# Wisteria and Root System?



## isu712 (Feb 8, 2008)

I was going to do some replanting in my 2.5 gallon NPT the other day that involved moving around some wisteria. Since it's a stem plant I didn't think it would have much of a root system and would be easy to move. I knew there would be some roots, but when I tried to pull it up it didn't come out very easily, so, I left it alone because I didn't want to disturb the soil. I can only assume that it actually established some pretty decent roots to hold it down. Anybody else ever encouter this? If nobody else has it would be cool if somebody else could try it to see if they get the same thing.


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## majolo (Oct 5, 2007)

I had wisteria in a gravel substrate and it had a huge root system. I'm sure it could cover the whole footprint of a 2.5.


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## Red_Rose (Mar 18, 2007)

isu712 said:


> I was going to do some replanting in my 2.5 gallon NPT the other day that involved moving around some wisteria. Since it's a stem plant I didn't think it would have much of a root system and would be easy to move. I knew there would be some roots, but when I tried to pull it up it didn't come out very easily, so, I left it alone because I didn't want to disturb the soil. I can only assume that it actually established some pretty decent roots to hold it down. Anybody else ever encouter this? If nobody else has it would be cool if somebody else could try it to see if they get the same thing.


My Wisteria has a huge root system! You can actually see the roots coming out from the gravel and you can see it all along the glass in the soil! Bubbles also come up every now and then from the substrate where a lot of the roots are too.


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## isu712 (Feb 8, 2008)

Good deal. It should help keep the anaerobic pockets from forming then.


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## Prometheus (Feb 12, 2008)

Does that interfere with other plant roots? Will the wisteria uproot other plants?


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## Red_Rose (Mar 18, 2007)

Prometheus said:


> Does that interfere with other plant roots? Will the wisteria uproot other plants?


I have Wisteria planted close to my Crypt and it's never once uprooted on me. In fact, I have just as many roots from my Crypt as I do from my Wisteria.


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## helenf (Mar 24, 2008)

I have seen somewhere the suggestion to simply cut stem plants off at the base rather than disturb the root system that is holding the soil together. I think it suggested that the roots would decay into more organic material in the soil and that was OK. I haven't tried this myself, but since I have a bunch of hygro varieties (including wisteria) in my NPT I figured I'd just cut them off when I want to move/remove them. It certainly won't kill the top part of the plant!


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## isu712 (Feb 8, 2008)

Thanks for the tip.


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## cs_gardener (Apr 28, 2006)

I've done the cut off at (or slightly below) the soil level that helenf mentioned and it has worked very well. I've had no issues resulting from it and it has kept the mess from moving and replanting to a minimum.


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## Red_Rose (Mar 18, 2007)

cs_gardener said:


> I've done the cut off at (or slightly below) the soil level that helenf mentioned and it has worked very well. I've had no issues resulting from it and it has kept the mess from moving and replanting to a minimum.


I've done this too and I've never had any problems from it. It's much better to do it this way then to uproot everything and make the water a muddy mess.


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## travdawg (Mar 3, 2005)

No worries that the massive root system decay will cause a spike in nitrates?


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## cs_gardener (Apr 28, 2006)

No spike that I've noticed to date and I've cut off plants at/below the surface many times. I think that uprooting the plant and making a mess with the soil causes more problems since the water column is affected while leaving the roots in the substrate contains everything to the substrate. With a heavily planted tank there are roots from other plants growing through the area where the roots are decomposing and they will use the nitrates as they are being produced (at least they'll use a lot of them). I wouldn't cut down large portions of the tank at one time because of the damage it can do to the balance developed in the tank, but a patch of stem plants shouldn't cause any major issues. 

I've also removed a huge sword with roots reaching throughout the tank by cutting a small circle around the sword removing about 1-2" of roots and leaving the rest and I never noticed any spike from the decomposing roots. The rest of the plants in the tank did go through a growth spurt, probably because they were finally getting some light, but the added nutrients from the decomposing roots undoubtably didn't hurt.


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## travdawg (Mar 3, 2005)

I was concerned with adding crpyts to my up & coming tank, due to the issues I had with them spreading (like weeds heh) thru my last tank... huge intertwined root systems... that tank was a solid Eco Complete ss, & I wasnt TOO concerned about uprooting that mess... but in a NPT, the results would be ugly.


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## cs_gardener (Apr 28, 2006)

Oh my yes, uprooting crypts in a soil-based tank would indeed get ugly fast. I think if you cut them off like I did the sword I mentioned, you shouldn't have any issues. I love crypts, but those runners are something else.


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## travdawg (Mar 3, 2005)

That tank was high light & co2 injected. OPne day I looked in the tank & there were runners coming up ALL OVER THE TANK... it was a 10 gallon. It was cool at first... then a nightmare.


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