pot shapes

[yesum]

I have a small 2 x 2' area to grow in and want to maximize space. I have some standard square plastic pots of various sizes and they work well enough, but they taper in at the bottom, so the bottom part of the roots is narrower than the top.

I used a straight up and down Goldfish snack box to get more soil in compared to the tapering pots. I am wondering if the bottom of the pot is very important to the root system and plant yield.

I can get the same amount of containers into the area and have more soil at the bottoms, but do not know if it really matters in how much the plant will yield.

 

[HuffnPufferfish]

does it matter? sure
does it matter enough to notice an increase in yield? nah

tapered pots will be easier tp water after the soil dried and are easier to work with

 

[MJPassion]

Consider building a 2x2 container & allowing your plants to share root space. A larger container can support a larger root system will support larger plants.
You might be able to run half as many plants to realize similar yields.

This prob wont work if running perpetual.

 

[Phaeton]

Roots go down then spread, and as mentioned above it probably won't make a large enough difference to be worth much effort, but how much effort is needed to use a straight sided pot?

A method I use is to put multiple clones in the same container. I personally use an 18" diameter "Rope Handle Tote" cut down to 9" deep. It holds 3 to 5 plants and yields run 6 to 12 ounces per container.

I tried this with seed plants and the seedlings would compete for root space and the result would be a single fair plant with the rest being runts.
When clones touch roots they believe it is themselves so each plant grows as if the entire container is theirs, resulting in multiple full size plants crowded into a single container.

The reason for 9" pots is after many side by side harvests with different depth pots it was found the rockwool above the 8" level remained unused, even in 30" deep pots, the deepest tested. The 6" pots had roots showing on top.
These were done with a max of three months veg, the roots slowly kept coming up,but more than a three month veg period never happens in my garden so it was the stop point.

 

[Jaqen H'gar]

I would do half and half with the same clone, check the weights at the end and you have your answer.