Airpots inside of airpots?

I am considering putting my seedlings into 1 litre airpots and then instead of removing them from the pots when it is time to move outside and pot up, dropping the 1 litre airpots straight into the 12 litre airpots.
 
Anybody else done this or can think of a reason why it won't work? My thoughts are 1) it's easy, and 2) it gives me a temporary storage space for all those 1 litre pots.

You would still essentially be growing in a 1 liter pot though.. I'm not sure I can see any benefit doing that.
EDIT:I think I understand what you're saying and yes, it would work. Assuming you're talking about back filling the bigger pot with soil. The roots will just grow through.

Wouldn't it change the way water/nutrients propagate, though? I might just be misunderstanding or overthinking it, but I don't think it's likely this would be nearly the same as just going from 1L to 12L of soil. Particularly with more and more of the holes in the 1L pot being occupied or at least occluded by roots.

Edmick said:

You would still essentially be growing in a 1 liter pot though.. I'm not sure I can see any benefit doing that.
EDIT:I think I understand what you're saying and yes, it would work. Assuming you're talking about back filling the bigger pot with soil. The roots will just grow through.

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Yeah, I was talking about back filling the bigger pot with soil. Just don't feel like spending an entire weekend unwrapping airpots off of 100 pepper plants.

internationalfish said:

Wouldn't it change the way water/nutrients propagate, though? I might just be misunderstanding or overthinking it, but I don't think it's likely this would be nearly the same as just going from 1L to 12L of soil. Particularly with more and more of the holes in the 1L pot being occupied or at least occluded by roots.

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Don't know, but it got me thinking: it will be a right PITA to get those 1L pots off at the end of season.

I think it might even work for plants to overwinter. At the end of the season, just undo the 12 litre, shake the soil off, trim the roots flush on the 1 litre and .............the bottom end is done.

skullbiker said:

I think it might even work for plants to overwinter. At the end of the season, just undo the 12 litre, shake the soil off, trim the roots flush on the 1 litre and .............the bottom end is done.

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Sounds like it would work but where we live now, I don't have any warm space for overwintering except for a vitrine with four bonchii. Our garage, which by design is shared with a neighbor, doesn't have any heating.

i looked into this a while ago... the canna forums seem to be the main resource for this topic. 
Among the contributors to those forums, the general consensus seems to be "do a regular repot during transplant".
 
Personally, I agree. I use 1 gallon smart pots. I considered the nesting pot transplant idea, because I saw some roots coming out of the bottom of my smart pots. Ultimately, I decided to do a regular pot-up. There was little to no transplant shock, and the occasion gave me an opportunity to observe the roots and inoculate/fertilize them effectively.
I were you, I would take the weekend and do it. Or try to streamline your process so it only takes a day. The bowl method works pretty well.
 
In favor of the alternative:
 
I watched a video that was smart pots with coco/hydroton on an ebb & flow with roots trailing down into the grooves of the tank.
 
There are many ways to grow, and it comes down to trail and error experimentation. You may be able to find different ways to make this idea advantageous. For example, maybe it will make it easier for you to water them an appropriate amount after transplanting. 1L to 12L are approximately the same sizes I use.
 
I like skullbiker's idea of root pruning the outside of the 1L to overwinter them. I've heard of doing a similar thing for in-ground plants. Maybe it was in pepperguru's overwintering guide.
 
I know roots will grow through fabric pots, but I sort of don't like the idea of having a pot inside a pot.
It's like peat pots, how they sometimes have root problems and don't transition very well. Maybe if they have optimum growing condiitons with a dialed-in environment and watering/fertilization.
 
Also, internationalfish mentioned that it might affect the way the water and air [percolates?] through the soil. It makes sense that there would be some effect. Though, I'm sure there is no research on this. If you decide to do this, I probably wouldn't fertilize the inner pot heavily, because of the risk of over fertilization or salt buildup/nutrient lockout. If your plant is in a pot inside another larger pot, then you don't want to have to flush the soil.

Really thoughtful reply, thanks Mr West!
 
Would you clarify, please? First you said that you use 1 gallon smart pots then you later said that 1L to 12L are approximately the same sizes you use.
 
Also, do you use the fabric pots outside? Everything I grew outside in airpots the roots completely ate all the medium and there was nothing to hold water after that. Eventually, it was just like pouring water through the roots. This even happened with manzano rojo in a 20L airpot.

podz said:

Really thoughtful reply, thanks Mr West!
 
Would you clarify, please? First you said that you use 1 gallon smart pots then you later said that 1L to 12L are approximately the same sizes you use.
 
Also, do you use the fabric pots outside? Everything I grew outside in airpots the roots completely ate all the medium and there was nothing to hold water after that. Eventually, it was just like pouring water through the roots. This even happened with manzano rojo in a 20L airpot.

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That's basically my last pot-up from 1L to "5 gal" which is really about 3.6 (12 L ~ 3.17 gal).
 
Last season, I had some 18" plants outside in the 1 gal fabric pots.