Trusted methods to fight pests

Botany and Cultivation
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First of all I want to send a shout out to everyone on the forum. :pray: Big thanks to all of you sharing your knowledge. I learn new things every day on here and I really appreciate being part of this community. I looked around the forum and I didn’t see a post that has condensed info on pesticides and practices. This is usually a topic that growers avoid talking about and there is lots of stigma around it, but it is an important topic and we should address it.

Russets, spider mites (super mites are real), thrips, whiteflys, fungus gnats, and various aphids… I have battled them all. I have tried every organic pesticide product I can find with minimal success over the years, I live in California and these superbugs have kicked my ass repeatedly. Everything goes well through veg and stretch with foliar IPM but around week 4-6 in flower there is suddenly an army at the door. I grow for personal use in a small tent and I do not want to use anything that will harm me when smoking flower. I also don’t want to release predator bugs in my tent and living area, but I do have bad bugs around the property and have gotten them from soil bags or clones etc.

If I didn’t think cannabis was the most beautiful plant in the world, I would have quit growing years ago out of frustration, I’m posting here today because I finally hit that wall. I’m hoping someone here has advice that will reduce this community’s hardships, and set some standards for the most effective and /or safest chemicals.

Obviously there are 1000 ways to skin a cat and I have heard countless recommmendations at the grow shop but it is nearly impossible for a hobby grower to get facts about what is safe and what actually works. Obviously prevention is key, but let’s consider the worst case scenario where the most aggressive species of bugs are always waiting at the door. I’m wondering what trusted routines everyone has developed in order to grow clean product in pest-free gardens. Are there any products that can be applied once during veg and will prevent the major pests all through harvest? …and make clean medical flower?

All products and any advice is welcome. When discussing chemicals I think it would be beneficial for the community to hear what will pass pesticide testing standards, what is considered healthy or unhealthy to consume, and safe when used at what stage of the plants life cycle.

ADVICE SUMMARY for pests:

  • foliar 2-3x a week with organic friendly products/chemicals: Microthiol Disperss, Sulphur, lost coast, iso alcohol, spinosad, JMS stylet oil, Safer oil, M-pede, canola oil, Bronner’s soap, essential oils.

  • foliar with biologicals (frequency?): PFR 97 fungal, botaniguard, og biowar.

  • add to media: Cedar wood/oil, nematodes, OG Biowar root pak, sand layer on coco, botaniguard, root shield, bacillus amyloliquefaciens D747, trichoderma harzianum.

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Sulfur for russets and cyclamen

Sulfur for pm in veg(don’t use within 2-3 weeks of spraying any type of oil, some foliars have oils)

Lost coast with extra iso alcohol added for pm in flower

20-40% iso alcohol in water kills spider mites

Lost coast kills spider mites amd thrips and pretty much anything by both suffocating and desiccating them. It’s oil and essential oils and citric acid and some alcohol I think

LABS to prevent PM, make your own KNF style

Strong cell walls to prevent pm so water soluble monosalicylic acid

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spinosad mixed with stylet oil on annoying thrips and aphids. also keep nematodes in the media

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PFR 97… Spray it outside too. It’s a fungal plague for common bugs. It hates plant matter and just washes off with water. If you are late in flower you can soil drench it and hope for the best.

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Don’t get bugs in the first place. Take a shower and put on clean clothes ya filthy animals.

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If you are trying in a tent in a house. I would recommend buying your pot from the store or a friend. It is so cheap in Cali you can get a really nice lb of indoor for $1000. Dabs are cheap too.
Then you have time to play instead of spray!

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Looking for a once and done pesticide that is safe and tests clean is flawed logic unless you can make some sort of valid argument that you have found a systemic pesticide that is safe to combust and inhale.

Diligence and patience is all it takes.

At a hobby scale getting brix right isn’t feasible. Soap and oil sprayed every 3 days on rotation is very feasible and will kill any foliar pest or fungi you encounter. I prefer JMS stylet oil because it actually does evaporate away in about 2 weeks. You could go with Suffoil-x early on, but as has been discussed here before, it does contain other unlabeled aromatic hydrocarbons of questionable safety. IME insecticidal soap is a commodity item, whatever is easy to get is fine, at hobby scale that is probably Safer brand.

Diligently rotate soap and oil, getting full coverage from spraying up twice a week and you’ll be good. Right now you’re likely moving plants to flower with pests on them. You have to eliminate them all before flower and then stop spraying around the 2nd or third week.

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Alcohol, canola oil and Dr. Bronners as a maintenance spray for pests and mold. AGT-50 is totally soluble and prevents stress when used as a foliar.

I never suggest spraying after the first couple weeks after transition, but this can be used in flower by omitting the alcohol.

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M-ped is a low cost Safer brand alternative.

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I used to do the ghost paper chili spray…got tired of masing myself though

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M-pede is one of the ones I use, but I think the minimum size is 2.5 gallons. Might be a little big for op’s tent grow.

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Gonna drop a few things down below that tend to help when ipm management is poor in cultivations.

This is from capulator

PM thrives in shitty environments. Poor airflow, No filtration, massive sings in day and night temps/RH levels. Reference the above thread, and get your temps and RH consistent and dialed.

If you do not have a carbon scrubber coupled with a fan in the room, get one! They are great at recirculating air and cleaning it at the same time. The bigger the better. You cannot have enough carbon scrubbing IMO.

IPM strategies:

There are 4 things that work very well to prevent and control PM outbreaks in my experience.

  1. Defolate and prune accordingly. I will post up a thread on how I do that shortly and link it here.

  2. Microthiol Disperss micronized sulfur (http://www.upi-usa.com/agricultural-products/microthiol), at 3 grams per gallon, sprayed weekly. Works wonders at killing the spores and keeping them dead. Spray plants, floors, walls, ceiling. You can also burn sulfur but I personally like to spray disperss, although I have not had the need in quite some time. DO NOT spray disperss past day 10 of flower. You will not be able to taste the sulfur in the flower, but if you make concentrates your concentrates will taste like shit. Spray with lights off and allow to dry completely before turning back on.

  3. OG Biowar (www.ogbiowar.com) foliar/root pack coupled with thermx 70, manufactured by http://americanextracts.com as my go to surfactant, or brewed in a compost tea. 15 to 20 grams per gallon of each root and foliar packs and 3mL of thermx per gallon. This is a shameless plug for OG Biowar, but it does work. I have sprayed at week 2 of flower after noticing the very beginnings of a PM outbreak and stopped it in its tracks. Rotating the OGB and JMS is by far my favorite course of action for bugs and PM at the moment, and it is completely safe.

I rotate the OGB and JMS, so that the plants recieve a spray of each one weekly. I make sure defoliations are done on schedule, and that there is lots of air flow. Temps and RH are controlled so that there are not huge day and night swings. I have not seen PM in 2 years.

If you get PM past week 3 of flower, when you should not be spraying anything… you can either trash the whole harvest (something I have done in the past), or you can spray every other day with Oxidate/Zerotol at 40mL/ gal. through harvest. This will wash off spores and kep PM at bay, but you do need to spray frequently and thoroughly, and it is a huge pain in the fucking ass. Again, only speaking for personal experience here. Feel free to share your experience as well, or correct me if you feel I am wrong.

For me, a big part of growing cannabis is growing with integrity. On the old forums, for a long time, eagle20 aka myclobutanil was a go to solution for PM. Unfortunately, many of us used it based on “bro science” ,thinking that it was ok to use. Shit, I used to dunk a cut in eagle before passing it to a friend as a “courtesy”

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… Since then I have learned so much… It is not OK to use, and it will not be condoned here. One good thing about being in a “legal” climate is that I was forced to start testing finished product a long time ago. Eagle20 stays in plant tissue for YEARS. Not months. Not weeks. Do not use it. Do not recommend it to anyone. If you are using it now, stop. I no longer accept cuttings from people because of this. It’s just not worth the fail. You can spray Eagle on a plant and take cuts off it, pass that to a friend… they can grow it out to a mom, and pass it to another friend. That person can grow it out flower it, and it will fail residual testing. No bueno.

from my personal experience

If you run outdoor, build your beds out of cedar logs below & milled cedar planks for the bed & you will deter pests & some bugs, applicate a foliar of dr bonners peppermint Castile soap with em1 & alovera gel or horticulture powder, jadam & agt 50, & lastly the q you’ll have a ipm regiment made to destroy anything.

If you use coco, please for love of all things flying to die, put sand on top of your coco if you have issue with gnats or anything else that comes out of your medium & tries to dig it’s way in. The sand will help suffocate them, but won’t suffocate your roots, add aero rocks if you’d like more even water distiribution as well. Little fly strips & cards will only help you so much!

I’m a big believer in micron misters with essential oil to fight off & deter pests as well as some molds as well in certain cases. If you can emit down to .3 microns you’ll have a fine enough mist to use for application of specific oils that will not harm that plants & will boost immune system properties while fighting off pests & other variants of mold of fungus.

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Has anyone used botaniguard or any products with beauveria bassiana as the active? I use predator bugs and there’s a study that was done at a university that the beneficials weren’t affected by the fungus and that they could spread it to other pest and infect them.

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Yes, it’s awesome but takes time to establish and get working.

We also use Bacillus amyloliquefaciens strain D747 and Trichoderma harzianum to fight root pathogens.

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Root shield?

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What’s your recipe on the canola alcohol and bronners. Lost coast is same shit with some citric and it’s speedy.

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All DIY recipes here:

http://opensalts.wikidot.com/

1/3 70% alcohol, 1/3 canola or cottonseed oil, 1/3 Dr. Bronners plain soap, 1-2% aromatic essential oil (if not using the flavored soap). You can adjust the pH to 5.5 with citric acid. This helps with IPM or as a complexor (vs. chelator with fulvic acid).

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Potassium bicarbonate for PM, beats regalia, citric acid products, and everything else I tried. It works better with the fine mist from a spray bottle than from a pump sprayer. It will singe the edges of the leaves a little, but that’s all. I use 5 grams per liter dilution rate.

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I forget what % Potassium Bicarb that Green Cure was, but it was 2 tbs./gallon. It didn’t burn as long as it was applied right before lights out, but it needed to be rinsed off if used in flower.

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There is some great info here, thanks to everyone contributing!

Not sure how PM became the most common topic but the more info the merrier i suppose. Here’s a little more info: Small tent in garage, tent refreshes air from interior of garage on a temp trigger and exhausts to outside. Garage air comes in through a cracked window with a basic filter that only grabs large particulate. I will be putting a hepa filter on intake to tent to minimize anything airborne, but I really haven’t had any issues with pm or molds etc… just pests. I have a little dehu and circulating fans so my environment is pretty good for a hobby setup.

Battled spider mites for 3 years that I got from the environment and carried with me until I finally released 1000 ladybugs in a tent and stopped growing for a year. No sign of them since. This past cycle I recently trashed after losing a battle with root aphids that probably came in on thr clones. I thought I won the war in veg until week 5 when there were suddenly thousands covering stems etc etc. Still nuking tent as I do not want to ever deal with them again.

@emdub27 I realize a one and done is a pipe dream but I was hoping someone had something close to that. Are there any products that can be applied once and deter all pests? Can I coat my tent in Cedar oil or something like that?? Essential oil the fk out of my garage?? I am really trying to avoid foliar spraying often it is worst part of growing.

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