Great info. I just had a bud rot issue with my super dense skunk top nugs. I believe after reading your info that my nightly temps dip into the 65 range. A few degreees to low. Need to adjust. Thanks man!
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BT is for caterpillars(foliar) and fungus gnats(soil). Neither are for budrot but spraying ANY thing in flower can CREATE budrotā¦ therefore adding the strepto-whatever is supposed to negate it.
Iāll use it up to about wk3 of flower although have been advised to take it out to wk 5-6 due to caterpillar life cycles.
Iām afraid of taste issues AND the budrot.
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Spraying neem oil will make the bud hairs shrivel up, and Yes, it will make the buds taste kinda funny. May have different opinions out there, But, I wont use neem oil on any of my plants. For a major spider mite infestation maybeā¦ last resort.
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ok. Anybody have experience with lactobacillus? Or anything else you can spray which does not affect health of consumer and taste of buds?
Lactobacillus Serum
This is the workhorse of the beneficial bacteria weāll be discussing here. We use it for everything! Foul odors, clogged drains, cheaper pig/chicken/etc farming, aquaculture, the applications are amazingly diverse. Learn how to make and use this and you will have a powerful tool in your farming arsenal.
How to Make:
Get container, fill halfway with rice-wash. Rice wash is the water leftover when you rinse fresh rice. For example, go buy rice, whatever kind, bring it home, put it in a pot with warm water, swirl it a bit and then drain the [now milky colored] water. The water is now a rich source of carbohydrates. In this step, you can substitute rice with another carbohydrate source if you donāt have rice, as long as it is complex (donāt use simple carbohydrates like sugar, honey, syrup, molasses, etc). You can use wheat, barley, kinoa, other carbohydrates as the base to make your carbohydrate wash. This wash will attract microbes from the air, among them lacto bacilli.
Cover loosely and let stand for a couple days to a week
When is it done? When you see a light film on top (molds) and it smells a little sour and forms 3 layers. This is indicating the rice wash is infected with various microbes. This happens more quickly in warm temperatures because microbes are more active. Thus it is all relative since we donāt do this in controlled laboratory conditions.
The layers are distinct
Top layer: floating carbohydrates leftover from fermentation and possibly molds
Middle layer: Lactic Acid and other bacteria (cheese buffs will recognize this as a makeshift ārennetā). We will use this layer.
Bottom layer: Starch, byproduct of fermentation
Extract the middle layer using a siphon. This layer contains the highest concentration of lactic acid bacteria and lowest concentration of the unneeded byproducts
Get a new container, larger than the first. Take the extracted serum from the last step and mix it with 10 parts milk. By saturating with milk (lactose), we dissuade other microbes from proliferating, leaving L. bacilli. E.G. if you have 1cup of the serum, mix it with 10cups milk.
TIP: The best milk to use in unpasteurized natural milk. However, any milk will do, even powdered milk. In our experience, the best is unpasteurized natural but just use what is available. We just want to saturate with lactose to promote L. bacilli bacteria.
You want to keep this stage anaerobic as much as possible. You can use something like rice bran, barley bran, wheat bran, etc sprinkled on top of the milk. I use a sealed container with a one-way valve. Note: Beware of bubbling during this phase. It can lead to overflows if you filled to near the top. It can go through the one-way valves so keep an eye on it and donāt do this step around nice things.
After about 1 week (temp dependent), youāll see curds (made of carbohydrate, protein, and fat) on top of the milk. The water below will be yellow colored ā this is whey, enriched with lactic acid bacteria from the fermentation of the milk.
NOTE: Microbes like L. bacilli are more active in warmer temperatures. The curds you see are a byproduct of the fermentation process. Fermentation is generally associated with microbial processes under anaerobic(no oxygen) conditions. Now, L. bacilli is a facultative anaerobe, that is it can live and work with or without oxygen, but less competition in anaerobic conditions.
The water below(whey+lacto) is the good stuff. You want to extract this. You can either skim the curds off the top, pour through a strainer, or whatever other methods to accomplish that
NOTE: Remember the curds, or byproduct of milk fermentation by L. bacilli, are great food. They are full of beneficial microbes like L. bacilli. Feed the curds to the soil, compost pile, plants, animals, humans ā whoever wants them! They are full of good nutrients/microbes. No waste in natural farming.
To preserve at room temperature, add an equal part sugar/molasses to the serum. So, if you have 1L of serum, add 1kilo sugar or 1L molasses. Otherwise store in fridge to keep.
Example Recipe:
1 L rice wash
add 10L Milk
After rice wash and milk remove curds ā around 1L
Left with 10L pure LAB (lactic acid bacteria)
add 10kg sugar or 10L molasses
= 20 L stabilized lactic acid bacteria serum
What to Use it for and How
Before using, first mix 1:20 with water. 1 part serum to 20 parts water. Then follow instructions below:
Odor Reducer:
Add mixture to animalās water at 2tbsp/L. You can mix it more or less, there are no rules here, just how we typically do it.
Apply to places where there is odor buildup. The harmless bacteria āeatā the odor causing germs and the smell is gone!
Indoors: reduces foul odors, including animals like cats, dogs, mice, other pets. Stinky shoes? Wet clothes from being outside? Gym clothes that havenāt made it to the wash yet? Smoker in the house? Kill these nasty smells!
Outside: use to control odor in pens ā pigs, cows, chickens. In barns, around the yard, etc
Household use:
Clear clogged drains: dump mixture into drain to clear clogs. Exact amount depends on the clog, haha. A few tbsp to 1L works well. For semi-clogged drains (like kitchen sink draining progressively slower), use at night and allow at least the night for microbes to work.
Keep septic clear. Tired of having your septic system drained? Add lacto! Depending on size of your system, pour a few tbsp. to a few L into the toilet every few months.
Houseplants: Mix 2-3tbsp per 1L water and use that to water them.
Animal Bedding:
Mix 2tbsp to 1L water. Mix with animal bedding to reduce smell and increase longevity. In natural pig farming we use at least 1 yard deep of bedding so there is plenty of space for microbes to work. Bedding consists of organic substrate like rice hulls, wood chips, sawdust, wood shavings, shredded corn cob, any other high cellulose, high lignin material. Natural pig farming is a future topic on this site. Spray until bedding is slightly damp but not wet. How much you spray really depends on your climate. If you are in a very dry climate you can spray a little more and mix in evenly. Wetter (more humid) climates use a bit less. Mix into the bedding evenly where necessary (in many cases, like with pigs and chickens, theyāll mix it themselves). How much you use is all relative. These guidelines are for pigs and chickens. More extreme smells, just use more! Want to spray less often, use more! As we notice a smell we spray. Thus, as pigs grow bigger, make more poop, we spray more often! Dosage/frequency is relative and will depend on your situation.
Animals ā Digestive/Growth Aid:
Mix 2tbsp to 1L water, then add that mixture to animalās water at 2tbsp/L(so the animalās water contains little less than a quarter tsp/L of lacto serum). But this is very flexible. The Lacto serum is not harmful, so its just about adding enough to be effective, without wasting it.
Improve digestive efficiency in humans and animals alike:
Improves how you feel after meals, particularly meals rich in meats. Itās awesome. After eating, mix 1-2tbsp lacto with a cup of water and drink that. Makes you feel so much better after! Lessens that afternoon lull, gives you more energy!
Aids digestion in animals. This is critical. You can raise animals on less food, and see the same and greater growth rates. Amazing results in pigs . The principal is that the microorganisms help digest the food coming in ā better digestibility means better nutrient absorption. Save on feeds, better feed to growth conversion ratio!
TIP: If you really want to boost growth, mix 2tbsp to 1L water and soak the food in this solution for a few hours to a few days. Food is pre-digested when animals eat it, AWESOME!
Great results in livestock and poultry.
Plants ā Growth Aid:
When added to water for plants, nutrient uptake efficiency is increased, which increases growth!
Improves growth of plants when applied as foliar spray and soil drench. Improves their efficiency in uptaking nutrients so naturally, growth is enhanced. With the use of these microorganisms, the nutrients you spray or drench to feed your plants become more bio-available and easily absorbable by the plants. Technically, you can say that plants do not use organic nutrients directly. Microorganisms convert organic nutrients to their inorganic constituents which the plants utilize. Utilizing microbes, you will notice better plant growth and health.
Disease Resistance:
This is a consequence of the increased efficiency of nutrients. More nutrients available at smaller metabolic cost.
Lacto suppresses harmful bacteria in food/water that animals consume, enhances their gut flora so that line of defense is working optimally, etc.
Aid Compost:
Mix 2tbsp/L and spray on compost pile to improve decomposition. This is a huge topic that will be expanded upon in another post.
Aid Organic Fertilizer:
Add 1-2tbsp per gallon water-nutrient solution. Lacto consumes organic nutrients making them bio-available to plant roots.
Plants donāt use organic fertilizer! Microbes break it down to inorganic constituents, and plants take those up. This product makes that process more efficient.
Aquaculture:
Lacto works in aquaculture just fine if you donāt have BIM available. Add lacto at roughly 1L per 700m3 of fish-containing water. Example: you have a pond that averages 20m wide by 30m long by 2m deep. So, 20 x 30 x 2 = 1200m3. In this case you would add roughly 1L of BIM or Lacto
Microbes digest fish wastes, cleaning up water and improving water quality.
Allows fish to grow larger due to digestive efficiency
Allows higher population of fish in the same amount of water! Literally, increases the carrying capacity of your body of water! This is awesome for aquaculture setups
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Bottomline,ā¦ Spraying with lactobacillus culture from 10% nonfat milk kills it allā¦ But, it works best for powdery mildewā¦ Good luck 
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Very interesting reading 
, thanks for sharing ā¦ 
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Thank you very much
What you mean, tired of draining the septic? What can the bacteria do?
It breaks down the solids. There are branded bacteria additives that you can add regularly to keep it pretty cleaned out. This is basically a DIY version that probably works better too.
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with the last grow I used difenoconazole. Do you know that?
My humidity is too high. I installed a second dehumidifier yesterday.
Is there something that I can buy which you can recommend and will prevent any sort of mold with high humidity? With the difenoconazole I still got some white mold inside the buds. Maybe I used it too late?
Will lactobacillus compeltely prevent mold? I am thinking if I should start to brew it, or if I should save my timeā¦
Circulation. Temps and humidityā¦ complacency will shut you down quicker than youād imagine. Did me recently 
stay vigilant
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The two dehumidifiers are running now at 1300watts total. Humidity raised actually to 75 to 80% after I installed the second dehumidifier???
Actually in the last grow I think I had no botrytis but it was sort of a white mold which was inside the buds. Botrytis kills the plant fast. But this mold didnāt do thatā¦
With the situation like now, I will run into some mold problem again. So I guess I need to spray sort of some fungicide.
Guys pls help and recommend me something good. Hopefully there is something which prevents any growth of molds. I dont want to wash all plants again after harvest to get rid of the mold. It takes way too long.
Another thing that I need to optimize is the air circulation. What is the way to circulate the air? I have oscillation fans. Should I direct the fan slightly over the top of the plants, or directly into them?
With directing the fan directly into the plants, the nearest plants seem to get too much air flowā¦ :-/ So I am still wondering how to get a good circulation with densely packed plantsā¦
You can never have enough air.
I use air cooled hoods that arenāt tight and I put a 12" turbo fan right in the middle of the floor of a tent, on high.
Pointed up at the light, I get plenty of air.
Are you growing in a moist/humid area to begin with?
Is there mold some where else in the area, you could be blowing spores all over?
Are you holding your temps, a little swing from day into night and vice versa?
Are you leaving water laying around, no wet towels soping up spills?
Are you or have you ever brought in outsiders clones?
Are you not using proper hygeine ie:
Changing your clothes from coming from outside and washing your hands, changing your footware?
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sog, sealed grow with propane co2 generator. small rockwool cubes. no hygiene.
Main problem is the humidity 70 to 80 percent at 30 degree celsius. Lights on.
Couldnāt cover the rockwool cubes. And some of the reservoirs are slightly open because of tubes and pipes. I am not sure how much that of a problem is? Do wet rockwool cubes humidify the air?
Is there a way to prevent any mold in the buds with that relative humidity at that temperature?
Aināt much you can do with too dense of buds except open them up or pick early.
I just picked early myself by about a week and a half or so.
But itās still killer.
Sounds like theyāre at that point.
Youāre temp and humidity isnāt far from mine, I just keep lots of air moving.
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UI had similar issues this last round also adding extra fans, lowering humidity and sprayed a few times once with hydrogen peroxide and 2 times milk water seemed to clear it up !
Biggest issue Iāve been told was temp swings at lights off if your room drops more than a few degrees your likely to see mildew problems . As humidity climbs when lights go out .
The last couple weeks I try to lower humidity to 40/45% vs 60% seems to help a lot .
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Oh shit I didnāt read that right you got 80% humidity lights on, wow.
I thought you meant 70 - 80Ā°>
Thatās what happens when you got fresh weed.
Same stuff I told you from before still applies.
Change your growing method itās not right for wherever youāre at without excessive means
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The propane co2 generator will be kicking out tons of humidity.
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Lack of airflow, high humidity, heat and dense buds typically are the cause for bud rot. Some strains are also more prone to it.
If you beef up the airflow circulation to get the humidity out of the tent it will help, also more fansā¦ make like a hurricane in there or use AC and some decent fans in the tent to keep it all moving I also put in less dense strains here during the insanely hot and humid months.
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I know already that humidity and high temperatures is causing mildew problems. But I am already running 1300watts just dehumidifiers, 24/7. I will not run 2k of dehumidifiers. Also I canāt exhaust the air at lights off. Next step is using fungicides.
Is there any fungicide which is safe for combustion? Or any fungicide which is not safe at all for combustion?