Hey, OG
I was looking for easy recipes to control insects, and found some recipes from a gov agency, I found them really simple and decided to apply on my plants. I’ve used the wheat flour one, and I think it worked pretty well, my problem was still on early stages, but it worked.
I believe they could be a good choice if one is out of much resources or does not want chemicals near the flowers. I am not saying it could be used during flower, but maybe it’s better than chemicals or stinky products.
I didn’t see any residues on the leaves I applied.
So here we go:
Salt Syrup:
Controls White flies, Aphid and Cabbage looper/caterpillar
Ingredients
5g salt (1tsp)
20ml vinegar (4 tsp)
1L water
2,5ml neutral liquid soap (1/2 tsp)
Just mix them all together
When to apply:
At night or cloudy days;
Over the leaves every 5 to 7 days;
Don’t use often so as not to damage the soil
Wheat Flour Syrup:
Controls Aphids, Caterpillars and mites
Ingredients
20g Wheat Flour (1tbsp)
1L Water
Add flour to the water in parts, mixing everything first in a container and them put into the sprayer.
The original recipe does not say it, but I added some oil I had here to help.
Apply it on the leaves every 15 days, it will stick to the insects, and when the water dries off, only flour will remain, it blocks insects’ movements and breathing, causing death.
Thats pretty cool bro! Ive never heard of these before. Im adimently against spraying any pesticides. I prefer biological controls but you definitely sparked my interest!!
Thanks for the write up on this, im sure itll become handy to many of us.
I agree with you, I would rather not spray anything on the plants, I would like to try it, maybe starting adding some different plants to the tent or something, but when there’s no plan for other control, we gotta do what we gotta do.
If this post helps just one grower it will have served it’s purpose. It’s really sad to see the plant getting covered in bugs.
I myself would much rather just keeping them away and not kill anything to grow my flowers, I even avoid bone meal, worm casting, etc, because of that.
My first line of defense is high brix. Pests dont recognize high brix plants as food. Second would be activation of SAR, either with microbes or chitenase. Insect frass or cruatation meals, also Trichoderma does the trick
I don’t even wanna come close to saying it’s the best or even one of the best solutions, because it’s not even a definite one. I was just sharing sth that helped me and leaving something behind that might help someone else in a moment of need in the future.
It works great on green beans. Sorry was just giving my results on flour. Water sprays will keep plants clean. In the long run you see long term improvement over long term sprays.
If you’re results work i would test as well. Spraying water is not always an option in many cases home growing indoors.
I would be very hesitant to spray anything with salt and vinegar on my plants. Those things can cause severe damage to plants in high enough concentrations. The soap and water alone is all that would be needed for aphids. If you catch them early, just water can work to spray aphids off plants. I went to an organic farming conference and the lady speaking was a researcher from a large agricultural university, and she said their research showed that the most consistently effective organic treatment for aphids was insecticidal soap. If I had catepillars I’d probably look into the use of Bt. It affects only catepillars, and certain insect larvae. That being said if I were to use anything during flower, I would be rinsing my plants in an H202 and water bath after harvest, much like I would wash veggies. I’ve never had to do this but I would opt to do that over smoking anything sprayed on the plants.
Moderate levels of N
High(er) levels of Calcium i go 8:2 with mag
High(er) levels of silica
And a healthy population microbial, high diversity
Suppliment Aminos if needed, but keep in mind, this will increase Nitrogen assimilation.
The trick is to not have a plant thats feed high N. This creates an open cellular structure of plant tissues, and the plant is actually weaker. Bigger, but much weaker.
I do some semi organic veggie farming and higher levels of calcium has resulted in much healthier plants for us. We haven’t used a whole lot of silica but I was going to try testing the use of wollastonite on some home grow stuff because its calcium silicate so I figure best of both worlds. Microbes are definitely a must in organic farming. I’m generally not feeding plants. I’m feeding microbes that then feed my plants. A typical planting of any veggies starts by adding compost and a mixture of alfalfa meal, feather meal, fish meal, kelp meal, and a few other ingredients. Calcium levels are typically pretty high in our soil, but we supplement calcium especially to the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and any other high value crops. I am doing some at home experimenting with some other products so that we can improve upon our field crops and reduce spraying of any kind. Bt and spinosad are primarily the two things we spray on field crops.
The wollastonite will definitely get the job done supplying both, WIN/WIN!
Ive been using granulated silica quarts and granite. They stick around for a long time, but its mostly for the texture of my soil. Diomatomacious Earth is my main go to for silica. Its amorphous silicon dioxide and is comprised of 80-90% silica.
That really how i came to using it too. Its only effective for pests if it stays dry. Once wet tho, and in the soil, thats where ive found the most benefits.
Oh, and if your using it please wear a mask!!! Dont breath that shit in, itll never leave your lungs. Im a mason by trade and silica is a huge danger. Gotta get tested annually for osha compliance
I would say my results were temporary. I live in a house, grow indoors, but the weather here is suitable for insects, plus, I have a mid-sized garden which attracts a few.
I used flour to try, and because they were not special purchased seeds or anything. I’ve had good experiences with soap before (although not definite too), but wanted to try something different, for a case I had nothing else to do, but yeah, I wouldn’t spray them on flowers, maybe apply some with a cotton stick or something.
I had honestly never heard of brix before @Woedae420 mentioned it.
