Buddah Watcha's presents Temple of Ganja

[Dr.NO]

Chem Kesey! I like that name. Clever.

 

[soil margin]

Hey dude, welcome!


On a negative note, was inspecting the veg room and I found a few plants with a bunch of spider mites, I think since the temps went up a bit they prolly hatched out of hibernation and are active again, motherfuckers. Pretty upset, I tossed the 3 pots that had the most of them, it was a few Lazy Lightning and 3 Cookies and Creams f2, oh well. The other plants didn't seem affected...


Also saw a few mites here and there in the flower room, doesnt seem to be too bad there, hopefully it will stay this way. I will order a bunch of predatory mites and hopefully they will keep things in check...


These fuckers man, even after bleaching everything 3 times, vacuuming a few times, cleaning everything, they seem to have survived somehow the battle... Oh well, I guess we need to fight them till the death... I guess the plans for popping more seeds will be paused for now till I get this under control, dont feel like waisting more genetics due to these fuckers...


Anyways, thats my rant, lets hope things dont get too bad, last round I found them fuckers around this time in flower, and I was able to ride it out without major issues during the flower period...


Any suggestions are much appreciated!



Thanks!

Hey there I'm enjoying the pics. One tip in regards to the spider mites. Grow cilantro all around the base of the plants like you do with the clover/alfalfa. Works as a living mulch but is also extremely effective at repelling spider mites (and a bunch of other buggers as well). Cilantro/dill/catnip are my standard 3 companion plants to grow around cannabis and I usually seem to be pest free without any additional effort beyond planting a few extra seeds and watering. Lavender is also pretty awesome as an anti-pest plant but harder to grow from seed.

 

[Buddah Watcha]

Hey there I'm enjoying the pics. One tip in regards to the spider mites. Grow cilantro all around the base of the plants like you do with the clover/alfalfa. Works as a living mulch but is also extremely effective at repelling spider mites (and a bunch of other buggers as well). Cilantro/dill/catnip are my standard 3 companion plants to grow around cannabis and I usually seem to be pest free without any additional effort beyond planting a few extra seeds and watering. Lavender is also pretty awesome as an anti-pest plant but harder to grow from seed.

hey broda, welcome and thanks for the tips! It's funny that you mentioned that, today I planted a bunch of cilantro seeds to use as a companion plant to help against the mites... I also planted beans, which I heard its one of their favorite foods. I'm hoping they will rather eat the beans then my plants, last round I had one plant with a squash plant as a volunter in the cover crop, I noticed the mites liked hanging around in it...



Today I inspected the garden a bit, it seem like the worse plants were the ones I tossed, and mostly in the veg, of course its a lot harder to inspect the flower room right now, its pretty crowded, but I looked for damage on the leafs and unfortunately found a few mites here and there. I sprayed everything with Botanigard WP22 (Beauveria Bassiana) very thoroughly, 5 liters total... Hoping this helps a bit, last time I sprayed everything, neem , pyrethrin, bronner, lavender flower soak, oils, nothing worked, I got some horticultural soap coming alone with persimillis and californicus... Probably will hit the plans with the soap wait a few hours and release the mites, any suggestions is appreciated! Hoping since the infestation is not so bad it should take care...


I turned heater off and its around 17C which is good and humidity was around 60 before spraying, so probably high 70s by now... Try to slow them down a bit...



Anyone has any experience with Garlic Oil? Might try to order some and give it a shot... Mites suppose to not like garlic smell or taste... Might also give an extra top dress with some neem..


Besides that, plants looks healthy overall.. The testers have some real huge fan leafs, this things are def the biggest ive seen indoors... I saw a few females on the Apple turnovers which is nice... A few more clones got rooted, yesterday I transplanted around 12 clones to small 4" pots with some mycos on the roots...


Also, the last 2 cannaventure seeds popped out of the ground, so we got 6 out of 6! Lets just hope we can keep them healthy!


I'll update yall on the battle!


Peace!

 

[Buddah Watcha]

I was also thinking, that maybe I should let them beans grow, i planted them in separated pots, and move them into the room, hopefully the mites will migrate to beans, and then I can hit the beams with some nasty chemicals, abamectin, something systematic that will definitely kill the mites, and then I can just discard the bean plants... I was thinking about donig this especially between cycles, I should have tried before I started this run... Or even with some bunk random seeds I have around, grow them till the mites start coming out of hybernation and then hit them with some chemicals and wipe them fuckers clean, afterwards just kill the plants and discard, and clean room to remove any chemical residues...


Anybody think that this might work? Nobody wants to use those nasty chemicals because nobody wants to smoke that, but if you are just throwing the plants afterwards away, who cares... Like a trojan horse type deal..


Sounds good on paper but I will have to try it to see if it will be effective or not... These fuckers are making me lose some precious sleep and we dont like that, need to come up with something creative, cuz everything I have read online is proven to be bunk IME... need to think outside the box, come up with unique new ideas to fight these pests....


anyways, i'm high, just smokes some Goji OG, love the effects on this

 

[soil margin]

Honestly spider mites are so pervasive and so common, I think trying to exterminate them is a losing battle. You can sterilize a room top to bottom and they will be back next week. That's why companion plants are the answer imo. You fill a room or an area up with enough plants that spider mites hate and they will just stay away permanently. There are also so many good plants that repel them, it seems a waste not to grow them.


https://homeguides.sfgate.com/companion-planting-defeat-spider-mites-73748.html

 

[Buddah Watcha]

Honestly spider mites are so pervasive and so common, I think trying to exterminate them is a losing battle. You can sterilize a room top to bottom and they will be back next week. That's why companion plants are the answer imo. You fill a room or an area up with enough plants that spider mites hate and they will just stay away permanently. There are also so many good plants that repel them, it seems a waste not to grow them.


https://homeguides.sfgate.com/companion-planting-defeat-spider-mites-73748.html

Right on broda, thanks for the link, I will check it out. And you are right man, those fuckers are a pain in the ass to eradicate... I though root aphids was a pain in the ass... but a reset on the room was all it took, spider mites in the other hand... a real pain in the arse... I guess I need to learn to grow with them, last run they were present through the whole flower cycle, and I was still able to hit good numbers.


Guess the key is to really keeping healthy plants, guess I need to focus on that!...


We shall see how it goes!

 

[Buddah Watcha]

So at this point im not even sure if they are spider mites or not, doesn't really look like it, no 2 spot on their back, i know that sometimes they come without the spots and in different colors, but these are not looking like spider mites to me...


I'm wondering if they are broad mites or russet mites at this point, I always though that broads and russet mites were not able to be seen with naked eye, however these fuckers on my plants are easily seen if you look closely...


Really frustrated right now, hoping the predators do the trick, made a hot pepper/garlic concoction today and gonna spray the plants with it, hpoefully it helps, got some mineral soap coming too...


any help is appreciated!

 

[nickman]

Good luck with those little bastards

 

[Buddah Watcha]

Thanks nick, I need every luck I can find at this point... Regretting starting all my top notch strains for this round, hopefully we can finish or at least make some seeds, so not all is lost...




I was able to snap some pictures of this pests... any help is much appreciated... at this point i have no clue what they can be, lol


sorry its hard to get a good pic of them fuckers...

 

[nickman]

Looks like some kinda mite to me....

I had them a long time ago... mine seemed bigger than those though...
wish I could help more...!!!...

 

[Buddah Watcha]

So after many hours of research I think they are not spider mites, but rather broad mites or cyclamen mites.


Last night I did a heavy defoliation, trying to remove as many of them fuckers physically as possible. I also did a heavy sulfur spray on everything. Today I release around 600 persimillis and 1000 californicus. I will go spray them some aloe vera and some humic acids to help them recover a bit... Really hoping the predator mites will help... Also got andersoni's in a few days, plus MET52, Botanigard and Biowar.



Also grabbed some mineral soap, however, I think I need to lay off from using it for a week or so, till the sulfur goes away a bit, otherwise I heard you can burn your plants hard...


Gonna let it ride and hope for the best... I'm gonna try to take a few fresh cuttings from the females in a week or so and wash them really hard with hot water and try to clean things up, hopefully I can save a few of the genetics at least, or make some seeds...


I chopped already 7-8 male plants, yesterday I soaked them in 120 degree water for 5 minutes or so, and now they are separated in another room waiting to start dropping pollen for collection...


I suspect these fuckers are coming from my worm castings... things were going great till I start top dressing and watering in with it... real bummer, I removed the castings from the room and will be using in the outdoor garden only from now on...


I'll keep an close eye on the crop the next week or so, and if things are not looking any better might just scrap this round, real bummer since I just mixed 800 litters of new soil and cleaned everything... oh well, very disappointing and depressing to say the least, but it is what it is, try to keep my head up fighting the good fight. If nothing works might just resort to come toxic chemicals before scrapping everything, just to make sure these fuckers wont come back next time...


I'm open to any suggestions or words of encouragement!



Sorry to disappoint with this thread, but at least we are keeping it real, giving the down and dirty, and hopefully we can learn something together!

 

[positivity]

If you want to continue growing find a temporary grow spot. Thats what I did. Finding a new spot and cleaning the infested one was key.


Save the pollen in the fridge...maybe trim the sick plants you want to keep to just a few healthy branches so the pests have less places to hide. I'd make a temporary quarantine area for them with a no pest strip hanging. They do seem to work. Just don't sit with the vapors it emits


I can't use beneficials here so I can't comment on that. 100% eradication? Thats what I'd be aiming for


good luck

 

[Buddah Watcha]

If you want to continue growing find a temporary grow spot. Thats what I did. Finding a new spot and cleaning the infested one was key.


Save the pollen in the fridge...maybe trim the sick plants you want to keep to just a few healthy branches so the pests have less places to hide. I'd make a temporary quarantine area for them with a no pest strip hanging. They do seem to work. Just don't sit with the vapors it emits


I can't use beneficials here so I can't comment on that. 100% eradication? Thats what I'd be aiming for


good luck

thanks for the suggestions broda!

 

[too-dope]

So after many hours of research I think they are not spider mites, but rather broad mites or cyclamen mites.


Last night I did a heavy defoliation, trying to remove as many of them fuckers physically as possible. I also did a heavy sulfur spray on everything. Today I release around 600 persimillis and 1000 californicus. I will go spray them some aloe vera and some humic acids to help them recover a bit... Really hoping the predator mites will help... Also got andersoni's in a few days, plus MET52, Botanigard and Biowar.



Also grabbed some mineral soap, however, I think I need to lay off from using it for a week or so, till the sulfur goes away a bit, otherwise I heard you can burn your plants hard...


Gonna let it ride and hope for the best... I'm gonna try to take a few fresh cuttings from the females in a week or so and wash them really hard with hot water and try to clean things up, hopefully I can save a few of the genetics at least, or make some seeds...


I chopped already 7-8 male plants, yesterday I soaked them in 120 degree water for 5 minutes or so, and now they are separated in another room waiting to start dropping pollen for collection...


I suspect these fuckers are coming from my worm castings... things were going great till I start top dressing and watering in with it... real bummer, I removed the castings from the room and will be using in the outdoor garden only from now on...


I'll keep an close eye on the crop the next week or so, and if things are not looking any better might just scrap this round, real bummer since I just mixed 800 litters of new soil and cleaned everything... oh well, very disappointing and depressing to say the least, but it is what it is, try to keep my head up fighting the good fight. If nothing works might just resort to come toxic chemicals before scrapping everything, just to make sure these fuckers wont come back next time...


I'm open to any suggestions or words of encouragement!



Sorry to disappoint with this thread, but at least we are keeping it real, giving the down and dirty, and hopefully we can learn something together!

sorry to hear about your troubles with the garden Buddah Watcha. I'm particularly interested in how those Chem Kesey turn out for you as I have had great success with the line. I've drawn a lot of inspiration from your posts. Your reports on the BlueDigiberry F2 moved that seed pack up on my list to be popped in the near future. Keep up the fight. Don't feel too bad about scrapping the round if you have enough dried flowers to sustain you.

 

[Buddah Watcha]

sorry to hear about your troubles with the garden Buddah Watcha. I'm particularly interested in how those Chem Kesey turn out for you as I have had great success with the line. I've drawn a lot of inspiration from your posts. Your reports on the BlueDigiberry F2 moved that seed pack up on my list to be popped in the near future. Keep up the fight. Don't feel too bad about scrapping the round if you have enough dried flowers to sustain you.

thanks broda... definitely, i'm looking forward to seeing how they turn out too, hopefully I'll be able to pull through this round to give them a test... I'm gonna try to make as many seeds as possible this round, if things are not looking so good... i'm hoping the predator mites will get the job done!


Plants looked not so bad today, I'm pretty sure the mites came from the worm castings, fucking sucks, i suspected there might be mites in there and still went ahead and used it... was stupid


I was inspecting some cucumeris sachets that had made contact with the soil and drew high moisture in them, and i looked at the sachet closed up and I saw the fattest broad mites just chillin there, like a group orgy, thats probably their breeding place. I made sure to remove all them things out, cucumeris aint doing shit to them anyways so fuck it, I also removed the cover crop as much as possible and scrapped the soil trying to remove the top layer.


I might take a few cuttings once I'm able to id all male and females and dip em in hot water for 30 minutes or so, and use fresh medium and start them in a separate room in a new tent like suggested, till I'm able to clean the room and get rid of soil... major work and back breaking but it is what it is... after that probably let things settle for a few weeks, and reset... major pain inthe ass, but needs to be done i guess, better than chasing my tail for months and months...



guess we now need to wait and see how things will turn out. I'll snap shots tomorrow, overall things dont look so bad, at least not yet

 

[Buddah Watcha]

Last night I inspected the garden briefly, plants looked ok, definitely better than the previous days... I scoped for around 40 minutes and couldnt see any live broad mites, who knows, maybe the sprays and the mites are doing the trick... I think the defoliation helped a lot too, they were mostly attacking the lower leafs and branches, that needed to go anyways on the popcorning process... so everything that had some damage or looked like it won't yield was removed.


I also removed a few more males yesterday.


So far, female confirmed I have:
6x Mendo Purps x SSDD (tester), nice vicks menthol stem rub dominant on all these

8x Chem Kesey, some really nice phenos in there, great structure!

3 or 4 Black Triangles, not much branching

2 Blueberry Indica

2-3 Miles Davis, MD#1 stem rub is just divine smelling!

2 or 3 Hashplant-D
3-4 Apple turnovers (these are taking a while to show)
Plus the feminized seeds:
2x GG#4 s1, #1 looks amazing structure, very branchy!
2x Albert Supertramp, these stayed stocky and short under the 5k lights, nice piney stem rub

1x Chocolope, also under 5k light, short and stocky, not looking sativa dom at all...





I also threw in a Nookies bag seed a friend gave me, and a few of my testers (Headbanger x SSDD aka Dreamhead, and a few Dreamhead#6 F2s, along with a few Granola Funk#4 (the shit smelling pheno) f2s), some of those already showed sex and are females, the males will be removed soon!


I'm about to go check the garden and I will snap some shots!

 

[ReikoX]

Keep up the fight, you can definitely get control of them and finish up.

 

[starke]

I'd make a temporary quarantine area for them with a no pest strip hanging. They do seem to work. Just don't sit with the vapors it emit


good luck

I can confirm the No-Pest Strips on Russets in veg.

 

[Buddah Watcha]

Thanks Reiko, I think we got this too bro! If we don't win, I'm never investing another penny on predator mites lol... 1k californicus, 600 persimillis, 5k andersoni and 5k swirskiis... no way broads are gonna live after that lol, went a bit overkill, but they are cheap enough to justify going overboard to save this crop! Ive been reading a bunch of studies where they use like 10 predators per plant to control broads with full success, well, I got at least 120 predators per plant lol


So far I dropped around 100 bucks on predator mites... but its well worth it, once you harvest plenty of organic clean dank nugs

 

[Buddah Watcha]

Day 14, beginning of week 2 of 11/13 Flower cycle Update:


Today inspected a few more leafs here and there, mostly the ones that had some visual damage to it. No broads were found alive! I did find some stuff that looked like mycelium, maybe botanigard doing its thang, or maybe dried up sulfur residue or vermiculite from the predators. Some of the residues I saw also looked like broad dead bodies, its hard to tell exactly what they were tho. However none of them fuckers sucking my plants dead...



Canopy not looking the prettiest with all the vermiculite, and spray residue from the sulfur, but its whatever, no bud sites yet so not a biggie, we dont smoke fan leafs anyways!


I sprayed some aloe with humic acids today to try to wash out some of the residue on the leafs... I will probably do the same a few more times before flowers start taking shape!


Besides the issues with pests I'm very happy with how the garden is turning out. Canopy filling up nicely, not so uneven considering all the different genetics on the line up. Hopefully we got things back on track now!


Was inspecting the GG4s1 today and both of them seem to be throwing out bunch of nut sacks... no bueno, these plants did get a bit stressed, not gonna lie, had to go in during the dark cycle a a few times to spray the sulfur and other stuff... plus the bugs... but still, they look like straight male plants at this point.


Still a few plants not showing sex yet... a few hashplant-ds and a few black triangles and a mile davis or 2...


Veg tent looks ok, the plants that got hit the most were the Lemon Dizzle testers, due to me using some extra worm castings in the mix, where the broads came from... Most of the clones are rooted, I need to take another few round of clones to make sure I got all fems cloned. Also gonna clone the 2 or 3 selected males Ill be using in case I find something cool to work it in the future!


Should start seeing some flowers this week I expect. Temps were a bit lower than Id like the past few days, but I turned the space heater back on so should be back to low 20s... Humidity been around mid 70s, which is perfect for the predator mites and the stretching phase!


I will be implementing a better IPM program, rotating MET52, Botanigard, Biowar foliar, Mineral Soap, Aloe, Dr. Bronner and Essential Oils, besides the predator mites and a weekly cleaning regime.. And no more stupid mistakes of bringing suspect material into the grow room.



Enjoy the pictures!


Left:

Right:

Chocolope on the back left, and 2 Albert Supertramps, really liking the supertramps... especially the one on the back! These were vegged in 3 gallon pots, and when I flipped to flower I added an extra 3 gallon pot filled halfway with soil so the roots have extra space to bulk up those nugs, I call this the elevator technique! I'm still experimenting with this tech and developing and seeing if its worth it! At least it helped even out the canopy!

Blueberry (Indica) x Snow Lotus and I think 2 Granola Funk#4 F2s that i'm testing, there was some empty space in there so I stuck 2 of them in there... one is very light green, I suspect is a effect from the broads, not sure, or maybe light bleached, I have another plant doing the same, also another one that got placed to fill a spot...

Black Triangles, I removed a male already, and there is already 2 females I think, I fucked up when transplanting these and stuck a Chem Kesey by accident right in the middle spot, it was easy to ID them apart, of course that is the nicest Chem Kesey I have probably and its a female lol, it is very branchy and vigorous! BT grows straight up with that OG structure and a bit slower during veg... got a BT male selected on the veg room...