[Wabbey]

Hi,
I recently sowed some Cabbage seeds (Offenham) - some in loo rolls, some in root trainers.
Both excellent germination.
But where the toilet roll ones thrived, the loo roll ones were a bit weedy.
Oh - I lost the lot to caterpillars so regret no pics.
Have now resown just in root trainers.
And protected...
But why would the loo roll have such a marked effect? (1 1/2 inch plants when other had reached 4 inches) and has anyone else experienced this?
Cheers,

[richyrich7]

toilet rolls can contain fungicides etc which will inhibit the young growth of plants also the can be pretty dark around the top unless filled to the top with compost.

These are better than loo rolls LINK

[peapod]

Without clicking on Richys link (!) Im advocating paper pots. Will always use these from now on, and Ive always got a stock in

(PS I hope that was the link! Links rarely work on my slowmo computer)

[missycat]

This is my first season growing and I've been using toiler roll inners and paper pots
a) because they're cheaper, and
b) because I didn't have beds prepared for crops that shoul have been sown in situ

 I'd say germination rates have been excellent in both and (other than slug/snail attack) around 70-80% of plants have grown on successfully including carrots, turnips, lettuce, welsh onions, runner beans and spinach in toilet roll inners; runner beans, broccoli and courgettes in paper pots.

I'm happy to use them again next year

[scousemouse]

I sowed my sweetcorn in loo rolls this year and it worked much better than last year when I put them in ordinary 3" pots.  It gave the roots room to establish themselves and it was much easier to plant them out as I just bunged the roll into the ground rather than breaking half of the plants getting them out of their pots! The only disadvantage was that the loo rolls got a bit mouldy thanks to the damp during germination, although it didn't seem to harm the sweetcorn.

[Kristen]

We've had really good Sweetcorn from Richy's Newspaper Pots too ... I was worried when I planted them out as so much root had grown out of the paper and into neighbouring pots (and Sweetcorn supposedly hates being transplanted).

Not sure what my conclusion is - maybe the transplanting thing is where the roots have circled around the pot that the problem arises, whereas with Newspaper pots, even though some roots had grown through and were broken / stretched during transplanting, the majority had gone straight down.

This may be the case for Root trainers too?  Although I find them expensive compared to old newspaper and my newspaper pots are seriously tall (and narrow) compared to conventional 3" or 9cm plastic pots.

[gillie]

I use root trainers - the taller sort.  I bought them some years ago and each set gets used several times in a season.  They are beginning to look battered but are still doing their job, so overall I do not think they were expensive.

My only complaint is that you really have to use all 32 cells at a time, which sometimes is not appropriate.

Cheers,

Gillie

[mikem]

I use loo rolls/kitchen rolls for sowing parsnips after germinating them on wet paper towels above my boiler.  I make sure that the cardboard rolls are very wet when I plant them out and also that the top of the rolls are level with the soil otherwise they seem to dry out.  The pots do rot and my parsnips are great for the first time. I also germinate runner beans and sweetcorn the same way.   

Never tried root trainers so I can't compare.