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Please help. Overnight plant death, 5 more plants wilting, gnawed trunks, voles?

Zarezhu

Zarezhu

Member
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Hey all. The gentleman I'm renting landing from told me there weren't gophers on/around his large property. For this reason, I didn't add gopher cages preseason.

Roughly a week ago, I noticed a plant started drinking less and less. The hole stayed moist, while other plants around it were thriving. It looked like it had been overwatered. Mild wilt for a week or so. This plant went into complete wilt overnight. I then noticed the trunk has been chewed/gnawed on. And the underside of branches near the ground.

I saw what looked like a small mouse scurrying around the hole in circles as I peeled the straw away. I killed the mouse (i think it's actually a vole). I did not find any gopher holes in the plant, or around the plant, even though it showed symptoms of roots being eaten (the slow wilt/stopped drinking/quick death overnight).

Today I noticed around 5 more large plants with moderate wilt, drinking less, and gnawing around the trunks. There are no gopher holes in the garden, but there are 2 gopher holes around my rows of corn.

The biggest plant in my garden, a potential 8 or 9 pounder, is not drinking much water any more, and has wilt similar to an overwatered plant. Gnawed stalk. Wtf do I do guys, I'm mildly panicking. Could lose a lot of medicine in the next few days.

I don't necessarily care aboit being humane, I want to exterminate these motherfuckers. Advice is appreciated. Have a blessed day all
 
CannaFunk

CannaFunk

Member
Hit up a local with experience if you have anyone you could contact, that being said, hope everything turns out ok with the plants.

Try digging down into the soil right near the base of the root, try about 6-8 inches and look for a white grub.
 
Green Squall

Green Squall

Well-known member
I had voles and surprisingly they didn't touch my cannabis plants. I still decided to set mouse traps and after a week or so or catching them they were gone.

I'd post some pics of the plants to get a better diagnosis. Could be a million things.
 
B

bigganjabud

Moles, voles, rabbits squirrels? Could be any number of critters
 
Zarezhu

Zarezhu

Member
A few more picture of the sad larger plant.


I havent seen a single rabbit or squirrel around the property whatsoever (30 acres). There was a family of turkeys and pheasants around. There are quite a few ferrel cats on the property as well.

I mostly suspect voles because I actually found and killed one when I uprooted the first plant that died. It looked like a small mouse, I did some research, almost positive its a vole.

So far Im considering wrapping trunks with steel wool (although I have 98 plants, with remesh cages around them, making it hard to reach the trunks). Im also considering throwing out a bunch of mouse traps.

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S

St. Phatty

Active member
Those first pics are great pics - in focus.

One approach is a home made electric fence. Of course you want to make sure you don't zap yourself.

I would start an electrical cord in a power strip with circuit breaker.

Just some exposed copper woven around the base branches where the Vole is chewing ... if that exposed copper is at 115 or 220 VAC ... the pest may experience a change of heart about eating your plants.
 
I

igrowone

Well-known member
Veteran
i've had voles, in my neck of the woods they're bigger than a field mouse
though i suspect there may be different variants across the county
 
OldPhart

OldPhart

Member
St. Phatty said:
Those first pics are great pics - in focus.

One approach is a home made electric fence. Of course you want to make sure you don't zap yourself.

I would start an electrical cord in a power strip with circuit breaker.

Just some exposed copper woven around the base branches where the Vole is chewing ... if that exposed copper is at 115 or 220 VAC ... the pest may experience a change of heart about eating your plants.
Click to expand...

Still not sure if this is a joke; at any rate, it sounds like a really bad idea.
 
S

St. Phatty

Active member
One option, if the Do it Yourself Electric Fence is not an option (or do you know an electrician who could help ? sometimes they sell electric fence kits in farm supply stores)

is to make the 'trunk' of the Cannabis tree hard to climb.

For example 18 inches vertical of aluminum flashing wrapped around the trunk, and put together in a way that doesn't give animals climbing points. e.g. epoxy it, wrap it with wire, remove the wire when the epoxy is dry.

But your plant trunk looks beefy and as if it has multiple branches.

The plant main stem looks easy to climb because there so many cross branches. It might be too late for this season but it is possible to get a large plant with flashing to protect from critters (by making it hard to climb) but it's got to have 18 inches of single stem.

It depends a little on the critter that's eating the plant. It sounds small, so that 18 inches vertical would put the plant out of reach.
 
N

northstate

Member
ICMag Donor
Damn it! We have pack rats or woodrats out here and they definitely do that when it gets hot and they are looking for water. Digger squirrels are also a problem. The thing that I have found to be effective is making a cage of sorts out of a 1' x 2' piece of chicken wire or metal mesh, making a collar about three or four inches away from the main stalk and folding the top in so they can't climb inside. sorry for your loss that shit is frustrating. Rat traps for sure! SNAP!
 
M

Mendogrowing

Active member
Mouse traps encircling the trunk will get them, spraying cayenne & garlic won’t do shit they are thirsty that’s why this type of damage happens now and not at the beginning of the season. Putting out a water source for them is a good tactic also, but the best long term method CATS! definitely a game changer at my place. Hit the affected plants with some myco pak or similar, the damage is a disease vector for stuff like fusarium. I wish you luck steering them to harvest. Those are voles for sure !
 
H

HenDokuYaku

Member
What would y'all do if it was a gopher? I stuck a hose ina gopher hole (I lost four big girls) and ran the hose for 30 mins and blew out tge pathways. Then I stuck a dog poo in the remaining entry holes I saw.
 
1

120Octane

Member
Go to the farmers market ask around, but be cool like honey bunny.

You may find out who may have a king snake or gopher snake that needs a new home.

No clue of your area but theres some kind of a constrictor thats not poisenous to you but mice,voles and gophers become a menu of food.
 
L

Limeygreen

Well-known member
Veteran
Cats generally help too, the feral ones or farmers cats seem to be more active in killing if you can leave them some food if you see them around or treats and entice them to keep in your area would help probably, could try wolf or coyote piss from the hunting store, just have to put back out periodically especially after a rain.
 
Zarezhu

Zarezhu

Member
Wellll, i'll update. There are around 20ish feral cats on the property. The guy im renting from is a hell of a character, dont ask -.-

I noticed certain cats chillen in the garden a few weeks prior to noticing the vole damage. They definitely didnt keep up with the voles though. I think its because I heavily mulched each plant with straw, giving the voles a lot of hiding grounds.

HOWEVER, on the plus side... Voles have been controlled for roughly 7-10 days now.

They completely killed 3 large plants (4-8lbs), and stunted my largest plant as well (shes not the happiest, but shes not going to die ).

I tried many different routes, and after my first attempts failed at deterring the voles, I went HAM.

They came in from the field facing one ide of the garden. I wrapped the trunks (as well as I could, VERYYY hard to do) with steel wool. Roughly 30 plants wrapped in steel wool to keep the voles from being able to chew. They still chewed on the bottoms of some of the branches, but only for a few days. The steel wool was a lifesaver.

I also did a SECON D round of pelleted castor oil. Soaked it into the ground 4 different days, in stages, in an attempt to puish the voles back out where they came from.

Also, I put in 2 solar powered gophers stakes roughly 40' apart (they say to put them 60' apart, I figured 40' would be more effective). They let out a buzz every 30 seconds that supposedly annoys the fuck out of the voles, or triggers their flight response or something yadda yadda.

And I balled up about 100 sticks of juicy fruit gum and threw them around the bases of the plants in the affected section. Supposedly juicy fruit works extremely well because e theyll eat it and wont digest it. will just clog em up.

I also gassed every hole I found, and kept finding for a few days. Anything near the garden at all. No new holes yet.

But Im ready if the motherfuckers try to come back again. Try me.
 
two heads

two heads

Active member
Veteran
Perhaps it was voles but my guess is slugs. I had a problem with them in 2008 and the damage was very similar to what you're seeing. Since then I use slug bait around the site and copper mesh around the base of each plant and have had no further issues. Here's my thread from 2008, with Black Bart's diagnosis and my report: https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=97511&page=2
 
Bush Dr

Bush Dr

Painting the picture of Dorian Gray
Veteran
two heads said:
Perhaps it was voles but my guess is slugs. I had a problem with them in 2008 and the damage was very similar to what you're seeing. Since then I use slug bait around the site and copper mesh around the base of each plant and have had no further issues. Here's my thread from 2008, with Black Bart's diagnosis and my report: https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=97511&page=2
Click to expand...

Slugs don't leave damage like this
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