i been using a guano mix to keep bugs including grasshoppers & animals away for a few years & i get about a 90% success rate i mix a fairly high dose of bat guano in a gallon of water & let it sit for about a week when i open the lid & take a whif & it smells like raw sewage its ready. i filter it out really well & spray my plants very well a few times a week & stop about a month from harvest. the plants love the extra nutrients & there are little amount of bugs on the plants. i also spray other plants that surround mine.the plants use up the nutrients prior to harvest & there is absolutley no sewage/guano smell or taste.

its also helps not to have any branches touching your plants & sometimes i'll sprinkle a line of salt around my pots because snails & slugs will not travel over the salt "they do they'll die" dont use this method if your plants are the ground "you do plants die"

[fishheadbob]

Re: Deer, my biggest enemy. For the edible and smokeable parts of my garden I use electric fence. 1 strand at waistheight is enough for Bambi and her pals to look elsewhere for an easy meal. She could jump it if she was interested, but where I am she'll just go away. Total cost new for a fencer, insulators and wire is maybe $75. I use a timer and only run at night as deer are mostly nocturnal. A second higher strand would add about a dollar.
Early on the chemical Thiram sold commercially as Spotrete F was mentioned. The reference quoted was way out of context, Thiram is only labeled as a turf fungicide and a deer repellent on christmas trees, it is very long lasting and not to be used anywhere close to human consumables. Directions mandate protective clothing, eyewear, and respirators. Don't use this poison, it is a poison, on anything someone is going to ingest.[u]

[luciano28]

Hey Im just posting this for any n00bs that dont know what it looks like. This is Deer poop!! If you see little piles of this, you know deer hang out in that area.

[Nickel Bag]

Nice thread Pure!

When I have planted in pots dug in very close to the water, my biggest problem has been muskrats. They use young plants to make their dens. I even put chicken wire around one and they ripped it up and stole the plant. Now I never plant right on the water edge if I know there are muskrats in the lake.

My other problem that occasionally happens just before harvest time around the end of September, Corn Bores attack from inside the stem. They can ruin a monster plant in very little time very late in the season, the limbs just start dieing and falling down. When you dry it out you find these little whitish orange worms inside the buds. They smoke up OK but make you harvest the girl about two weeks before its realy ready. This drastically reduces the yield. Also bag appeal is reduced, after all who wants to see worms in their stash?

If anybody has solutions for either problem I thank you, I'll be checking for any updates.

Thanks,
Nickel

I'm not exactly sure what kind of pests I'm messing with right now, so hopefully someone can help. Whenever I pick up my smallers clones(6 plants in 4" pots), I notice underneath little white/clearish and orangeish bugs. They like to hangout on the bottom of my pots. I havn't noticed any on the plants themselves though. Any ideas?

Also, I've noticed a few white fly's here and there...should I be worried about them?

[tokinjoe]

Huey, is it possible to take pictures of these bugs? I do know that termites will den up in pots or containers. I've had that happen to me before. The workers are whitish in color and usually disappear into the pot as it is lifted, or into the ground. Can you tell if the insects are also burrowing into the ground under the pots?

[tokinjoe]

BACKCOUNTRY, kudo's on the deer prevention post here bro. By far they are my biggest enemy. I think I posted it up in one of Silverback's threads but in '06 I had a white widow in full bloom that was heavily munched by a deer. Actually two of them but I only can find pics of one. I'm not exaggerating either, the deer ate buds loaded with trichs. Check out the lower branches, or what's left of them in the picture below. No doubt if at all possible using chicken wire is the one way to keep deer out of your MJ. In my experience, it's the only way. Check out the bottom branches, especially on the right side, they hit it all the way around:

[tokinjoe]

Another of my biggest pests are caterpillars. I apologize in advance if it's been posted on in this thread and I've missed it, but DIPEL (Thuricide) is the way to kill these bud destroying pests. Caterpillars eat the bud and as they do they leave a trail of waste or excrement behind them. This is especially damaging to the budding plant as the caterpillar bores into the bud and excrements behind itself. All it takes is rain, dew or both and the excrement will mold, and it quickly spreads to the rest of the bud. Often it is not noticed as the bud actually rots from the inside out.

I've used Dipel in the past in powder form but it's hard to hide a plant that has been treated. For this reason I'll be using the liquid Dipel from now on. It is a pest specific day of harvest pesticide that kills upon ingestion, not contact. One plant I had was severely infested and after treatment I could not find a live caterpillar anywhere. Needless to say due to damage I had to harvest the plant prematurely. It also kills a variety of worms and other caterpillars that destroy crops. I get mine at Lowe's in powder form and dont' recall seeing the liquid form although your local store may have it. Most of the caterpillar damage I've observed has been in the later budding stages and it's advisable to be proactive in treating the plants before the caterpillars infest them if that's possible. I hope this helps.

Originally Posted by tokinjoe

Huey, is it possible to take pictures of these bugs? I do know that termites will den up in pots or containers. I've had that happen to me before. The workers are whitish in color and usually disappear into the pot as it is lifted, or into the ground. Can you tell if the insects are also burrowing into the ground under the pots?

Hmmm...it does sound like that...I'll try my best to get a picture either tomorrow or the next day, but I'm not sure how good of a picture I'll be able to get.

Alright....my camera isn't that good at taking close macros...and so I found a 2x eye loop(I was going to buy a stronger one, but i havnt had the chance to go get one) around the house...these are the best I could get.


You can see the orange and white/clear bugs. They mainly hang out under the pots, very very few are around the rim, and I havn't seen any on the plants or in the soil.
Are these termites or what?Thanks for any help..