MotherLode Gardens 2017

[PDX Dopesmoker]

With temperatures over 100 degrees all week there is also a chance the russets have been mostly killed off.

Those little mofos love the hot weather even more than the pot plants do. If it was that hot for a while & you didn't have a handle on the russet mites then you'd be seeing it in a bad way for sure, the plants would look really shitty, so it seems like your treatment program is pretty effective.

 

[EasyGoing]

Looking for a trim crew? Check my IG feed for more info, but Emerald Peak has been doing great work for me.

 

[DAT]

Hi Screws! I hope you are well!! We were wondering if you will be attending Burning Man this year? Sorry I'm late catching up to you now. It sounds like a wonderfully exciting season for you with lots of challenges, Mother Nature keeping you satisfied and on you toes. Stay cool and safe. Looking forward to hearing from you soon my friend!

 

[c00k1eFunk]

finally having my account, i want so say thanks for the great pictures [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Shcrews and keep it green man, you def have a green thumb bro!
I dont have the sun nor the space you guys in the sunny states have and my country would most likely throw me into jail for one single of your ancient OGs ;D
But as OD veteran, from what i can see on your pictures, youre blessed with a really good soil on your property! I am not in the position to give you advice but sometimes somethink thats ovious isnt seen by the artist couse he is so concentrated on his work and so deep in.
My question is is you ever considered planting early bushes into your soil? i mean your 500gal pots look like so much work for me... and after a few years wou will have to toss out lots of this soil again or spread it around... sounds like even more work.
you could instead plant the whole hill with bushes and topdress them and build a even more powerfull living soil? over the years your product would become even better and your children will be happy to have a rich garden..
but besides this question, -> you are really demonstrating growing at its finest
[/FONT]

 

[Robrites]

finally having my account, i want so say thanks for the great pictures [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Shcrews and keep it green man, you def have a green thumb bro!
I dont have the sun nor the space you guys in the sunny states have and my country would most likely throw me into jail for one single of your ancient OGs ;D
But as OD veteran, from what i can see on your pictures, youre blessed with a really good soil on your property! I am not in the position to give you advice but sometimes somethink thats ovious isnt seen by the artist couse he is so concentrated on his work and so deep in.
My question is is you ever considered planting early bushes into your soil? i mean your 500gal pots look like so much work for me... and after a few years wou will have to toss out lots of this soil again or spread it around... sounds like even more work.
you could instead plant the whole hill with bushes and topdress them and build a even more powerfull living soil? over the years your product would become even better and your children will be happy to have a rich garden..
but besides this question, -> you are really demonstrating growing at its finest
[/FONT]

You should start reading his threads from a few years back.

 

[c00k1eFunk]

Guilty, i only read this years adventure so far

 

[Shcrews]

Those little mofos love the hot weather even more than the pot plants do. If it was that hot for a while & you didn't have a handle on the russet mites then you'd be seeing it in a bad way for sure, the plants would look really shitty, so it seems like your treatment program is pretty effective.

not saying you're wrong , but a google search turned up this information:
"Russet, Cyclamen or Broad mites are very sensitive to heat. They are more difficult to control in winter than in summer due to lower greenhouse temperatures."

...so i'm still hopeful that the 100+ degree weather is helping me battle the tiny fuckers

Hi Screws! I hope you are well!! We were wondering if you will be attending Burning Man this year? Sorry I'm late catching up to you now. It sounds like a wonderfully exciting season for you with lots of challenges, Mother Nature keeping you satisfied and on you toes. Stay cool and safe. Looking forward to hearing from you soon my friend!

hey hows it going! good to see ya around. hope all is well! Mother nature is definitely keeping us on our toes this year.. haha!

Unfortunately the burning man tickets sell out very quickly now and we didn't manage to get any this year, didn't feel like supporting any scalpers.... but hopefully we will be back next year, celebrating our 2year anniversary of the day when I met my queen on the playa and we lost ourselves in the beautiful ancient dust.

We did however did manage to go to the Oregon Eclipse Gathering about a week before the burn. It was a week-long art and music festival with about 40,000 people up in the high desert of oregon to celebrate the solar eclipse in the path of totality.

(not my pic):

 

[Shcrews]

finally having my account, i want so say thanks for the great pictures [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Shcrews and keep it green man, you def have a green thumb bro!
I dont have the sun nor the space you guys in the sunny states have and my country would most likely throw me into jail for one single of your ancient OGs ;D
But as OD veteran, from what i can see on your pictures, youre blessed with a really good soil on your property! I am not in the position to give you advice but sometimes somethink thats ovious isnt seen by the artist couse he is so concentrated on his work and so deep in.
My question is is you ever considered planting early bushes into your soil? i mean your 500gal pots look like so much work for me... and after a few years wou will have to toss out lots of this soil again or spread it around... sounds like even more work.
you could instead plant the whole hill with bushes and topdress them and build a even more powerfull living soil? over the years your product would become even better and your children will be happy to have a rich garden..
but besides this question, -> you are really demonstrating growing at its finest
[/FONT]

thanks for checking out the thread, i hope the laws change where you're at so you can grow monsters too someday. but you haven't been paying attention... I planted about 50 seed starts in our native soil in the spring, they are doing great! on average they are not quite as big as the plants in mounds, but some are showing serious potential.

 

[c00k1eFunk]

i see shcrews my friend, i was meaning to your wonderful native soil girls by saying that your soil seems to be very good! I wish you a good flowering time and heavy harvest
turn the hillside into a weedside

 

[stinky]

Love your grows dude.... The native soil plants are just beautiful. Way to go man...

 

[redlaser]

As far as I've read it takes two hours at 115 to do any killing of mites. They generally like heat and dry conditions though, I've never heard of or seen mites in wet, cool conditions.

Plants are really filling out, some look almost twice as wide as tall. The native soil ones are killing it as well, I'll bet you will be expanding on that type of growing in the future.

 

[DAT]

Wow! That looked really groovy! What kind of vibe did you get watching / feeling the eclipse that day?. I couldn't look at it. But I felt it and it was pretty creepy. I was riding my bike down a path next to the Willamette River . The light cast interesting colors and shadows from the trees. A squirrel freaked and did a somersault. The streetlights came on, people were out on their front porches were staring at it. It was dark for like a minute and then it was bright again. The ducks in the river didn't seem moved at all.
The wildfires are choking Oregon now, do you think that all the smoke, thick, heavy smoke , day after day, weeks after week, will be detrimental the the outdoor crops?

 

[Shcrews]

Wow! That looked really groovy! What kind of vibe did you get watching / feeling the eclipse that day?. I couldn't look at it. But I felt it and it was pretty creepy. I was riding my bike down a path next to the Willamette River . The light cast interesting colors and shadows from the trees. A squirrel freaked and did a somersault. The streetlights came on, people were out on their front porches were staring at it. It was dark for like a minute and then it was bright again. The ducks in the river didn't seem moved at all.
The wildfires are choking Oregon now, do you think that all the smoke, thick, heavy smoke , day after day, weeks after week, will be detrimental the the outdoor crops?

Eclipse vibes were mostly love and unity and hope for humanity and planet earth, there was some sadness as well but only as part of the natural cycle.. It got cold and dark and I realized that is how the end of the world would look, but as the sun re-emerged we felt rejuvenated and reborn with a new sense of purpose.


btw smoke is no big deal. we get wildfires all summer around here and the plants do just fine unless they get burned. all the ash sucks but its just another reason to spray the plants. I do think it can trigger flowering a bit early though, when the sun is blocked out for several days

 

[Shcrews]

So it looks like there are at least a few plants that still have russet mites.

I discovered a host plant for russet mites on our property.. I believe it is called Chrysolepis chrysophylla aka Chinquapin... it grows naturally in the area, it is everywhere, and looks to be mostly infested to the point of near-death. Not sure if this is the cause of the garden's infestation but it looks disgusting. I will get some pictures later. I recommend if you have this plant on your property you get rid of it as the mites seem to love it.

Ordered more Swiirski predator mites and will be placing them in the garden this evening. The last batch i got seem to be effective so far. other than the russet mites everything looks great, Native soil plot is a bit farther into flowering than the mounds, at least most plants looks to be at least a week ahead. Everything is stacking nicely for the most part. Ancient OG f2's are the biggest plants in the garden, no surprise there.. lots of great flavors this year.

 

[Shcrews]

we received an order of 500 sachets of Swiirski predatory mites in the mail from Arbico organics a few days ago, and put them in the garden immediately upon arrival. But I haven't seen any predator mites crawling around since then, so i became suspicious and opened up one of the sachets, and after spending an hour looking with a 60x microscope i have confirmed that there are no Swiirski's present . I'm not sure what the fuck happened but they are closed today (sunday) so we will have to wait until tomorrow to call and ask why they sent me 500 sachets of nothing.

Last time i ordered Swiirski sachets from these guys the mites that arrived were visible and active, so i know something went wrong this time. Bad news for us because i was counting on the Swiirski's as my first plan of attack against our continuing russet mite problem. Guess we will just spray essential oils until we get the predator mite problem figured out.

Was looking at Venerate and Grandevo after hearing other people have success using them to battle russet mites, but they seem a bit too extreme for me. lots of cautionary statements and required PPE, plus they want me to have an agitator in my spray tank , which i don't.

the russet mites are really taking the fun out of this season.

 

[jtk707]

Thanks for all the info shcrews .. every year you improve and I have learned a ton from all your threads . Good luck pushing threw harvest . Peace

 

[MedResearcher]

Sucks, hopefully you still take a decent % to harvest. Everyone takes losses, trick is minimizing them.

Aspirin works decently to slow down the damage done from the mites. Have to look up the dose, but basically mix it with water and drench with it. Supposedly it boosts the plants immune system, so they resist the toxins that mites inject into the plant which cause them to brown and die. So it wont kill the mites, but it slows down their damage.

Can order bulk Aspirin from feed stores, its pretty cheap.

I feel for you. Refreshing to see someone not reaching for the Forbid/Avid. To much shity Forbid/Avid drenched pot already. Hopefully you have some good karma coming your way.

Every season I get so worn down, I am ready to quit. Then every spring I start again.... ffs!

Stay up,
Mr^^

 

[TheOutlawTree]

I spray grandevo and venerate with a dust mask and that's it. I get it all over my arms / skin and not worry. Isn't it just dead bacteria?

Last season I didn't use a dust mask at all, stupid yes, but I'm fine. I thought they just put that disclaimer on there because they don't want to spend the $ to figure out if it's actually harmful to humans?

 

[orechron]

Hopefully if mites try to hitch a ride on you they get whats coming to them

 

[Surfgimp]

Aspirin works decently to slow down the damage done from the mites. Have to look up the dose

One 325mg adult aspirin per gallon for foliar spray. You can mix it with the essential oils prior to application. It will neutralize the toxins in the mites saliva that cause the twisting / burning of the flower tips.

Good luck, S