Question for 20yr+growers: Hardest cultivation lesson learned?

Also there is no need to chop plants with mites or PM. People say that they do that online a lot. Mites can be eradicated, and PM controlled. Neem oil is your friend for mites and PM. For PM I use 1:100 refined neem oil, 3.5 TB per gallon, for mites 2 TB refined neem per gallon, with no soap/spreader. For mites agricultural mineral oil, agricultural non-ionic soaps/spreaders, hydrogen peroxide (1 cup to a gallon of water) right up to the day of harvest, and AzaMax and Avid (yes, Avid/Abemectin activated with non-ionic soap) up to 45 days before harvest. You also need to spray any host plants that may be near, like blackberry for broad mites (a new problem in the US) and many garden plants that also host spider mites. Indoors spray all surfaces with Talstar or similar pesticide/miticide. YOU MUST KILL ALL MITE CRAWLERS, ADULTS AND EGGS. Sterilize pots, counters and containers with bleach (1 cup per gallon of water). Do not let pets, kids, wives, husbands, or anyone in (or out if out doors) that has been in the yard or garden. Do not let bugs fly in, they can carry mites (flies, bees, etc). Outdoors you cannot control bugs carrying in mites, hence why I spray every 10 days, regardless. If you grow it, they WILL come. Do not let people visit for reasons #1 and #2 in my last post. People will whine, and your instinct is to share, but learn to just say NO!

8 Likes

I had a similar experience. When I got up to growing about 20 lbs a year, I spent forever and a day trimming from October through Christmas. Snip snip snip. It became a chore.

5 Likes

I got got them by using compost that was stored outside it was in a bag so i didnā€™t think anything would get in. I bought some Bayer insect soap spray but it doesnā€™t work very good.

Would putting a few lady birds/bugs on my plant work do you know?

Cheers

Ladybugs and predatory insects can help control population, but theyā€™ll never be an end-all fix.

But that leads me to my biggest lesson:

Almost any issue is fixable. Iā€™ve had very (very) bad spider mite infestations, I once took a garden 2 weeks from harvest because of them.

Iā€™ve dealt with them since then and Iā€™ve learned that even with the worst infestation you can win the fight against the borg.

And Iā€™m Canadian so all the good stuff (neem, azamax, avid) isnā€™t available here. And still Iā€™ve defeated them.

So I guess in short, donā€™t throw in the towel until your plants do!

6 Likes

But you say you need to keep spraying every week - if you cut down infested plants and sterilize the space, they donā€™t come back.

3 Likes

If i put quite a few in they should do the trick

Well thats my hope anyways

Cheers for your reply

@Lucy247420 what did you use? H2O2? Or did you scare them away with your nanner? :wink::yum::joy::grin:

2 Likes

Handheld vacuum cleaner, insecticidal soap and a final bud wash at harvest.

Had them bad in veg once too, pyrethrin first spray, soap second spray and lots of defoliating.

Damn Borg.

4 Likes

Avid and neem are to be found up here , check the igloo by Bobs Bobsled and bacon :bacon:, sorry, a good relationship with a local shop helps , and good on ya getting rid of the scum without the hard stuff.

2 Likes

Iā€™m dreaming about sealed rooms, decon chambers and industrial microwaves too ^^

4 Likes

Dealing with them in the outdoor garden currently. I hit them with the hose, later on hit em with pyrethrin. Also innoculated with BTK to help with the caterpillars.

Today it rained all day so that helps too, but might have to re apply BTK.

The war is never over!

2 Likes

@Fuel

I have a clean suit, respirator, hair nets etc when things get real bad itā€™s almost like thereā€™s an ebola outbreak here.

5 Likes

Thatā€™s a rough one, so hard to get a handle on things out of doors at times.
Wow I am no where near that , good job ,but I am transferring cuts into a decon area to start off for winter, I wonā€™t get fooled again lol.

1 Like

Iā€™m tempted to join the fun & tell my bug story but Iā€™m also wondering if the right thing to do here is go back, split the topic & clean it up? @MadScientist HEEEELP!
:confused:

:evergreen_tree:

3 Likes

If you can eradicate mites by spraying, there is no need to terminate your plants. I have eradicated many mite infestations myself. Its the same with PM. I read all the time online that people post that you should yank them up if you get any mites or PM. But all you have to do is spray with Neem. PM gone. Mites gone.

Also thinking that mites will not return is complete fallacy and that logic is just setting you up for failure. They WILL return if they got there in the first place. I have been dealing with mites for many years. Bamboo mites, my catā€™s ear mites, spider mites, broad mites, hemp russet mites, yadda yadda. They always come back. More now than ever before. For several reasons. One is that a lot more people are growing Cannabis. Especially on the west coast. Huge hemp and Marijuana farms are popping up all over here now. Also broad mites now have adapted (as of 2016) to dine on cane berries from coast to coast, so they are ALL OVER THE USA now, in berry fields and on wild berry plants. There is no safe haven from mites any more. So you are best to spray on a regular basis, and presume that they are coming into your grows. Unless you have a clean room. But if you got mites in the first place, then you do not have a clean room, do you?

4 Likes

@cannabissequoia, i was trying to split this topic but the remarks are all interlaced with the conversation and if i split it, i am afraid itā€™s gonna lost context.

A better idea would be to ask the peeps, pretty please, to get back on track with the topic and that way everyone will have access to the info.

Please everyone, letā€™s keep on talking about the 20+ yrs exp things we have gone thru, thanks.

Sci :robot:

8 Likes

YEAH. What he said. :neutral_face:

:evergreen_tree: Sorry folks, tried to split off into an IPM threadā€¦ :smiling_imp:

1 Like

am I talking IPM? Didnā€™t even know it! this is what you learn over the years of growing though. yes, I guess my philiosophy is ā€œclean roomā€. If you know the room is safe from bugs then a cut-down & clean-up makes sense because itā€™s a permanent fix.

If you have outside clones coming in or exposure to bugs from outside then you need an ongoing control program, I get it. I live in a northern climate, so 8 months per year any indoor grow is ā€œclean roomā€ if you stick to seed propagation. Canā€™t imagine what itā€™s like to face year-round commercial ag pests in your neighborhood.

Spider mites are known to lay eggs in cracks in the walls & floors, so without treatment individual can keep hatching, I think for up to 3 months?

4 Likes

Though an IPM thread sounds nice.:thinking:

1 Like

We have a really good one that has been a great help for me even before I was a registered member here.

https://overgrow.com/t/pest-management-routines/

And while i do recommend anyone looking for help or information on pest control to check out that thread, I still think this conversation has remained on topic. Pest issues teach us some of the hardest lessons we will learn, and sharing our stories helps others to not make the same mistakes.

5 Likes