I no longer believe Broad Mites cause DUDDING

[Hammerhead]

I sent that place a question about all there Chitosan. This was the answer I got. Make sure when you order you get what this person is talking about.


Dear xxxxxx
Actually industrial grade is more advanced than the agricultural grade in the raw material quality and specification, thus it's more expensive as well. This year we've upgraded our agricultural grade oligochitosan to industrial grade level, while maintaining the same agricultural price for our customers, so the molecular weight becomes 1500Da - far lower than 3000~5000Da agricultural grade as before, which means the functions of our oligochitosan also strengthened much more. Both the old type agricultural grade oligochitosan (3000~5000Da) and the new upgraded 1500Da oligochitosan are the best for US customers in agricultural area. But according to our customers' feedback, their plants love this new upgraded product than the old 3000~5000Da agricultural grade - their farming results also increased even more than before.

Chitosan oligochitosan 1500Da industrial grade is what you want. They don't make the Agriculture(3000~5000Da) grade anymore

 

[whatthe215]

Towards the end of my battle with duds, I came to think of nematodes as similar to AIDS. AIDS doesn't kill you, it destroys your immune system and then a common infection such as pneumonia is what actually kills you.

I used chitosan at 1gram/gallon and it certainly held issues at bay. Only 2 or 3 out of ~100 plants showed symptoms when I used chitosan, and at harvest I could barely tell the difference. Very minor dudding. But I don't think I would consider chitosan to be a long term solution. Perhaps it's a good thing to have in the rez to boost plant health/resilience but as a band aid will only disguise the underlying issue and allow it to continue spreading albeit slowly.

I think Phantom (Pylon but cheap) at 2ml/gal + Kontos treatment (2x 1ml/gal 14 day apart) may have actually helped more than chitosan. I'm not sure though, this experience was far far far from a controlled experiment lol.

I just read this article regarding golf course managers missing Nemacur (nematicide that was banned recently.) They used Avid and saw benefits in controlling their nematodes. Still no silver bullet they say.

http://www.golfcourseindustry.com/gci0614-nematode-control-options.aspx

If cutting down everything, sterilizing or moving, and popping new seeds isn't an option... I would personally go all out with Phantom, Avid, and Kontos on small plants. Soil drenching + dunking. While Chitosan may help, the big guns are necessary for really fuck the nematodes up.

For my new locations, I choose to setup a locker room + shower and wear dedicated clothing and shoes for each room. As the industry progresses pesticides aren't going to be allowed for much longer. AB 266 for CA is going to require pesticide, PGR, and contaminant testing before batches of flowers are allowed on the legit market. Cannabis is going to be treated like any other agricultural product intended to human consumption.

 

[accessndx]

Whatthe215L: great post. I was looking for a "recipe".
Having said that, it seems like alot of the stuff you mentioned are all -icides, particularly marketed as miticides. I didn't know until recently that Avid was ALSO used to kill other nasties. I had always used it for spider-mites, and only had to do that 1x.
So you're rotating different miticides that have a wide spectrum impact on other micro-organisms.
WHY did you choose the particular regimen you chose? Did you hit on that by accident?
How do you know that the Phantom/Pylon wouldn't work without Kontos?

Do you think you could get by with one of these miticides?

Do you think regular applications of Avid would be just as effective? Apparently it kills more than just mites.

 

[whatthe215]

Most of them chems are just general neurotoxins/cause issues for cellular processes, they aren't geared specifically for mites... just labeled for them.

I used multiple because they have different modes of action and because I wanted the treatment to be super effective.

Phantom is a contact killer with minimal/no residual action.

Kontos is not a contact killer, it builds up in the plant. It has upwards/downwards action, drench and it goes up into the leaves... spray and it's moved into the roots. Cool chemical.

Avid is a bit of contact and residual action. I didn't use avid during my last experience with nematodes/duds.

No half measures is my motto for these types of issues. However, the only true solution I know of is to kill everything and start over at a new location.

I literally threw EVERYTHING away... my clothing, furniture, sold cars and bought new ones. New house, new warehouse, new everything. After putting everything I had into fighting this issue, I said fuck it and shut down. My dogs are the only thing that got to come along, but only after multiple way intense baths lol.

 

[xxxstr8edgexxx]

jesus fucking christ homey. sp i would guess that means they kept coming back. i mean, why else would you do all that? sorry to hear it came to all that. hope its all gravy now.

 

[accessndx]

In an ideal world we'd all pick up and start fresh. That's not really practical if it happens again, and again. Prevention is the only real solution, but I'm eager to learn about treatment strategies that work such as the ones illustrated above by whatthe215.

 

[Weird]

the reason people are being plagued is because these pests and pathogens exists in great numbers in our local environments and environmental imbalance is making it worse.

sterility can be had at less expense and effort, and cannot be done if you are growing in soil.

Indoors people are jumping on the organic tip to get better tops without understanding the depth of understanding and skills needed to keep a dynamic environment balanced at all times. Outdoors the problem becomes no less daunting unless you have cultivars that are adapted to the local environment.

That is why the soil mixes evolved from LC's mix to Coot's mix for example, because neem meal opposed to blood meal provides proactive pest and fungus controls.

When growing with organics, you are fostering a living ecosystem which will draw in organisms that require balancing. There is no getting around this, it will happen on a macro (bugs) and microscopic level (microbiology) but with living systems there are many, many microscopic variables that can effect it, leaving most people feeling left out in the dark when there is an issue.

 

[Piff Rhys Jones]

So, I spoke to the lab and the preliminary results are pythium and fusarium. Negative for viruses.

Thanks for reporting back StudenTeacher.

Did the lab test for nematodes or broads and if so was the result negative for each?

Peace

 

[Hammerhead]

Has anyone got a dud while using a source of Chitin/Chitosan? or was this added after the dud symptoms occurred.

 

[Weird]

St8edge: In treating patients, often diagnostics are difficult to employ due to economic factors, insurance restrictions, and patient apprehension. In a perfect world it wouldn't be this way. Sometimes we have to go on our "best guess" and hope for a positive outcome.
Having said that, by employing a treatment strategy that is formulated using our best guess we can sometimes recursively obtain a diagnosis.

So if you believe there are nematodes at play, by treating for nematodes and achieving success you may be able to determine if that was indeed the case.

Has anyone done that?

I can say that from reading various dud threads the answer is at best unclear.

These threads often devolve into organic vs. chemical hate, and are confounded by massive pissing contests.

I'm not really interested in whose brain is the largest....just facts that can be used to treat this horrid and debilitating condition.

thank you for this post

this is basically how I garden, I take note of causation via input reactions and why I simply do everything in measures and degrees

same processed used in many professions to formula a problem to a solution

not saying it trumps looking for specific conditions to eliminate or validate a prognosis, but in all honesty if all the answers where there already weed wouldn't be so valuable

the reason these answers are unknown is because we are the forefront, the cutting edge, and this is where pragmatic time proven approaches can be most effective

 

[whatthe215]

jesus fucking christ homey. sp i would guess that means they kept coming back. i mean, why else would you do all that? sorry to hear it came to all that. hope its all gravy now.

Actually they didn't really come back enough for me to notice, but I was about to go into major expansion mode and didn't wanna risk bringing anything along for the ride. Even 1% chance was too much for me.

I think it's possible to save a spot.

Step 1) Throw away anything that has even the smallest of symptoms. Throw away any plants that shared that tray or were near it.

Step 2) Throw away any plants larger than 10" tall or in a pot larger than 4".

Step 3) Bleach for days. Deep clean like you never have before. Move tables and spray bleach everywhere. Make sure you've got ventilation and a paint odor mask or ya might pass out.

Step 4) Drench plants with Phantom (Pylon) 2ml/gal to start. Dunk em all in Avid. (reason for 10" plant max) Do Phantom 2 days in a row.

Step 5) After a regular watering without Phantom, drench Kontos 2ml/gal. Follow up with another Kontos drench 14 days later.

Step 6) 2 days after Kontos, do Phantom again. Dip in Avid again.

Step 7) Drench with Avid? IDK about dosing (I'd guess 1ml/gal, similar to foliar rate)

Step 8) Mom these nuked out cuts to ~4' tall, keep em as healthy as possible, then take just the absolute best cuts from the top. ONLY THE BEST TOPS. Switch razors/gloves very often. Maybe a new razor for every cut. Overkill but nematodes suck and cloning is a major route of infection for them.

Step 9) Kill the moms, clone your cuts, bleach everything again... and hopefully you've got a few trays of clean awesome cuts.

Throw in the chitosan for good measure. Don't fuck up and accept cuts from anyone ever again. We're in the golden age of cannabis seeds, take advantage. Amazon has packs of 1000 gloves for ~$60, totally worth it. Your hands are the biggest vector for pests.

The solution is not to just inundate your rooms with chemicals. Beating this requires dedication and attention to detail. Chemical AND mechanical separation of pests from the plants and grow environment.

And keep in mind, I'm an uneducated pot grower with a lot of experience but no real quantifiable data or results. I might be speaking out of my ass.

 

[Hammerhead]

Curious What is more effective Avid or Forbid. Forbid is more expensive.???

 

[whatthe215]

Well Forbid is chemically related to Kontos. Spiromesifen and Spirotetramat, respectively.

 

[Hammerhead]

It's 2x more$$ than Avid and Floramite.. Just wanted to know why if all do the same.

 

[Ziggaro]

Hey I don't know bout BMs specifically but I can say that I have fought the two-spotted mites and made an easy victory.
It got bad enough that I was destroying webs everyday and I took a few simple steps.

1. Take cuttings and thoroughly wash them underwater. I used plain RO water and rubbed the leaves and stems with my fingers.
2. Separate cuttings and make sure not to cross-contaminate by visiting in succession.
3. Precautionary spray with neem oil/silica (I bought floramite but it's still unopened months later)
4. Tore up floor lining and mylar. Bleached walls, cleaned hood, shampoo underlying carpets...basically clean every corner wall etc of the area and refit with fresh material

That was my first, and hopefully my last bug infestation. I don't even see fungus gnats around here in years bugs just don't care for my grow lol

 

[panick503]

Yah, spider mites are different than broad mites..

 

[HL45]

W215 glad your dog's made it through the transition, that sounds intense.

 

[StudenTeacher]

Whatthe215L: great post. I was looking for a "recipe".
Having said that, it seems like alot of the stuff you mentioned are all -icides, particularly marketed as miticides. I didn't know until recently that Avid was ALSO used to kill other nasties. I had always used it for spider-mites, and only had to do that 1x.
So you're rotating different miticides that have a wide spectrum impact on other micro-organisms.
WHY did you choose the particular regimen you chose? Did you hit on that by accident?
How do you know that the Phantom/Pylon wouldn't work without Kontos?

Do you think you could get by with one of these miticides?

Do you think regular applications of Avid would be just as effective? Apparently it kills more than just mites.

Never, ever use only one pesticide if you choose to go the poison route. If you have time do some research on how various cides work and you'll understand why it's important to use more than one. They have different modes of action, which basically means they poison the bugs differently than one another. One miticide might prevent eggs from hatching, and another will kill adults and not harm eggs, and so on. Forbid will kill eggs and adults, but it seems to be abrasive on the ladies. If it's a nursery pest, something like avid may not be powerful enough do to bugs building a resistance to it because it's used so commonly, and often times improperly. 2 modes of action minimum, then the next crop, rotate in a third mode of action and drop one of the others. This way the pests hopefully won't build an immunity to the cide.

Bifenthrin foggers worked on eliminating the duds as well, though I wouldn't ever use it on plants, I've seen it work. Dudding plants 4 weeks out and two foggers 3 days apart and he harvested good looking poisonous buds. Pyrethrin may be something to consider adding to the rotation, though I don't know if it would work as well as the bifenthrin.

When i was using the chemicals more I tried, spinosad, akari, kontos, forbid, phantom, bifenthrin, Imid, avid, etc. I think I succeeded in killing the bugs, lol, however I later learned about fusarium oxysporum, and it was obvious that my plants had been infected by it as well as broad mites and god knows whatever else. This time the roots looked more normal, though not as plentiful and not super healthy, but nothing was growing in the pots and the roots weren't red like last time, which I why I sent the samples in. Unfortunately I never got definitive proof of how well any of these products worked, do to the fusarium, but I can say they eliminated broad mites for sure, and the broads in my opinion weren't the cause of my duds, with or without fusarium. When my bro used the bifenthrin I thought he had broads at the time, but in hindsight it's easy to see the damage was different, and he probably had the nematodes.

 

[StudenTeacher]

This PIC was taken in my friends garden. He gets 2lb a kW on hortilux bulbs and kills it with perfect buds every time. I got the dud clone from him. His last harvest was his best yet he says. If you see any leaves like this you're walking a thin line, no matter how healthy your plants appear. I will find out his exact regimen and report back. My dud plants were root bound for a month, and tucked in the corner away from the light, and unhappy, because I ran out of space in the big room, so I flowered em the little room to test them out, which is a month behind , even though they didn't look perfect anymore. Treating them like this sure did antagonize whatever pest/pathogen that I believe had previously infected the plants. The plants they were vegged with initially, before being treated badly, turned out great with no signs of weird growth at all, and trust me I was looking like a hawk the whole grow. The ladies get inspected more now than ever before. Anyways here's the pics.

 

[StudenTeacher]

You might see growth similar to this on revegging plants, though I assure you this is different, and it's a road sign on the way to Dud City. This weird leaf was on a four foot tall mother plant that had several hundred perfect looking clones available to be cut from her. Good luck