Anyone know what this pest is?

Cos av took the mites away :sweat_smile::sweat_smile:

Thatā€™s you off the guest list :joy:

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No I wonā€™t be your best man when you marry her :rofl:

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I figured that too. So sterilizing this soil will absolutely eliminate all the good bacteria. The worm casting and bat guano that is mixed in should still be good though, correct?

Sounds like a great idea. Do you mix the worm castings in, or do you make a pocket and fill it?

My main objective is to have a medium that promotes growth for older seeds. I can get them to pop, but they donā€™t grow once planted. After two plantings failed to grow, I tried some seeds I have plenty of. Those were @Scissor-Hanz G13 x Afghani #1. I used 5 pots that already had a soil center and 3 with just clean CocoGro. When I use coco for seeds and cuttings, I rinse it 2x with tap water and a final time using pH adjusted R.O. water.

Notice how the pots containing coco only (you can tell by the obvious lack of perlite) contain label tags 144, 150, and 151.

Now, at 22 days in pots, notice the difference:

Iā€™d never done a side by side compare of soil and coco with seeds before. I am impressed enough that I want to have a soil that doesnā€™t contain pests for growing seeds. Maybe Iā€™ll need to mix my ownā€¦

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Seeds dont require nutrients. Just put them in straight peat or coco pasturising the medium can help.

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Hi @ReikoX. At what point does a seed stop being a seed and becomes a seedling. The reason I ask is the pictures above seem to indicate otherwise. Also, I started using soil for seeds because when I was trying to grow out some headband seeds from @Scissor-Hanz, every attempt failed. I got plenty of them to pop a sprout a couple of mm long but stopped growing while in between paper towels, so I moved them to freshly rinsed coco. They new grew from there. Several other members said they got the headband seeds to grow. The thing all the users that succeeded had in common was soil. Soil contains micro nutrients, I thought that must be why they were successful when I wasnā€™t, so I gave it a try.

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I typically mix the worm casting with the coco maybe even a little dry kelp if I have it, the kelp can help order seeds get going. The castings are great nutrient wise and help the coco not dry out as fast

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Usually when the cotyledon (the first two round leaves) die off (two or three nodes) the seedling will need food. Typically I use root riot cubes up until that point, then transplant to a beer cup with mycorhyzae innoculants.

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beneficials fosho! orbituā€¦something

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Reiko is correct, the cotyledonā€™s provide ALL the food necessary for the seedling. They need nothing but water till 1st set of sawed leaves are in good.
I personally grow in organic, feed organic. Bugs will destroy a grow, been there, done that. I take my organic soil, mix it the way I want it, then leave it out in my back yard, spread out in a kiddie pool, for a week or so ā€œbakingā€ in the sun. I have NOT had issues doing so, and in fact, the plants I have finishing right now, are in the same soil as the LAST SIX RUNS.
Since my soil is 40 percent or more Perlite(I only bottom feed) and I actually feed the plants with my organic food, the soil is pretty inert, and why I can re use it many times. Worm castings are main food source in my soil, and the sun appears not to harm it too much.

I keep Monterrey Garden Spray on hand(Spinosad) and use it at first sign of any pests. Can soak plants in it, even in flower, without fear for you or the plants. I NEVER have bugs in my flower room, 'cause I always treat the seedlings 3-5 times, 3 days apart, and they go in bug free.

JMHO as always:blush:

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Any clues?

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Looks like a grasshopper in tactical gear.

:cowboy_hat_face:

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I was going to say ladybug larvae at first but the head doesnā€™t look quite right as well as the hairy projections on the back side

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Idkā€¦could still be ladybug in. First pictures side colors kinda match upā€¦second is kinda shadedā€¦ Both have 6 legsā€¦

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May be ladybug, but hard to say based on your picturesā€¦

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Iā€™ve seen a lot of ladybugs over the years but never seen anything that looks like it. That said, I suspect thatā€™s what it is. Thanks for the link @StillSmoking

Iā€™m not the one seeing them, my sister is. Apparently she has a nasty bad aphid problem so itā€™d make sense.

And thanks to whoever moved the original post. Even though it did ā€œmake me go Hmmmā€

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I suspect the soil has been kept in poor conditions? Fox farms are quite a reputable brand Iā€™m not sure if they are specific to cannabis but I think they are.
If the stuff is about 3 times more expensive it should be cannabis specific. In that I mean your paying extra for no problems if you grow indoors. Where I live you can grow outdoors successfully I did for years but you trade off on what is possible to finish.
So a lot of professional soil is kept well as the indoor market is our main market. Saying that Iā€™ve bought premium soil just kept out back on a pallet with no problems.
In fact Iā€™ve never had any pests from soil Iā€™ve bought ever.
Yes inert soil is all you need to start seedlings in that sense coco will be fine too, your seed holds enough nutrients to survive for about three weeks, then it will depend on genetics.
Most cannabis has adapted to its environment and adapted over many generations.
Iā€™ve wanted to grow oaxacan sativa for some time now, and have wondered how I could achieve this.
My research leads me to believe I would ditch my soil that I use now or heavily dilute to the point where Iā€™m not diluting my soil but adding it as a dilutant to seedling mix or coco. Dilute is probably not the professional term in this case though.
I always used to use a very nutrient light mix if not inert for seed.
As before I used to use bat mix which unless you are growing an indica can be too hot for seedlings, just depends what you are growing and on space and budget. If on a tight budget and juggling things you learn which strains will be ok without buying a separate bag that might not get used as quick.
Horses for courses basically, but even the heaviest feeders will be fine with a nutrient free medium for 3 weeks your seed carries enough to get it started.
Premium soil will normally contain a lot of beneficial bacteria if you have to sterilise your not getting what you pay for.
In organics your main goal is keeping microbes alive.
Not that youā€™re not going to grow nice plants still, but it defeats the object and you will probably have less work and higher yields in coco, floging a dead horse comes to mind.
One thing I will add is that a seedling raised healthy indoor will have the strength to repel a lot of things a plant that has fought of things its entire existence might get weary of pissing in the wind if you get the jist?
I wish you good luck and remind you that these sort of things start off as very daunting but when you learn the route back through the woods it is better to sometimes have these problems to add to your education.
If you donā€™t encounter problems early on you could become maverick and not see the benefit of keeping vigil, leading to a big grow failing through laziness and overconfidence.
Peace brother

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lady bug baby my guess

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Community of these has set up on my garage plants. They like the cut ends of the Jillybean mama. Fruit flies? Gnats?

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Fruit fliesā€¦got some old beer or soda cans out there?

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