So Im in my 4th week of flower. The start of. (it’s. 10 week strain)
I’ve transplanted from a solo cup to a 3 gallon. Where the plant stayed for about six weeks. Then I decided to transplant. To a ten gallon it was what I had. And I noticed the roots where just everywhere o couldn’t even get a soil sample without pulling roots. So that’s why I transplanted to the ten gallon after about a week and a half of flower. Anyways both times I didn’t break the soil up at transplant. I also had lock out from nutrients build up. Ive since flushed. With water and sledge hammer (2 times one each) anyways. Iv been noticing it’s super hard and compacted at the stem and where the root ball was when I traveled planted. I’ve noticed it’s holding onto water a bit much as well as other parts of the pot are frying out a day before.
Idk what I should do. It’s happy frog and I didn’t put 15%perlite because I didn’t know till after.
I want tj break it up some but I don’t want to stress the plant out.
Soil compaction is normal once into flowering. I usually just add additional soil to keep the pot filled up to within a few inches of the pot’s rim.
My first grow i had to bust soil with a hammer…
I feel like they haven’t grown much between week 3 and 4. Atoeast the last three days of week three. Is that normal
If its in a fabric pot all you need to do is set it into the larger bag and roots will grow right through the bag. Here is a pic of one I did showing the root system. 1 gallon set into a 5.
I also had a grow in happy frog where I didn’t add extra perlite. It did compact quite a bit and the plant was smaller than I normally get.
I typically grow in Coco Coir but was out and had some Happy Frog on hand.
Did you cut the bottom out of the bag?
Nope. Roots grow through the fabric with ease.
did not know they was that strong. Those roots be like let me go 
Same happened to me on my ATF grow, 5 gallon pot, think it may have resulted in the decline in the plant’s health, luckily it was time for harvest, noted was the type of plant, photo-period, sativa dominant (tall) the substrate was a 1/2 1/2 mix of coco and happy frog, (with some COM added later to the top of the plant) she was on the Humboldt’s nutrient diet,
She was a solo project upstairs in my living room, towards the end I would use a hand rake to gently aerate the top soil so the water wouldn’t pool.
The harvest was last week, she gave me around 9.1 ounces, typically I shake out the root ball first to look at the roots, and obviously recycle the rest into my compost, not this one, one big 5 gallon root ball, this was my first experiment with a photo, all the autos from previous grows never filled the pots like this one did.
-That’s it to the right side of the cinder block-
Hardly anything fell out of it, eventually I’ll hack it apart and recycle it.
I tend to think that there was so much root, it eventually began to suffocate the plant towards the end, maybe I should have turned her earlier in the grow to maintain a better flowering height? Probably would have gone longer in a 7 gallon fabric pot…She probably had nutrient-lock out towards the end, all the leafs towards the lower half of the plant began to turn yellow, droop and die, the sugar leafs tips by the buds started to wilt, the soil ph was at 7.1, my well water is in the hard range via test strips and ppm meter, sure that doesn’t help either.
Something I will definitely monitor for my Candy Jack grow, even though there isn’t much you can do, Just try to correct everything, see what happens next time lol
Same exact thing happened to me with happy frog except it’s got my baby looking horrible a month into veg. I transplanted to a better mix with added perlite… I give it a 15% chance of surviving lol.
I’ve only experienced this when I let the soil dry out too much