Please Help with Root Riot plugs

[TommyT]

I am in the process of amending my used buckets of soil and came across this.
The buckets are 4 gallons and the soil was a first attempt at some home made mix of super soil.

I have noticed in the past that it you plant using Jiffy Pellets and leave the netting around the pellet that it retards the roots and prevents them from growing out very much. I take the netting off before planting and that seems to help.

This was the first time I ever used Root Riot plugs and the same thing happened to them even though there is no netting. The roots don't seem to expand outwards very much. The picture shows the majority of the roots in a 4 gallon bucket with 2 months vegging.
I just wanted to ask you guys if you have seen this and what the cause might be.

This is the Root Riot. I don't have pics of the previous Jiffy Pellets.

[kbag]

Looks like the roots have been starved of oxygen in some way Tommy. Do you use anything in your soil to aid aeration?

[Nanook]

I use root root plugs, never seen this issue.

[Nanook]

I'm actually tempted.to say over watering... But who knows. They are like sponges.

[2-Scoops]

Use both and they work a treat. Did the plants produce lots of buds ? if yes i wouldn`t worry cus that`s not only rootage they`ve produced to grow lots of buddage in fact they would produce hardly none if that`s all rootage they grew. Their`ll be shed loads of lets call them capillary roots in your dirt or coco as well.

If they didn`t produce lots of buds your doing summink wrong and it`s not the cubes or pellets causing that problem.

[TommyT]

Looks like the roots have been starved of oxygen in some way Tommy. Do you use anything in your soil to aid aeration?

This maybe makes sense. Not enough air and holding too much water. My others didn't do as bad but they were different strains (still small root clumps though). I had perlite mixed in with the soil but not nearly enough. I am currently redoing my soil. Adding a lot more perlite and other stuff.

Old Soil Mixture

7 cups - Old Earl May compost (30.5% of total)
7 cups - Fertilome Ultimate Potting Mix (30.5% of total)
7 cups - Black Gold All Purpose Potting Soil (30.5% of total)
1 - cup of Worm castings (4% of total)
1 - cup of Perlite (4% of total)
2 - heaping teaspoons of Bone meal

3 batches of old mix make up 4 gals or 1 bucket (69 cups)
Currently have 60 gals

Need to add to each 4 gal. bucket:
*18 cups - Perlite
1.75 cups - Bat Guano
.5 cups - Blood Meal
1 tsp - Bone Meal
2 tbs - Powdered egg shell
2 tbs - Kelp Meal
2 tbs - Alfalfa Meal
1 tsp - Epsom Salt
1 tsp - Dolomite Lime
2 tsp - Azomite