Pest Control Via Polyculture & Biodiversity Experiment

[C21H30O2]

So I had and idea...

The recent trend in agriculture, at least in California, has been to grow produce organically and many of the problems associated with pests are controlled by planting a variety of plants rather than a monoculture which is a common practice in most commercial farms. Many of you already know this but my thought was why not apply this theory to my grow room? I already do this by running a perpetual grow in which every two weeks a new set of 3 to 5 plants are placed in the flowering room.


My question, what plants other than cannabis are consumed by spider-mites. These plants should be relatively easy to grow indoors, requires little attention, and is loved as a food source by spider mites and possibly other pests

What plants do spider mites NOT like, these plants could be placed around flowering cannabis plants whereas the spider mite loved plants will go in a corner. This will keep the spider mite population alive but away from my precious crop.

So why keep the spider mites alive? so that spider mite predators will stay in your grow room. they seem to be an effective organic deterrent to spider mites but as soon as the spider mites are gone so are they and some how the spider mites always find a way to resurrect themselves in my grow room.

So here is the plan, the veg plants will be sprayed with neem weekly to keep spider mites under control (this cannot be done in flowering because it may effect the quality of the buds). The plants will be sprayed the first two weeks of flowering as well. At this point the beneficial take over. after the first two weeks of flower the plants will also be sprayed with ACT to break down any remaining neem thereby making the plant more habitable for beneficials. The spider mites and therefore the spider mite predators will be maintained by feeding on "sacrificial" plants. I will also introduce other beneficals such as ladybugs, mantids and anything else recommended.

The goal is to create a self sustained mini eco-system within my flowering room. I will simply have to replace the "sacrificial" plants from time to time.

I think I will also spray grow room surfaces with ACT periodically, the goal being the create a more habitable environment for life.

Comments, Questions, Criticisms are all welcome and desired. Perhaps the best way to control pests is not to wipe them out but to create a balance. We will see...

 

[justa waterboy]

you may be on to something here, creating a balance in your system is good, but to me the only good spider mite is a dead one.

 

[brain candy]

I've had similar idea's since hearing permaculture teachers say things like "you don't have a locust plague.. you have a turkey deficiency" and "they're not weeds, they're nutrient highways", etc..

 

[Trichgnomes]

Interesting idea. I'm all for experimentation, but I'd have to agree with justa on this one. That may be an emulation of one aspect of an ecosystem, however in nature those "sacrificial" plants would not just be a home/refugee for spider mites. Predators of the mites would come and seek food there as well. My hypothesis is that your experiment would only perpetuate the existence of the spider mites. I think predator mites and other biological inoculants would be a more successful route.

I have been wanting to incorporate some type of polyculture in my garden as well, but have yet to find appropriate plants to use. There is a guy Dave Jacke who wrote a fairly extensive two volume book entitled Edible Forest Gardens--http://www.edibleforestgardens.com/--

He stresses the importance of the plants that one chooses to incorporate in a polycultural manner to have specific, and ideally multiple beneficial interactions with each other, the 3 sisters as an obvious example.

 

[VerdantGreen]

traditionally it's called companion planting.

i would say that basil would probably be a good sacrificial plant and would enjoy the same conditions as weed.

as a plant to repel mites, french marigolds (tagettes) are a common one used to confuse pests that find their targets by smell. mint is also a commonly used one to repel insects, but probably likes cooler condition than a grow room.

as for building up an 'ecosystem', i think that will be a struggle indoors but it cant hurt to try. grow all your companion plants from seed in the growroom or otherwise you will likely bring in unwanted pests on them anyway. garlic or chives/onions may work too

V.

 

[Trichgnomes]

Companion planting, intercropping, polyculture--I'm pretty sure they are all fairly synonymous.

as a plant to repel mites, french marigolds (tagettes) are a common one used to confuse pests that find their targets by smell.
V.

I think something along those lines would be a good way to go, try to bring some type of plant that would hinder the mites ability to reproduce.

 

[VerdantGreen]

yes, all are similar but different. polyculture and intercropping are simply growing more than one type of crop at once to encourage a more natural ecosystem, whearas companion planting implies that a more specific benefit is gained from one plant protecting or helping the other or each other.

it might be worth looking into the neem tree itself. its in the mahogany family so gets huge but you could try and find out at what size it's beneficial qualities are evident. perhaps a sapling or two ?

V.

 

[C21H30O2]

Interesting idea. I'm all for experimentation, but I'd have to agree with justa on this one. That may be an emulation of one aspect of an ecosystem, however in nature those "sacrificial" plants would not just be a home/refugee for spider mites. Predators of the mites would come and seek food there as well. My hypothesis is that your experiment would only perpetuate the existence of the spider mites. I think predator mites and other biological inoculants would be a more successful route.

I have been wanting to incorporate some type of polyculture in my garden as well, but have yet to find appropriate plants to use. There is a guy Dave Jacke who wrote a fairly extensive two volume book entitled Edible Forest Gardens--http://www.edibleforestgardens.com/--

He stresses the importance of the plants that one chooses to incorporate in a polycultural manner to have specific, and ideally multiple beneficial interactions with each other, the 3 sisters as an obvious example.

I think you missed part of my post, I said that I would be using predator mites, the problem is if you wipe out spider mites the predator mits go too so you need to keep a population alive to keep your predators alive. the idea is to keep the population alive away from my plants but alive and controlled in case they spread to my other plants there will be predator mites to control them.

I have used the foggers and sprays before but mites always come back so I see no harm in trying something that may control them. Worse case scenario they come back in large numbers and I have to spray or fog the room.

 

[VerdantGreen]

i thought the predators could live quite a long time without mites/prey?

 

[C21H30O2]

traditionally it's called companion planting.

i would say that basil would probably be a good sacrificial plant and would enjoy the same conditions as weed.

as a plant to repel mites, french marigolds (tagettes) are a common one used to confuse pests that find their targets by smell. mint is also a commonly used one to repel insects, but probably likes cooler condition than a grow room.

as for building up an 'ecosystem', i think that will be a struggle indoors but it cant hurt to try. grow all your companion plants from seed in the growroom or otherwise you will likely bring in unwanted pests on them anyway. garlic or chives/onions may work too


V.

Thx VD,very helpful post. I am doing both polyculture and companion planting so any other plants that may be helpful would be appreciated. I think the real test of this will be if their are still predators (mites, ladybugs, mantids) after a couple months in the grow room, this would show signs of generations which would mean the environment is sustaining life.

 

[C21H30O2]

i thought the predators could live quite a long time without mites/prey?

most of the people I have seen using predators say they die when the food dies. yet somehow spider mites always make it back. I figure if the food web stays with live in the room all associated critters will live and thrive.

 

[Chief]

2 days ago i planted lavender in the garden

 

[jaykush]

plant and grow as many herbs as you can, not only will they help keep balance to your room, you will also get extra uses out of them, medicinal herbs, culinary herbs, etc.... most herbs have strong smells that pests dont like.

I've had similar idea's since hearing permaculture teachers say things like "you don't have a locust plague.. you have a turkey deficiency" and "they're not weeds, they're nutrient highways", etc..

yea i have heard permaculturists say things like, "you don't have a slug problem, you got a duck deficiency" specially the weeds one, they do so much more for us than we know and yet we spray them with chemicals at first glance. sad thing is most common weeds are eatable too. the dandelion for example is one of the best, and it makes great fertilizer too.

 

[Mr. Greengenes]

C21H30O2, I like your way of thinking. I was experimenting this summer/fall with swapping a tomato plant from the growroom to outdoors in the hopes of picking up predators. Though I haven't busted out the magnifying glass to confirm them, I think it has worked. I purchased predator mites once, back in the late 70's in NYC, and they worked exactly as advertised. Never had any more trouble with mites 'till I moved out here. Now, my mite problem is winding down, so I can only imagine that my predators are getting a foothold. One thing I'd like to share is, I never spray topsides of leaves with my neem oil. Mites don't go up there anyway unless the bottom is overpopulated, so the battle can be kept concentrated on the lowers if the population is kept low. I was musing the other day that, maybe the predators go upside more often, and that by spraying only undersides, I'm killing more bad mites than good? Either way, I'm spraying so little these days that the predators can have an easy go of what mites are left now.

 

[Trichgnomes]

yes, all are similar but different. polyculture and intercropping are simply growing more than one type of crop at once to encourage a more natural ecosystem, whereas companion planting implies that a more specific benefit is gained from one plant protecting or helping the other or each other.

V.

I guess that makes sense. I always just thought of polyculture without companion planting as poor planning. If one were to study the biodiversity that exists in nature, explanations of proximity between certain species would most likely be found to no be purely coincidental.

I think you missed part of my post, I said that I would be using predator mites, the problem is if you wipe out spider mites the predator mits go too so you need to keep a population alive to keep your predators alive.

Definitely missed that part, thanks for the correction, and good luck!

 

[brain candy]

sad thing is most common weeds are eatable too. the dandelion for example is one of the best, and it makes great fertilizer too.

And great medicine..

I was thinking something along the lines of alowing fungus gnats to infest my worm farm, to perpetually feed beneficial nematodes, hopefully hyapoapsis would feed on some of the not so helpful mites in there too and sustain their population long term, therefore all worm castings I use would hopefully contain a BALANCE of pest & predator.. I'd be an idiot to think that I wont have a fungus gnat infestation, or a problem with mites one day.. This way, I would be introducing the problem Knowingly but also the solution so that hopefully it would be controlled to the point that it never becomes a real problem.

 

[jaykush]

one thing i have found to work amazing with mites is, jumping spiders. they love to eat mites and dont make webs, they roam around in search of food instead of wait for it to come to them, as well as tiny and cool looking.

 

[brain candy]

Lol, thanks mate, looking at jumping spiders in a new light, I'll stop stepping on em now

Two hydroponic farmers in Victoria (Australia) apparently discovered a new beneficial mite not so long ago which they are going to mass produce as a new "beneficial". It's called the 'Microsmiris Mite'. I've only heard of them being used to control thrips so far but hopefully they have a taste for spider mites too, lol.

Just goes to show ya, there are many overlooked and undiscovered beneficial bugs, I've had strange red wasp looking things come & eat fungus gnat larvae off the top layer of the soil when drenching pots outside and wished I could have given them a permanent home indoors..

 

[MrFista]

Here's some earlier efforts at companion planting. The logic is sound, hard to strike a balance indoors though.

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=70980&highlight=companion+planting

 

[jaykush]

Lol, thanks mate, looking at jumping spiders in a new light, I'll stop stepping on em now

how dare you! i suppose you stomp on wolf spiders too?