Trichoderma during flower

Hi everyone, I’m new here. I grow outdoor and indoor in living soil while trying to be regenerative as possible. Thanks for letting me be part of this group. So now I have my first question. Does anybody use trichoderma as foliar spray? I live in the Midwest and humidity just started up some septoria. I’d say I’m close to halfway done in flower but want to be proactive with this septoria. Could I foliar trich in flower?

2 Likes

No idea but a cool topic. :popcorn:

2 Likes

A buddy recommended this combination

4 Likes

I actually just ordered those a couple days ago lol. I follow his stuff a lot. I’m just not sure if it’s too late in the grow to foliar spray it

3 Likes

Septoria just keeps going. I don’t believe it’ll kill it 100 percent, but slowing it down is a great thing

1 Like

I’d be very careful to research any secondary metabolites of Trichoderma sp. and their toxicity to humans especially considering these fungal compounds will likely be consumed via combustion and may form other molecular compounds in the degradation process. Generally I believe it’s common practice that Trichoderma sp. would be applied as a soil drench or an additive to compost tea recipes for drench/foliar as preventative in veg and not as a foliar in flower. The common biologically based foliar applications acceptable for flower are facultative anaerobic bacteria like lactobacillus or are enzyme based from my understanding. some gardeners suggest using diluted hydrogen peroxide or lactobacillus as a soil drench in flower as a last ditch effort to combat soil born anaerobic pathogens, I’ve seen this work for Pythium. The KNFer’s might use a foliar of 1:1000 lactobacillus and maybe even add something like 1:30 diluted seawater for getting those through. If it were me I’d definitely do a bacillus drench of the soil and make sure to apply an endomycorrhizal inoculant to the rootzone prior to transplanting as a preventative next round.

11 Likes

This is good info. I appreciate it.

3 Likes

I agree that bacterial inoculation is safer in flower than fungal inoculation.

Bacterial infections are often very easy to cure.
Fungal infections are a nightmare to treat.

5 Likes

I’m just going to do some root drenches of trichoderma and labs while defoliating the affected leaves. I’ll prep better for next years grow

2 Likes

Trich, if I’m not mistaken would normally be used in organic soil mixes, it’s a fungus that is capable of breaking down almost any organic material to its base components, freeing nutrients for plant use.
I I’m not sure I would deliberately infect a plants flowering material with it. I would assume the spray is saturated with the blue green spores, I don’t think they are likely to germinate on live plant tissue.
So you would just end up with trich spores all over your plant, not something I would want to smoke.
What is the hoped for effect? Unless there is some desirable defense mechanism that happens, that I’m not aware of, I would save the trich for my soil.

1 Like

Also I hesitate to use any foliar sprays on flowering plant parts, unless you are planning to wash the plants before drying,
The world’s most beautifully grown organic buds, will still taste like shit if they are covered in safer soap, neem oil, and bat guano residuals.

1 Like