So with a quick google search I’ve learned that pill bugs are good, but in high numbers are very bad.. problem is I can’t seem to figure out how many are bad. I went out a couple hours ago to do some LST and spray some Neem oil since I have a lot of little bugs buzzing around. I picked up the mulch layer and on this plant I noticed at least a dozen just under the straw that I picked up scatter. I came back to take a picture but only saw 3 or 4 at that point. does anyone know at what point I should be alarmed? And if I do end up with too many how do I get rid of them if need be? I’m growing in 15 gal pots with organic living soil so I’d be a bit apprehensive about spraying anything in there that could harm the microorganisms and what not. This is my first year trying living soil so idk what is and isn’t normal. Last year I did synthetic nutes and had a bunch of daddy long legs under the mulch layer which didn’t seem to be an issue at all.
Pill bugs feed on dead plants and root material, so if your plant is a strong adult, probably not going to matter. From the research I've done (I'm a pest control guy,) they CAN damage seedlings, though.
I'll second what caljian said, and from personal experience. If you're trying to sprout seedlings and you're seeing a ton of pillbugs/sowbugs, I would say don't bother; or start in solo cups and transplant once they're bigger. I had 15+ seedlings mysteriously die until I made the connection. All it takes is one chomp out of a recently sprouted plant's stem and it's over. Once I was able to get a few to make it past the seedling stage, the bugs continued to take a bite here and there, but the plants were large enough to shrug it off. From the way your post reads, your plants are larger. I would say don't stress it at all as they're likely to munch on decaying plant matter in the soil and leave your plant alone.
Yeah they aren’t too big yet but probably big enough to make it another few weeks where I’d imagine they should be fine. The only worry I have is I don’t know if they’ll start breeding and next time I lift up the mulch layer there’s like hundreds of them or something. This is the plant I noticed the most in. I’d say I saw at least a dozen just in the one spot where I lifted up the straw whereas the others I saw maybe 2 or 3 tops per pot
Yeah, that size of plant will be just fine. They may still nibble here or there, but that plant is past the point of danger - at least based on my experiences. Normally that many bugs would - in the organic gardening world - be considered a positive thing! I wouldn't worry about it too much - that many bugs in your mulch layer means they're decomposing that organic material to give more nutrients to your plants.
Ok that’s good to know. I do have these 2 smaller plants that I started late after I got dna results back and found out I have 2 males. I’m guessing I should give them a bit longer before transplant?
Not sure if I'm reading this one right. DNA? Males? I don't know how you can tell that lol. Confirmed males you don't want anywhere near your ladies.
I sent leaf samples into a company that dna tests them for gender. So I kept the 2 confirmed males in smaller pots and replaced them with 2 feminized seeds as I will not be keeping them in the garden. For now im not worried about them being near the females as they’re still very early in veg but in the next week or 2 im gonna put them in a small tent and pick which one I like best and flip it and then pollinate a clone off one of the females I have. I’m just waiting for the clones to root a little better and then im gonna try my first attempt at breeding
A DNA test for something you can see with your eyes??? All for a "nominal" fee of course. The total amount of BS that people come up with to sell to "POOR" stoners, I'm afraid growing weed may become a rich mans hobby.
Yeah it’s like 15 bucks per sample it’s just nice because you can pluck one of those little single leaves off the bottom and know gender while it’s still a seedling and then I can just go straight to the final pot and not worry about playing musical pots until I can figure out what’s what
That's really interesting. I'll have to take a look to see how valid that testing is. That would actually be nice for me - I grow in a single tent, so when I'm not growing feminized seeds figuring out what is what before I flip to 12/12 would be super nice, especially given the time involved. Edit: wow, this appears to be a real thing. $15 a test doesn't seem too bad particularly if you consider the time it takes to grow a plant and the $ involved in electricity, etc.
Haha you’re definitely not wrong. For this specific situation though it made the most sense to me. I want to try breeding this year and the soil I bought was expensive so I didn’t want to up pot twice. If I wasn’t keeping the males I wouldn’t have bothered and just plucked it but since I was planning to bring the males back inside I didn’t want to have to dig it back out of the final pot.
If you're in my situation, $15 to figure out if a seed I'm growing is male or female would be well worth the money. I have only 1 tent and grow between 3-4 plants at a time in there. If I grow from seed and the plant isn't feminized, I don't want to take up precious time or real estate just to find out something is a male. It would be super nice to test many weeks ahead of time, that way I could start a new seed if I wanted. Quite frankly, growing seeds from Bodhi is something I have really wanted to do, but have avoided, simply because I don't want to waste my time growing any males accidentally. This gives me the option of growing Bodhi gear.
I used leafworks which claims 99% accuracy. It took them a few days longer than what they said and it ended up being in my spam folder. For me I can say the results were accurate. Now that they’re a bit older I can confirm that the only 2 plants showing “balls” are the 2 indicated by the test.
I just checked out Leafworks. Pretty cool shit. For 15 bucks, I sure as hell would use it! Good luck and rock on.
Good to know it's an option & may come in handy for some I suppose. I've sure spent more $ & got less. I'll be looking for males this grow & yanking them if found, prior to the final potting & flipping to 12/12, fingers crossed.