So im doing my first outdoor grow and as soon as i purchased BT i got a call from the people watching my plants that we had caterpillars! I have one auto thats about the only one getting hit since its the only one with mature buds. On the label it says you should only spray 6-7 a season for most crops so im wondering how often can i apply BT to my plant?? The infestations not bad but id like to get rid of it before it damages my plants without harming buds. I know some seasoned growers have said they use it up to harvest so my question is how many times can i apply it weekly?? Anyways guys id also like some opinions on my pesticides, maybe some suggestions or anything im missing?? Im gonna use Neem oil Bt Jacks deadbug spinosad Diatamaceous earth And i was strongly considering buying praying mantises and ladybugs a little later in the season Stoners journey to cannabis
TOS I use Neem and Spinosad in veg Once they move outside to flower it's Green Cure for the Powdery Mildew and BT for the catties.. Weekly for both.. I use the Bonide Thuricide as it's the lower cost and I can get it from the local garden center.. The safer brand is sold at the hydro store but it's quite a bit higher priced and gives the same coverage IME.. Caterpillars are by far my worst threat.. I run a low power 15 watt zapper with most of the grill chopped away so I can brush it clean each day as my monitor on the moth population.. BNW
Can you spray up to harvest? And ive yet to to buy anything for powdery mildew, should i? I also added two applications of spinosad to a plant in flower
The caterpillars seem to show up about the last few weeks before harvest and munch on your plant until they destroy it if they're not dealt with and caught in time. Always be careful not to handle one plant with an issue and then move on to handle others after that because it is very very easy to spread a problem from one to another. Always be prepared to deal with each plant individually to avoid this happening. When we grow outside here, we fight those big green tomato worms..which I'm thinking is about the same thing as your caterpillar, but it's amazing how much damage they can do to your plants before you even realize they've landed. Let us know how this worked for you. TWW
I seem to be experiencing the opposite. Very little damage done but we see them everywhere. I may have went heavy on the insectisides as soon as i saw caterpillars and the buds were still barely even forming. 2 applications of spinosad and 3 of BT in matter of 10 days (whoops?) Slowed down a bit now tho and it went from seeing 6-7 a day to one day I got an autoflower that was affected the hardest and she getting ready for harvest. Ill let you know if i find caterpillars at harvest and if the taste was affected
I spray both BT and Cure right up to the last week before harvest.. It's not the big horn worms here it's what I think is the tobacco worm.. Small only an inch long at best they love to cut the stems of the best buds in the main tops.. TOS The blasted moths are laying eggs every single night in your buds week after week from the start of flower.. Left uncontrolled at harvest they'll start pouring out and hanging from the drying buds by their silk.. Just a few at first it'll soon get to hundreds of the little bastards of all sizes.. When you finally start breaking down the buds you will find all the mold that happened every place they shit and in my case I tossed out pounds of what should have been my first great harvest.. You can't let it slide till the last month either as by then the oldest catties are now deep in the forming buds and your spray won't reach them.. They actually have to eat some treated foliage to die and if you don't spray every week you'll have issues.. Once a week every week is what I do with both cure and BT A word on the cure.. It's potassium bicarbonate.. A close relation to household baking soda and the least toxic of the fungicides around.. Used mostly around grapes and can be substituted in baked goods so it's food grade.. BNW
Thanks so much!! We don't grow much outside anymore because we've got this all going inside and hey, why up the chances of getting hauled to jail right? LOL Unfortunately, the state I live in is in the SE US...slap dab in the middle of the righteous Bible Belt. Now don't get me wrong. I love my Bible and am a child of The King....but I am a realist and know in my heart that if God put it here on this earth, it was for our GOOD!! It's that stupid crap that people cook up from chemicals under the sink, etc., that deserves to be categorized as "hard drugs" because the stuff IS dangerous. The body will work it's butt off to remove toxins, yet it stores MJ....that right there tells me there is a purpose for it. But I guarantee you that we will be one of the very last states to legalize it and until then, there is a risk with what I'm doing. But things have mellowed out pretty much around here since the Governor got caught having an affair with his chief adviser (who's salary was paid for not by the state, but by a super PAC), the speaker of the house is in trial this week for multiple ethics violations and the chief justice of the supreme court has been suspended because he refused to go along with the transgender bathroom crap and LGBT marriage. Us little old pot growers are way down on the list of priorities at the moment so I don't worry too much. Oh, and the drug team in our county got disbanded a couple of years ago when they discovered that most of them were stealing from the evidence room and using or selling the drugs they confiscated and misusing their authority in lots of ways. That and the fact that we live in the middle of the woods out here by ourselves, eases my mind about it a bit. As long as we don't get stupid, and I'm way too old for that, we're going to keep on keepin' on. But you just can't beat the sun as your light source. I've grown some seriously amazing plants in my back yard and on my deck and nothing inside even remotely compares. Never really had any issues with the outdoor critters much until the last couple of years. We don't have anything outside here this year. I gave some clones to some friends and am showing them how to grow them off, so I get to partake in their fun. Have a good one and thanks for the info on the caterpillars.