Oh that’s awesome. You can stop them coming in. So glad you went looking for them. I was watching caterpillars crossing the fucking street yesterday… grass on one side was eaten to nubs and they were looking for their next food. Hundreds of them!
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We found them to be in the Bermuda and Dallas grass with clover but not in the fescue and Blue stem hay. The fescue seems to be to thick for them to survive along with the hay. The other types of grass they seem to thrive in and now putting the pieces together, makes sense from past years with how the worms played out.
We are going to remove the Bermuda and Dallas grass and seed for fescue. The other option is to make the border around the black plastic a ground up rock type border. This would make it hard for them to cross from the grass onto the black plastic and up the grow pots.
I am also going to increase the amount and frequency I put Trichogramma wasps out.
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The horse has already left the barn, but parasitic wasps are pretty good at keeping caterpillar numbers down.
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Please explain regalia ?
So now that it s harvest time I am analyzing the crops
And bud rot is defenatly there
Wan t to prepare for next year to either prevent or slow down
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REGALIA Biofungicide ignites the natural defenses of a plant to protect it from a variety of foliar and soil-borne fungal and bacterial diseases. Its active ingredient, extract of Giant Knotweed (Reynoutria sachalinensis ), boosts plant vigor and growth while stimulating the plant’s ability to develop resistance to plant pathogens (induced resistance). This developed resistance builds plant health as opposed to attacking the disease directly.
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Regalia is probably more for powdery mildew. The best way to stop caterpillars is a bt spray, like this one:
It’s their poop that grows the mold.
Not that it is practical at scale, but I like doing the 3 part water rinse with freshly picked branches. In addition to live caterpillars falling off, it washes off the turds too. Maybe it is worthwhile as a sample of a few plants in a field just to see what comes off. The wash is 3 bins of lukewarm water. Baking soda in the first to make alkaline water, second is lemon juice and peroxide, 3rd is plain water.
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Regalia won’t really help with bud rot. Regardless it is only a preventative spray to be applied in veg/early flower. Once bud rot is set in, there really isn’t a spray to my knowledge that will stop it. Oxidizers can actually facilitate the spread of botrytis so don’t spray those. You just gotta cut the moldy buds out and keep scouting. EM1 is a beneficial spray you can add to foliar feedings in veg/early flower. It has been shown to slow botrytis in grapes.
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Soil drench twice with regalia, it will almost eliminate bud rot / mold middles from a wet finish. Making seeds we run things a few extra weeks and it makes a world of difference.
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Nice deffenatly worth trying
It s interesting to note that there is a fierce discussion among farmers and indoor growers on the extra few weeks
Including myself
When I look at the flowers in the field I believe they are ready
The farmer insists that by keeping the soil drenched with water these last 10 days make a diffrance in mass / thc-a yield
I doubt that this makes sense for the risks involved off disease bad wheaten etc etc
Trying to figure out a experiment to prove who s right wich is complex since we run on seeded plants and there is no standard to be found
I wouldn’t suggest this. Plants in veg like wet soil, flowering plants like dry backs.
When i said soil drench i ment water it in instead of foliar.
I run extra weeks only for seed production, otherwise harvest when the trics are where you want them.
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Sounds like a tough time with both bud rot and caterpillars. Apart from BT, you may use neem oil or even insecticidal soap, but use them sparingly so you don’t overmoisturize. You could add some beneficial insects, such as ladybugs or lacewings to help bring down the pest populations. Trimming off some excess foliage and improving air circulation around that area can really help somewhat there reduce some bud rot dangers. Good luck—hope you save your crop! Cheers!
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Predatory wasps are a great addition to an IPM program, but they really require forethought and consistent application.
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Hi f4200 !
Been lurking here for years as i started small hemp farm Fines Têtes, mostly for fun and maybe profit
So this is my 1st post 
From my experience with mothes and subsequent budrot, i’d strongly suggest using the baculovirus based solutions, also named helicovex in UE
This
For that this very specific virus is really propagating among helicoverpa catterpillar populations, liquefying them… and that it better persists in warm weather as well as rainy, comparer to bt
I’d recommend complementing with bt though
Also pay close attention to the mothes flying around at sunset on warm days, they defly lay eggs on young buds… when you see this flying happen, you have to spray the bioinsecticides next day and repeat from there as they can only kill the youngest larvaes. At those stages they are tiny and well hidden in buds
You can use pheromon traps to attract helicoverpa armigera males also, most usefull to watch out for these flying days
Good luck with them however, they seems to be more and more present and destroy many crops especially on warm dry years around here… interestingly enough lavender flowers are also meal of choices to them, looks like the loudest smells attracts these travelling mothes from far away !
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We used it under the gemstar label but it was the most effective thing for preventing bud worms later
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Welcome to the future @Fines_Tetes, thank you for that little nugget of very helpful info!
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And the thing is timing. The moths fly early in the season. You’ll see eggs laid neatly on the underside of leaf almost looking like massive trichomes. When left untreated those eggs are what cause the issues
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Thanks @BigM
Pretty shure the dead liquefying catterpillars can be saved and used as inoculant in the next year, as it’s the way the virus is produced, but i dont know the most straightforward way to conservate them. I dried some but not shure at all the viral particules will remain viable… also i dont know the best way to suspend them in water
Now maybe there are bio wizards reading me here are having this clue ?
Basically these viral particules are released grouped in a protein matrix, called granulovirus inclusion bodies
I did read a lot on these subjects and can share my collection of papers on the topic if anybody interested
Also of concern to me is the additives they put together on commercial formulations, especialy the uv protectants, while reading i came across fluorated compound evaluated for that purpose that looks no fun at all …Nobody likes spraying random stuff on smokable flower, and getting the word from suppliers seems quite impossible… same applies to bt though
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I’m sure that I speak for many when I say please share the papers. 
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You welcome, héhé shared curiousity is what makes this place so special !
I spoke a bit too fast however, as i found i didnt actually save the most relevant studies… hence this late reply
So after wading again in the very large litterature on HearNPV, and with the great help of sci-hub, i can somehow honor promise
hearnpv field epizootics.pdf (179.9 KB)
This one ^ i like very much as it clearly demonstrates the on field epizootic dynamics
hearnpv field eval and formulations.pdf (191.4 KB)
And this one ^ albeit a bit dated, shows that many different formulations may have similar efficiences. The lyophylized catterpilar method is reported to work, alas i dont have access to any freeze drier atm… The conclusion mentions the use of dead infected larvae in village-made preparations by Indian peasants. Pretty shure i did see it mentioned somewhere else, but could not yet find recipe…
So my question remains… especially, should i freeze these inoculants? Or dry them ?
Also of great interest, i found this recent open access study specific to cannabis, pictures are very useful for identification (but when damages are visible, it’s too late…) :
https://academic.oup.com/jipm/article/12/1/34/6368497
Alas i could not find the one comparing questionable UV protectants in formulations…
behavioural manipulations.pdf (3.3 MB)
Also, this ^ preview thesis goes in great length to explain the virus lifecycle, and how it alters larvae behaviour to favor subsequent virus propagation. This daytime top-climbing is very obvious to hearnpv users
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Spinosad and BT spray right when its just starting to flower.
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