a problem somewhere. Probably either too dry or too wet at some stage but that will need to be addressed wherever you are located.

It pays to add a location to your personal profile. Then it shows up every time you post and allows us to give advice based on your seasons rather than making guesses.
 
Well just to front load this before you get bombarded by information: The answer here is it depends.

The answer to your "It depends" revolves around what you would like to do with these trees in the future. Growing bonsai from seed is a truely long haul project which requires a lot of foresight into where you want it to end up. Otherwise you'd just be growing a tree at a slower rate then a trades nursery can do.

First and foremost question to be answered is where are you and what is your Growing set-up like. If you are just heading into winter and you don't have a growlight to supply the trees with, then you are truely best off just leaving them as is.

Secondly, you should take some time to analyze your goals. They don't have to be concrete, but aligning yourself on a set of tracks minimalizes wasted effort in case you change your mind on how to go about your journey.

In general, there are two schools of thought on growing bonsai from seed. Slow or fast.

Slowly growing the tree is more or less just clip and grow. This gives you almost complete control over your eventually design with minimal scaring at the cost of many...let's say decades...to get to the final result. Pursuing this process would mean that you should keep your seedlings as they are until they are strong enough for their first root pruning. You can also pursue seedling cutting techniques if you so desire.

Growing these seedlings fast means attempting to do any work on these at the most opportune moment so as not to slow the tree down. With this process, you grow the tree as hard and as fast as possible to get to your "end goal" in a much shorter time frame with potential scars or chop wounds. You also risk loosing control over the growth sometimes depending on the species and your own time devotion. The goal of to control the growth, but let it run until you are satisfied with it.

In general, you also wouldn't want to repot these seedlings when going for the fast method. The idea here would be to plan on how you want to tackle the roots. If you want to do root pruning, then you'd probably be looking at repoting next spring to get the roots sorted. Using the washer/tile method, you'd want to keep the root ball intact as much as possible (to minimize damaging the roots) and slip potting it into its first year growing container. You wouldn't worry about the roots since the plan is to completey remove and regrow the roots at a later date while using the seedlings youthful energy to make it as strong as possible. The next method is seedling cuttings. You'll only want to do this if the conditions are optimal to grow. Essentially, if you plan on going this route then your first opportunity will be coming up very shortly. Take a look at @cmeg1 threads as he has posted how he went about doing this as well as timing.

I would say, the biggest reason to repot these seedlings soon would only revolve around a matter if health. I'd personally keeps these in their containers until you see the rootball beginning to start circling. No reason to harm the seedlings unless you need to.

Anyways..I wrote this as I was falling asleep so I apologize for anyway weirdness in the sentence structure. I'll be sowing a couple hundred seeds myself in the coming days.
 
Wow, thanks everyone so much for the quick replies! I wasn’t expecting so much good information, thank you everyone. To add some additional context, I’m in AZ right now. I have the seedlings under a grow light with a heat mat below them. The couple of dried up ones died from early mistakes, one got knocked over and severed itself from its roots and the other one… still not entirely sure why it died, but I’ve been diligently adding liquid fertilizer and only watering when the soil is totally dry. I use chamomile tea pretty extensively as a fungicide spray to prevent damping off, which appears to have been successful.

I started this knowing it’d be a long haul project years (probably decades) in the making, so from what general consensus sounds like I’ll wait until spring for the repotting unless someone tells me AZ is just really weird on weather so I should go for it now.
 
Seems like Azerbijan has a fairly warm climate without real winter weather. So I suppose you could consider transplanting. However, the question is why you would There is absolutely no space problem in the pots you have them in.

For the future, my recommendation woult be to follow the seasons for planting seeds. It makes life a lot easier.
Be conservative with fertilizer. Pines do not need much, and certainly not in this stage.
 
Welcome!

There is plenty of room for them in there until spring. The main worry would be keeping them alive until then. They want to be outside, but it may get too cold for that, so you'll need to keep them where they can hopefully get good sun until spring.

Once spring rolls around, repot into larger pots, as River's Edge said above. I use cheap 4" pots. I have had decent results using bonsai soil, but a cheap mixture of large perlite and a little peat is used by growers and would work fine while the trees are young.

Here is my adventure from when I began growing seeds in September 2020. https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/damping-off.46132/

I was lucky enough to be able to put them outside since we don't get freezing temps. In AZ, you might not have that luxury, so you might need some guidance keeping them alive indoors until spring.
 
Wow, thanks everyone so much for the quick replies! I wasn’t expecting so much good information, thank you everyone. To add some additional context, I’m in AZ right now. I have the seedlings under a grow light with a heat mat below them. The couple of dried up ones died from early mistakes, one got knocked over and severed itself from its roots and the other one… still not entirely sure why it died, but I’ve been diligently adding liquid fertilizer and only watering when the soil is totally dry. I use chamomile tea pretty extensively as a fungicide spray to prevent damping off, which appears to have been successful.

I started this knowing it’d be a long haul project years (probably decades) in the making, so from what general consensus sounds like I’ll wait until spring for the repotting unless someone tells me AZ is just really weird on weather so I should go for it now.
If they are indoors for the first winter just keep the grow lights on for 18 hours and make sure they do not dry out. If indoors I would slow the growth remove the heat mat. Indoor temperatures will keep the roots active. Small amounts of fertilizer become important after the second growth of needles are well underway. I would recommend lighter doses of fish fertilizer every two weeks until spring.
 
Seems like Azerbijan has a fairly warm climate without real winter weather. So I suppose you could consider transplanting. However, the question is why you would There is absolutely no space problem in the pots you have them in.

For the future, my recommendation woult be to follow the seasons for planting seeds. It makes life a lot easier.
Be conservative with fertilizer. Pines do not need much, and certainly not in this stage.
Azerbijan lmao.

I think everyone else has given good info but, sorry to say, dont be surprised if these dont make it inside. Id be trying to possibly acclimate them to outside. What type of normal winter lows do you get in your location in AZ? I know there are some wide swings in temps in some of the midwest states.
 
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