You should figure about two weeks of growing will be lost at each transplant. If you were a little more specific about your routine we might be able to suggest a change or two. Are you starting your seeds in a flat and transplanting into what size container? For what you are growing, I start in cells and then transplant into four inch pots when the cells are rooted well enough to hold the soil when removed from the pot. I prefer to plant in the garden from four inch pots. If transplanting is done at the best time, there will be very little stress on the plant. I don't like to transplant and change the environment at the same time, as this requires the plant except two changes at once. Al

Your grandpa's belief about how the roots should behave is pretty logical. Isn't that the same reason why people advise so often to deeply water the trees' soil, let dry, repeat, and thereby avoid frequent shallow watering. While at most times that logic might be true; just like most everything else in life. I am pretty certain that without much effort there can be found plenty exceptions to the rule. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I have 7, still living, out of the 9 oaks that I planted in deep silty loam soil, and which are next to an overflow of a pond, drainage ditch. The expanse between the upper banks of the ditch is about 6 feet wide. The banks slant with a little tapering, the ditch depth is 3-4 feet deep. In the rainy season the bottom of the ditch has flowing water, or the soil in the bottom is at least very wet. The sides of the ditch generally are very dry. During flash thunderstorms which drop a half inch or more water in an hour; the pond overflows into the Northern end of the ditch, at a rate which quickly fills the ditch with rushing and swirling water that most times reaches two thirds of the way up the banks, and in the worst downpour situations water fills the entire ditch especially where at the lower end of the ditch the water comes to the end of the ditch that has an even higher more abruptly straight up bank. This causes the water to suddenly crash and swirl, while gravity pulls on it to make the flow take a 90 degree turn and continue flowing on, into a small, but still relatively big for the area, culvert under the street and out again into a larger and lower elevated pond. This area is on the west end of the mt property. the street is an asphalt paved city street running along just on the farthest west side of the ditch. The lot's rain runoff drainage flows on this grass covere,d previously escavated lot down toward the southwest. The land slopes mostly toward the southwest with less, but still some slight sloping toward due west. That due west location where the lot ends, and is the end near where my one gallon sized potted Scarlet oaks were planted in two double and staggered rows about 10 feet or a little more, away from and along the beginning slope of the eastern bank of the ditch. The first year I planted the trees, I did not give them supplemental watering. That was back in the fall of 2004. For the first 12 months the rains came in seasonal times, but through the following December, January, and February of 2005 conditions were dry enough to be considered the first months of a major drought period. In Spring of 2005 the oaks received a few rains, but not enough, and by summer of 2005 we were deep into our drought period. All of 2006 and through February of 2007 the young trees encountered sever drought conditions. Since they were oaks they continued to survive but did not grow much if any. Today the trees are still no taller than 12-14 inches tall. Our recent, overly abundant spring and early summer rains have made them fill out and produce more branching, Still they have not sent up amy fairly tall water trunks. I would have thought that if your granddad's advice applies, these trees should by now have developed significantly deep roots and be showing at least a foot or so more top growth. The recently drought period that only ended in February of this year, had been so bad that all over town, great numbers of huge mature, deep rooted oaks, hickories, and other such trees died. My young scarlets hung in there, but never put on much if any top growth, which the, for so long, over dry soil could not have sustained. I have not dug up any of those trees to observe their root systems, but it is hard to believe that the roots would be abundantly and deeply developed after such drought. I do not see how their small and short canopies could feed and maintain very large of root systems. Anyway, if your Granddad's advice holds true for these little oak trees, they should end up being some tough trees.

Thanks for your reply. I mean the latter when it comes to the roots. When I pull out the plants sometimes there is no soil left on the roots because all there is usually is one main root that may be a half an inch long and perhaps one to two very small additional roots. No roots are coming out of the pot Perhaps I'm not sure what I should be seeing within a month to two months. My original thought is that I'd transplant from the small hex tray to a 3" pot in about 30 days. By that time I'd get a pretty leafy plant and see like you said a root or two sticking out. Then another month would go by in the 3" pot and it would grow to a small version of what I may be able to pick up at the store if I bought a plant directly, and that's when I'd start to harden and stick it in the ground. It just appears that the plants are stunted, they reach a point and then not much more goes on. Not sure if it's a light issue but they're in a room with a sky light and get at least a couple hours of sun light direct as the sun passes over. I also have a grow light bulb that runs about 15 hours/day to supplement the sky light. Perhaps the one bulb isn't enough?

Are those called centipede roots or octopus roots? Or both, depending on which region of the planet you're standing? I also have some elephant roots "cooking" on a few cuttings. Nothing yet, but the cuttings are miraculously still alive after over a month in a plastic bag without added water! I'll share those under a new thread.