Meshball-driven air-pruning offers a resource efficient strategy for containerized cultivation in urban horticulture. Scientia Horticulturae

Containerized plant cultivation is central to urban greening, horticulture, nurseries, and small-scale food production but is often limited by root circling, poor aeration, and inefficient resource use. Conventional air-pruning pots alleviate circling but cause water loss, nutrient leaching, and lack adaptability to diverse root systems. To address these limitations, we developed meshball-mediated air-pruning, a scalable method embedding stainless-steel spheres into soil to create localized aeration pockets, enabling targeted root pruning while minimizing water and soil loss. Testing across four species revealed strong benefits for ornamental shrubs: in dwarf ixora (Ixora coccinea), shoot fresh weight increased by 120 %, branch number by 55 %, and root biomass by 139 %, while firebush (Hamelia patens) showed 87 % greater height and 59 % higher root biomass compared with controls. These effects were linked to early disruption of apical dominance, stimulation of lateral roots, and improved root–shoot signaling. By contrast, pak choi (Brassica rapa var. chinensis) showed no measurable change, and white teak (Gmelina arborea) seedlings displayed reduced root biomass, underscoring species-specific responses. Structural evaluation confirmed meshballs provided stable aeration for six months without corrosion or soil intrusion. Overall, meshball-mediated air-pruning represents a resource-efficient alternative to conventional containers, particularly effective for ornamental shrubs in urban landscapes, and offers a sustainable approach to enhance root architecture, plant vigor, and survival in horticulture, forestry, and greening applications.