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Round Infinity
- Thread starter Avinash.miles
- Start date
A gift from the gods. I wonder when it will totally catch on? I've been posting Rove beetles and living soil since I joined. It looks like living soil caught on somewhat. Now for the bugs.
: :need to get some more things like roves in my soil, seems like there are plenty of decomposers; need more worms and some roves.... i have about 300 gallons of soil in bloom alone; what kind of numbers of roves do i need to get a nice population started up - and once i get the population going in the soil what do i need to avoid to keep the roves happy and healthy.... im guessing it's similar to worms and everything else - not too dry, not waterlogged; no freezing, no solarizing; always something for the lil critters to eat, so they don't runoff looking for food... what else?
the rove beetles have completely established in my garden. they've been there for 9+ months at this point.
i remember feeling impatient for them to appear when we first ordered them. that memory had me thinking we must have gotten eggs or larvae, but the biobest website says they ship adults, so i must not be remembering correctly.
either way, they require no special treatment, or attention. they are pretty good about avoiding getting caught in the sticky buds or on my yellow monitoring sticky traps. definitely a good investment.
hypoapsis miles (now Stratiolaelaps scimitus) is even more established. those are stupid easy. i just poured a little bit out in each container, including fallow containers and my worm bins. there are probably billions of these in the garden at this point. they stay put on the upper layers of the soil and mulch. they eat a variety of pest bugs while they are in the larval or pupal stages.
i remember feeling impatient for them to appear when we first ordered them. that memory had me thinking we must have gotten eggs or larvae, but the biobest website says they ship adults, so i must not be remembering correctly.
either way, they require no special treatment, or attention. they are pretty good about avoiding getting caught in the sticky buds or on my yellow monitoring sticky traps. definitely a good investment.
hypoapsis miles (now Stratiolaelaps scimitus) is even more established. those are stupid easy. i just poured a little bit out in each container, including fallow containers and my worm bins. there are probably billions of these in the garden at this point. they stay put on the upper layers of the soil and mulch. they eat a variety of pest bugs while they are in the larval or pupal stages.
so heady - how many rove beetles did you use to treat how much soil originally?
With those rove beetles can you still use your typical organic pest routine like neem or hot pepper, lavender, nicotine waters ?
And beautiful garden Avinash I love the cover crops, don't see a ton of people doing that, I've been considering garlic as I've heard that several pests avoid it.
And beautiful garden Avinash I love the cover crops, don't see a ton of people doing that, I've been considering garlic as I've heard that several pests avoid it.
i released one package of 500 adult atheta throughout my small garden (library, veg, and flower). around 150 sq. ft. all together.
i don't spray my flowering plants, but we do daily foliars rotating neem and essential oils every few days on the rest of the garden.
i don't spray my flowering plants, but we do daily foliars rotating neem and essential oils every few days on the rest of the garden.
I was wondering the same thing regarding beneficial mites that I turned loose on my flowering plants. I'd like to keep doing essential oil and neem oil foliars in rotation up til the 3rd week of flowering when bud formation starts setting in but don't want to kill off the good mites? Also, what is the best way to inoculate (so to speak) a new round of plants in the flower area? Would simply removing the fan leaves from the plants coming down and going towards mulch on the new plants suffice? I also want to try my hand at doing my first no till run in my 7 gallon containers after this run with the Headbangers and LeeRoyTks.
Thanks for explanations y'all.
we usually take a few days off the foliars when deploying new mites.
as for moving them onto new plants, we always get a breeding system for the predator mites, which means they come with some foodstock so they can reproduce in the absence of pray and hopefully outlast a few breeding cycles of your pests.
by interrupting the cycle several times, you can reduce or prevent egg laying and ultimately phase out unwanted populations. i use the same logic with neem and essential oil spraying, my schedule is intended to interrupt the target pest's breeding cycles.
swirskii and cucumeris were both available in convenient packets. you just hang them up in the canopy and they slowly release predators into the environment for a few weeks. when we harvest or transplant the packets move to where they're needed.
as for moving them onto new plants, we always get a breeding system for the predator mites, which means they come with some foodstock so they can reproduce in the absence of pray and hopefully outlast a few breeding cycles of your pests.
by interrupting the cycle several times, you can reduce or prevent egg laying and ultimately phase out unwanted populations. i use the same logic with neem and essential oil spraying, my schedule is intended to interrupt the target pest's breeding cycles.
swirskii and cucumeris were both available in convenient packets. you just hang them up in the canopy and they slowly release predators into the environment for a few weeks. when we harvest or transplant the packets move to where they're needed.
thanks for the kickass informative posts, HB - typical of your thorough and impeccable style
adding larger (bugs not microbes) living things to my soil makes perfect sense.
i wonder tho about adding swirskii's and cucumeris to my rooms if i don't have pests that live thru the regular spray regime and constant monitoring/leaf removal and airflow that all constitutes my "IPM".
my concerns with those little predators is tht they don't stick with my room the same way soil borne organisms would... recycling soil, maybe no-till.... the bugs in the soil will continue to benefit my runs as time goes on - but will the swirskii's and cucumeris and other small small predators that live and breed in the canopy? when i cut and harvest all the plants and remove them from the grow space am i not removing all the beneficial predators? then what? dead predators on my buds?
maybe im making incorrect assumptions about them - excuses for my own shortcomings.
honestly tho, more airflow and better foliar sprays (essential oils over products like big time exterminator, still use iso from time to time) have helped alot keeping everything dead in the canopy area/ pyllosphere...
i AM curious how those essential oils (AND the iso for that matter) affect microbacterial life (especially beneficials) in the phyllosphere (primarily the leaves). am i just killing most or all of the beneficial bacteria on the surfaces of the leaves when spraying with ee's (neem included)? should i even care?
i tend to think that being concerned about these things is a good way of playing it safe. Usually after going "scorched earth" with essential oils, neem, iso foliar sprays i try to replenish those leaves with beneficial sprays like ogbiowar (just ran out of a big bag i got waaaay back), kelp, modern microbes, aloe, yucca, teas, and more...
i'm sure some would say that's all a waste, just make sure your bugs are gone, maybe a rinse after foliar treatments....
also it's super dry in my rooms (30% max rh) so i'm curious how much life there actually is on my leaf surfaces... ( I know, "get a damn microscope"
)shit that's in my head....
So essentially you could keep refilling the feed stock and keep a herd active at all times? And just remove the feed stop if some pests pop up...
And Avinash your point on foliar micros is a good one, and actually this is the third thread this week where that has come up. I haven't read any literature as of yet that speaks of colonies on leaves having any effect (negative or positive) like it is known to in soil. It would seem that if this were the case then a lot of people have been running in circles alternating neem and ACT treatments. Would make for some good research to get more definitive answers on the subject
hahaaaaa miles you clearly missed the heated debate on the topic of philosphere biology between my friends weird and mikell in the coot mix wrong ratios thread earlier this week 
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i order my bugs from biobest. they make a product called "nutrimite" or something that is intended to feed certain predator populations to extend their lives during pest-free times. i haven't messed with it yet. the packets i'm describing have a foodstock inside with the predator mites and the carrier medium (often vermiculite or bran).
cc---
i order my bugs from biobest. they make a product called "nutrimite" or something that is intended to feed certain predator populations to extend their lives during pest-free times. i haven't messed with it yet. the packets i'm describing have a foodstock inside with the predator mites and the carrier medium (often vermiculite or bran).
Gotta love the bugs. I have a good population of rove beetles in my garden.
I'm thinking they come from all the different types of Forest duff and random soil additions.
I keep everything on the most side and I have not seen a fungus gnats in months if not longer.
I wish I could post it bit I got a picture today of the final cocoon (probably not the right term) of a lady bug. I have seen a bunch of alligators running around and empty coocons from yonger generations. My aphid out break is getting squashed by a few lady bugs. It's awesome.
I think I have hover flies to. In the past aphid predators have made appearances. I love have all sorts of life in the garden. I have some crickets now and some frogs in the past. It was sad leaving and having someone miss some waterings and kill my frogies.
I was reading a great article in a acres from Dec 201t about benifical insects and how notill, diverse cover crops and plant rotations are the best way to encourage diverse benifecial bugs.
Sorry to ramble.
Everything s looking killer
I'm thinking they come from all the different types of Forest duff and random soil additions.
I keep everything on the most side and I have not seen a fungus gnats in months if not longer.
I wish I could post it bit I got a picture today of the final cocoon (probably not the right term) of a lady bug. I have seen a bunch of alligators running around and empty coocons from yonger generations. My aphid out break is getting squashed by a few lady bugs. It's awesome.
I think I have hover flies to. In the past aphid predators have made appearances. I love have all sorts of life in the garden. I have some crickets now and some frogs in the past. It was sad leaving and having someone miss some waterings and kill my frogies.
I was reading a great article in a acres from Dec 201t about benifical insects and how notill, diverse cover crops and plant rotations are the best way to encourage diverse benifecial bugs.
Sorry to ramble.
Everything s looking killer
dont nematodes kick ass? when i was doing organic I watered them suckers in and I never had an issue again with anything. but i was in doors tho.
great thread Miles... Im going to read through the whole thing as I can...
great thread Miles... Im going to read through the whole thing as I can...
Heady- that's awesome. I was just thinking about finding a feed stock for the predators. I know they make lady bug food. It's nice to know I could keep my mite predators around to.
I don't spray, at all really. Kinda lazy. Last round I had the aphids sneak up on me after most of the ladubugs died off. A few remained and now the aphids are disappearing again but it would have been nice to never let the population down. I have some mits that keep popping up everyone in a while to. Just on one or two leaves here or there and I have a N heavy plant that is a magnet for the bugs.
I also get a very little thrip damage.
None is of concern, the good bugs got my back.
I don't spray, at all really. Kinda lazy. Last round I had the aphids sneak up on me after most of the ladubugs died off. A few remained and now the aphids are disappearing again but it would have been nice to never let the population down. I have some mits that keep popping up everyone in a while to. Just on one or two leaves here or there and I have a N heavy plant that is a magnet for the bugs.
I also get a very little thrip damage.
None is of concern, the good bugs got my back.
they eat pretty much anything in the soil... not so much predatory mites simply because of their speed... the beetles will go for slower moving pests/decomposers.... and as they go after anything, they can also tend to be cannibalistic.... usually enough to keep themselves goin quite a while...
on the contrary... i did see it & it got me thinking... those two going for each others throats 24/7 can really be illuminating, and you know what they say about the more you know... the more you know you DON'T know.
thanks!
^ I'm guessing this is root aphid damage, altho i'm seeing less and less of them, much less than in previous runs when i didn't see any of this kind of damage, it's at the bottom of the canopy mostly, and happening on a few different plants.
nothing major but a few leaves here and there... not sure what it is if it's NOT root aphid damage? mag def?
Hey Avi: Is there any chance the soilless has too much Potassium? Last time I recycled I was a little too heavy on the Potassium and some of the plants had leaves that looked like that. I didn't have any Langbeinite so I threw in some Potash but don't tell anybody. OOPS a newbie mistake. Anyway I flushed and no harm done. Just a couple plants have a couple of the lower leaves that look exactly like your picture
