WrinkledNugSack
Well-known member
This bit of advice and hack is intended for the new home-grower only… seed breeders for example could not follow these rules.
Personally, I think pest management is one of the most important considerations in my grow space, and step one and the most important part of pest management is prevention. Here are a few things that I do, (some of which some people will/might disagree with,) but this is what I do:
I never kill spiders or crickets in the basement. If you think of a battle zone there are different sectors between the hustling-bustling city centre where the citizens are and the actual front line where the armies battle it out. As we progress from the battle zone toward the thriving city centre, there are likely check stops, mined fields, aerial surveillance, etc. Same goes for my grow space. The outdoors is the battle zone, because I know there are pests outside that I don’t want inside. So my own cleanliness is key, but so are the hunters inside the house. I have a semi completed basement and I often find spiders and crickets lurking about… I NEVER kill or interrupt their movement, they are a protective zone hunting the perimeter of my grow space (outside my tent), so I don’t harm them. Spiders (with a web) especially wouldn’t be where they are if they didn’t have a food source they were after or were taking advantage of.
I stopped going into large garden centres because IMHO, if you are going to drag something unwanted home to your grow it will likely come from these places. And before I open my tent, I assess where and when I have been somewhere that I may have collected an unwanted guest along the way.
Think hard about using companion plants. Has the companion plant drawn a pest away from the cannabis plant, or were the pests drawn into the grow space BECAUSE you had the companion plant. ie: I’d say almost all experienced gardeners know that pepper plants are a magnet for aphids. If you happen to see aphids on your cannabis plants, IMHO now is the time to introduce a companion plant (in this case a pepper plant) to attract them away from the cannabis. After a period of time, I would consider removing the pepper plants and replacing it with another (the younger and more succulent plant the better)… I would do this until this particular grow cycle was over… I would NOT introduce the pepper plant from the very start, you might just be encouraging the aphids to come into your grow space where they otherwise would have avoided for some other reason. (And just because you put a pepper plant into your grow and many aphids migrated to it, this doesn’t mean there still aren’t aphids on your cannabis or hiding in the grow space or media.)
I never allow anyone in my grow space, but I also prefer that no one ever comes in my house. Inversely, I never go into someone else’s grow space. I’ll chat all day about growing, growing hacks, etc. etc… but in this world, if someone really had a problem that they need help with a picture off of a smart phone won’t transfer a potential problem to your grow.
I never accept clones or seeds (or other plant material) anymore*; however, to get started you’ll have to… I recommend seeds personally. (* Now that I have “what works for me” in the grow room there is only one instance that I would introduce something new into my grow space (but I won’t get into that here); my point here is that the looser you are with accepting clones (with or without the foreign media) into your grow space, the more likely it is that you are going to have problems down the road.) I think it’s fair to say, at this point in time, the jury is still out on how many viruses etc. can be transferred into a grow space through seed. Do you really “need” that cultivar?
Before I moved to soil growing, I had problems with thrips via the commercial "grow mediums". The last and most effective way (and safest way ) that I "controlled them" was by taking the clay balls used in hydro systems and putting them in a pail with a lid. I then dumped in a copious amount of diatomaceous earth, I then rolled the pail around dusting the clay balls with the powder. (Wear a mask when doing this... the D/E is a mild throat irritant) I also placed a copious amount of diatomaceous earth around the stem of the plant… some pests will want to climb from the soil surface up the stem of the plant. I placed a layer of these balls on the top of my pots right after watering the plants. This makes the bugs crawl over the diatomaceous earth any time they move above the soil surface. It worked quite well, with the exception that I would have to vacuum them off of the soil surface, screen them to remove the excess dirt, and then re-dust them before re-use. I also cut sticky traps to the appropriate size and laid them on the top of the dusted balls as well. (A few balls stick to the sticky traps, but not many.) A cheap wet/dry shop vacuum is a handy tool in the grow, and an item that I’d purchase before many other “trinkets”. Typically, the dusted balls would last through more than one watering. This approach was effective at knocking the hell out of their numbers. If you are near harvest and you are struggling to make it through to the end, you might wish to try this method... it's fairly cheap, and certainly a safer choice than some others.
Once the harvest is over, I would reconsider what medium I would be using for the next go round, and at the very least I’d try to find a suitable method to sterilize the media if you intended on re-using it.
Personally, I think pest management is one of the most important considerations in my grow space, and step one and the most important part of pest management is prevention. Here are a few things that I do, (some of which some people will/might disagree with,) but this is what I do:
I never kill spiders or crickets in the basement. If you think of a battle zone there are different sectors between the hustling-bustling city centre where the citizens are and the actual front line where the armies battle it out. As we progress from the battle zone toward the thriving city centre, there are likely check stops, mined fields, aerial surveillance, etc. Same goes for my grow space. The outdoors is the battle zone, because I know there are pests outside that I don’t want inside. So my own cleanliness is key, but so are the hunters inside the house. I have a semi completed basement and I often find spiders and crickets lurking about… I NEVER kill or interrupt their movement, they are a protective zone hunting the perimeter of my grow space (outside my tent), so I don’t harm them. Spiders (with a web) especially wouldn’t be where they are if they didn’t have a food source they were after or were taking advantage of.
I stopped going into large garden centres because IMHO, if you are going to drag something unwanted home to your grow it will likely come from these places. And before I open my tent, I assess where and when I have been somewhere that I may have collected an unwanted guest along the way.
Think hard about using companion plants. Has the companion plant drawn a pest away from the cannabis plant, or were the pests drawn into the grow space BECAUSE you had the companion plant. ie: I’d say almost all experienced gardeners know that pepper plants are a magnet for aphids. If you happen to see aphids on your cannabis plants, IMHO now is the time to introduce a companion plant (in this case a pepper plant) to attract them away from the cannabis. After a period of time, I would consider removing the pepper plants and replacing it with another (the younger and more succulent plant the better)… I would do this until this particular grow cycle was over… I would NOT introduce the pepper plant from the very start, you might just be encouraging the aphids to come into your grow space where they otherwise would have avoided for some other reason. (And just because you put a pepper plant into your grow and many aphids migrated to it, this doesn’t mean there still aren’t aphids on your cannabis or hiding in the grow space or media.)
I never allow anyone in my grow space, but I also prefer that no one ever comes in my house. Inversely, I never go into someone else’s grow space. I’ll chat all day about growing, growing hacks, etc. etc… but in this world, if someone really had a problem that they need help with a picture off of a smart phone won’t transfer a potential problem to your grow.
I never accept clones or seeds (or other plant material) anymore*; however, to get started you’ll have to… I recommend seeds personally. (* Now that I have “what works for me” in the grow room there is only one instance that I would introduce something new into my grow space (but I won’t get into that here); my point here is that the looser you are with accepting clones (with or without the foreign media) into your grow space, the more likely it is that you are going to have problems down the road.) I think it’s fair to say, at this point in time, the jury is still out on how many viruses etc. can be transferred into a grow space through seed. Do you really “need” that cultivar?
Before I moved to soil growing, I had problems with thrips via the commercial "grow mediums". The last and most effective way (and safest way ) that I "controlled them" was by taking the clay balls used in hydro systems and putting them in a pail with a lid. I then dumped in a copious amount of diatomaceous earth, I then rolled the pail around dusting the clay balls with the powder. (Wear a mask when doing this... the D/E is a mild throat irritant) I also placed a copious amount of diatomaceous earth around the stem of the plant… some pests will want to climb from the soil surface up the stem of the plant. I placed a layer of these balls on the top of my pots right after watering the plants. This makes the bugs crawl over the diatomaceous earth any time they move above the soil surface. It worked quite well, with the exception that I would have to vacuum them off of the soil surface, screen them to remove the excess dirt, and then re-dust them before re-use. I also cut sticky traps to the appropriate size and laid them on the top of the dusted balls as well. (A few balls stick to the sticky traps, but not many.) A cheap wet/dry shop vacuum is a handy tool in the grow, and an item that I’d purchase before many other “trinkets”. Typically, the dusted balls would last through more than one watering. This approach was effective at knocking the hell out of their numbers. If you are near harvest and you are struggling to make it through to the end, you might wish to try this method... it's fairly cheap, and certainly a safer choice than some others.
Once the harvest is over, I would reconsider what medium I would be using for the next go round, and at the very least I’d try to find a suitable method to sterilize the media if you intended on re-using it.
