Caterpillars are hitting my girls like crazy. Just popped up in the last few days. Anyway I can kill or repell them without harming the ladies? Its pretty late in the game for some methods and I'm running out of time & options fast.
Not yet, I've been picking non stop but there are alot of them and they blend in well. Ill put some pics up later today
...I had an experience with those little bastards (if they're the same caterpillars)...I was growing indoors...I noticed a leaf that looked strange so I had a closer look and the leaf was taco-shaped, folded over and it had a web holding it together....I pilled the leaf open and found a damn yellow larva! ...the more I searched through the garden, I found several of them fuckers!...and days later, I found more!! I was getting kind'a pissed! ...so, I'm tweaking on these fuckers....I'm growing in floodbeds with panda poly covering the actual bed with the white facing upward, so I noticed that it was easier to see their little piles of shit (black specks on my poly) then it was to find the actual caterpiller on the plant....everytime I found a pile of shit on my pandy poly, I would scan the plant directly above the shit....kill the larva and destroy the leaf he lived on. ...I also found that if you shake the plant they will jump off. They would jump onto my poly, so it was easy to notice it when it happened. ....good luck dude.
dude that looks like budrot & not caterpillar damage. i hope you cut that thing down because thats bad; im worried for you because that fungus can really spread & potentially take over a majority of your plant. i think your best option would be to harvest now before you potentially lose anything else. IMO
I'm sure its caterpillars, you can literally follow the trail through the bud were they eaten their way. I dealt with them not last year but the year before real bad. and luckily I did harvest already not long after those pictures were taken. I thought it was bud rot at first too but it was too spiratic and you could almost always follow it right to a caterpillar
true, but hear me out. i had a few slugs on a plant earlier this year, and after i rid my plants of them, they started to develop botrytis rot. my theory is when the caterpillars/slugs feast upon your plant, they poop all over it as well. this poop is full of sugars and moisture; a perfect combination suitable for botrytis growth (think of brown tomatoes with that white fuzz growing in it, or strawberries). it doesnt really matter now anyways since you cut your plant down already......thats just my thought on the situation.....either way, it doesnt take away from the fact that one should remove any slow, creepy eaters ASAP
You do make a good point, someone had brought up the samee thing to me before, about them pooping, but never made it clear why exactly it caused the damage. I would like to know of any was to fend off the little pests for next year, something organic if possible. Any suggestions? Glad to get any advice out there