I’m not entirely sure what you mean by that as it can be interpreted in a few different ways.
I have a moderate amount of experience with releasing purchased beneficial insects as well as trying to create an environment to attract and sustain natural predators. I haven’t reared insects or worked at an insectary though if that’s what you’re asking.
When interacting with someone who raises and sells biologicals years ago they put me on to concept of banker plants. It’s an interesting concept that you may want to read up on. It’s not the typical GH strategy of using trap plants. To attempt to simplify it to a single example use, with a banker plant you would introduce a monocot like grass that is “infested” with an aphid that only colonizes monocots. This aphid species would not be a threat to your main crops. This would serve as a continuous host plant for parasitic wasps that could patrol your main crop while there are no aphids present for them to parasitize. Parasitic wasps are pretty expensive and it would be a good way to stagger and extend a release throughout the season.
I do not typically introduce predators to my indoor cannabis in tents. This summer I may introduce some to anything I do outdoors as a preventative, but we’ll see. Long way away from that. I think for indoors it depends on the situation & pest you either are dealing with or worried about. If I had a polyculture scenario with different types of living mulches I may consider a variety of beneficials - such as a foliage based predatory mite or something.
Ah, yes I meant rearing and raising them in a closed environment to be released at a later date.
Also I really appreciate the banker plant read! I went through the whole thing. Super interesting concept… thanks for sharing it. Eventually I’ll have the space and security to run more outside where this can be more useful. I’m pretty confined to indoors for now.
Is your concern around carcasses and the like being on plant parts at harvest when introducing indoors? This is my concern for the most part, but didn’t see it become a huge issue in the commercial setting where they were using A. Swirskii during veg and A. Cucumeris during flower(pretty sure, I can check my notes but I think that was the order.) because the cucumeris would eat the swirskii…expensive, but what they did. B. Bassiana was sprayed heavily too they did a lot that had me scratching my head. Excuse my ramble. There isn’t a huge point to this other than chattery and info. So thanks.
I raise spiders in my grow. I’ve got this new kind it’s really small but replicates way faster than the cellar dwellers. The secret is to find the female and put her near some gnats. The male spider will show up on his own. If you move the male spider in there, he leaves and goes looking for the female.
Oh that’s fascinating. My partner has loads of experience with spiders and aquariums and moderate experiences with assassin bugs, arthropods, and cockroaches lol. Spiders are always around and not used that often in my experience. You intentionally set them in your tent/on plants?
Do they eat indiscriminately or mainly gnats/winged creatures? You’ve got me curious! Do you know what species?
Not really, no. More along the lines of I don’t have any tolerance for pests (spidermite / aphids) really. Biological controls usually just do that, control. If there’s nothing for them to feed on why would they stick around. I try to be as careful as I realistically can when going in my smaller grow area so that I don’t bring in mites or anything like that. If I do have an outbreak I’d rather just tear down and start over. As a hobbyist I have that luxury of being able to shut down.
I think if I had some prized mothers that had some form of pest pressure I’d probably introduce beneficials at some point though.
I don’t have much experience using A. Swirskii. Maybe only once via sachets in a GH. Mostly Cucumeris & P. Persimilis here. I’ve been eyeing those new crazee mites as well but haven’t ever seen them in person yet.
I have absolutely no idea what kind of spider these are. Pretty sure this one is a male! They eat any bug that gets caught in their web, so I don’t use them as a biological control, rather a sentinel for bugs. IF I look at the spider and it’s eating something other than a gnat - there’s going to be trouble. There are a few springtails as well, but those aren’t a parasite by any stretch. Most of the spiders are in the citrus orchard, but there are a few hanging from my LED lights in the grow. I don’t use poison to clean up bug problems, so the spiders are free to live.
Those crazee mites are super cool! I got sucked into watching an hour chat about them and watching them in action. If I see any baddies pop back up in my area I may try some out and try to set up a time lapse…I may do it with a non cannabis plant just to see. I’m here thinking I wish there was more content of predators actually being predatory on cannabis. I think the community would like it, too. It may be a thing I try. Orcharding experience is something I’d like to get a bit more of in my future, too.
I dig the spider, Joe. Would be fun to capture a couple and reproduce a few. I’d imagine they’re fairly typical orchard spiders if that’s where.you got them. Great little eaters though.
Rearing entomopathogenic nematodes may be an option if you’re looking for something to do. I considered making an attempt in the past but never really got into it. Also don’t have a microscope but I know that a lot of you guys do.
Thanks for this. This may be a spring/summer project here for me as fungus gnats seem to be a constant and not that I don’t like bti, but it’d be fun to do this.
I’m leaning towards Meta as the spider. I’m not convinced though! They were just crawling around somewhere in the house “You’re never more than a meter from a spider at all times”.
Way cool! You’re the first other person I’ve found purposely including spiders indoors.
Mine look like a lot like the ones in your photo.
@DirtySlowToes I got an entomologist to ID my spiders, literally jarred up 10 of them (live) and drove them over to his lab do he could look at them under the microscope.
He said they were Lepthyphantes leprosus, which is in the Linyphiidae. They are very small, and very happy in my grow room. I think it’s a worldwide species. They’ve reproduced here in coastal Washington state, USA, until there are hundreds, but they’re very shy and stay down on the soil surface or beside and under the pots / grow bags & on the floor. Anyone local is welcome to a jar full.
Alright, little update. It’s been a bit of a busy week for me so there’s a lot that needs given more room, but it’s also a bit of a clusterfuck right now with everything I’ve got going on. That’s just how it be. I’ll finally show a couple little nug shots…been ashamed because that spray on day 23-24(thought it was 22 but checked )torched the pistils. I mean, burnt crisp, look finished type of pistils at day 26. So… lesson learned again about not spraying past day 21. It also caused the same sort of necrosis on the leaves of all three plants. The leaves have been recovering but I’ve been removing a few each day to just get them the f out of there but don’t want to cause any fuckery in the last 4-5 weeks. On the plus side, the tent is thoroughly clean, the plants most definitely have no pests, and I shouldn’t need to hit that hard again pretty much ever. We are at day 36 now. So still 30 days to go on everyone I’ve never charred plants this bad so I guess let the experience roll in and let’s see how they finish
In other news, 3/5 WMBK were males. Down to 2 there.
1 of the 2 Jager Hashplant dropped it’s balls on me today. Both Eternal Sunshine from Bodhi are into flower as of yesterday 1/4. The shorter one has a lemonhead smell to the stem. Sticky and sour and I love it. The bigger one has a bit of a lemon sour but it’s behind like a hoppy sort of smell… Whatever the small one is, I’ll probably keep it around. The other eternal sunshine is a very vigorous plant. I can barely keep up with how much food it wants. They’re both still in the one gallons and I’ll take cuts from them tomorrow or Sunday. The flower tent needs a bit of rearranging which will come this weekend also.
Thanks you two! I am indeed aware that they don’t have trichomes, so it is a bit wild to see how they still bulk, but the concern is with stunting them and just generally stressing them more than was necessary they should realistically finish out fine, but gotta show the mistakes so you all don’t make them or feel better that someone has gone through it
The burnt plants do look better daily and there is noticable color coming back to some paler leaves. Seems 10 days is the course of a harsh spray at this point. Smells are really nice and what I showed was pretty much the worst of it so perhaps I was a touch dramatic.
Shot of the same fritter area most annoying thing about all the orange pistils is having zero notice if anyone gets pollinated so I’ve kept a really close eye but also acknowledge that it is what it is and they’ve been clean this far. Shouldn’t be any pollen around though. Thanks for stopping by.
Figured it’s been a little bit but they’re chugging along @blowdout2269 and @Going2fast appreciate your kindness. They’ll get the spotlight here like 2/7-2/9 when the bigger ladies come out. Should be just in time to put some nice weight.on.
Do you guys get this squat fat leafed little pheno often?
Little behind on dropping these seeds but went ahead and put 3 BBPS from JP and 3 cheese x chem d bc1 from jaws. Tags will go out when they’ve popped soil. Was going to drop the skunk x cheese but I realized I have nothing very chemmy going right now and it’s some of my favorite…so that’s that. Looking to keep a female from jaws batch and drop the other two in 8weeks or so. Got plenty of BBPS so I figured I will run three at a time until a keeper shows up.
Otherwise pretty chill over here. Gotta make soil today and get some things moved around/repotted. The cm x div from reiko are all doing well. Ginger Grant runt has come around.
Oh, shit. Guess what though. BOTH of the eternal sunshine look like ladies. One is pretty much confirmed and the other may pull a fast one on me, but what she looked like yesterday has me leaning lady. I’m really beyond excited to give this little lemon head one the other half of the 15 gallon pot and see what 15-16 weeks does for her. I’ll trim them up and take pics when they turn on this afternoon. Overcloned myself on fritter so I’ll have to figure out what to do with all this fritter and crasher lol but it’ll be fine.
they did a lot that had me scratching my head. Excuse my ramble. There isn’t a huge point to this other than chattery and info. So thanks.
lol. Spiders are always around and not used that often in my experience. You intentionally set them in your tent/on plants?
That’s just how it be. I’ll finally show a couple little nug shots…been ashamed because that spray on day 23-24(thought it was 22 but checked )torched the pistils. I mean, burnt crisp, look finished type of pistils at day 26. So… lesson learned again about not spraying past day 21. It also caused the same sort of necrosis on the leaves of all three plants. The leaves have been recovering but I’ve been removing a few each day to just get them the f out of there but don’t want to cause any fuckery in the last 4-5 weeks. On the plus side, the tent is thoroughly clean, the plants most definitely have no pests, and I shouldn’t need to hit that hard again pretty much ever. We are at day 36 now. So still 30 days to go on everyone 
I’ve never charred plants this bad so I guess let the experience roll in and let’s see how they finish
they should realistically finish out fine, but gotta show the mistakes so you all don’t make them 
or feel better that someone has gone through it
most annoying thing about all the orange pistils is having zero notice if anyone gets pollinated so I’ve kept a really close eye but also acknowledge that it is what it is and they’ve been clean this far. Shouldn’t be any pollen around though. Thanks for stopping by.
