Plan your work; Work your plan.

barely a slice left!! should probably get my bare feet back in da kitchen.






hi guys!!


I'll be posting some pics tonight about IPM and the extent i go to now which really has paid off!! While I am not calling it a green light quite so soon, the garden has done a complete 180 flip.

 

So as most of you know, mites from indoors traveled outside and got into the veggie garden through my soil I dragged outside. I was out there collecting clover that was around the soil I dumped, to find white specks on a patch of clover. I turned it over to find mites. I took a pic to show you the different life stages. Here you see the amber two spotted mite. It's pretty obvious. It's what you would typically see online. It is in diapause going into dormancy where it spins a web down into the soil. To the right in the upper portion is a juvenile mite and then lots of eggs.











This pic is a two spotted mite but this is the active stage where damage is caused.









As you can see he's practically clear with black dots. It should turn greener the more it feeds off the leaves. If it feels attacked or threatened by us or environmental conditions, it starts turning yellow and goes into a hivernative state where it barely breathes or eats. If the conditions don't turn favorable soon, it turns a burnt orange which means it's starving and about to die. I thought that this info would be beneficial to someone. heres the article i read http://dare.uva.nl/document/2/2629


My room got mites when i brought home some clones and i knew they had them. i thought no worries as i've dealt with them before on clones and it's never gotten into my room. well these little shits moved right in making themselves comfy discreetly in the back where they can't be easliy seen. so i sprayed every three days for a few times and didn't see any after that for a couple weeks. i found them again and did the sprays like you're supposed to and they went away. i set up my scrog and got that thing almost full when i found webs underneath the scrog and they really had taken residence back where i couldn't see and since the canopy was on a big screen, they spread so fast and spraying them was next to impossible. after a while i took off the screen, defoliated them drestically and began agressive treatment of spraying every three days with neem oil and on off days, sometimes i would throw in spinosad or EM5, a fermented bug killer.


well they never would leave and i kept finding eggs every where and once in a while i would find a mite which was a big improvement from other things i have tried which was everything organic, plant teas like garlic and cayanne, pyrethrum bombs which actually can make the problem worse per UC Davis and every university agriculture website, cilantro and all that fun stuff. Nothing works and the neem oil made them stop eating my plants and the mite populations dropped a lot. they still wouldn't leave though so i started doing soil drenches with neem teas till my 100 gallon bed i was growing in was sitting in a puddle. four applications of this and then i culled everything and took the bed and soil outside and planted sunflowers and borage in it.


seriously two weeks later there was mites EATING the sunflowers!







So I sprayed them down with JMS Stylet oil. i really like this because it comes emulsified and i can tank mix with azamax, spinosad or any other EC concentrated pesticide. as long as i keep the percentage of oil under 2% most larger plants don't get phytotoxicity like new young plants. i used this also on some clones that didn't root and killed all 20. teach me to do a phyto test! bye bye GG#4.

 

The JMS had phytotoxity on certain plants but i did test it out on my outdoor girls in the early morning and they had no damage at all. I have not tested it other than that and have just been using azamax until the leaves get bigger on these seedlings. however, i do have some other plants that will get a good spray down tomorrow.


here's colorado state university explanation between stylet, neem and plant based horticultural oils. http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05569.htm.


IPM is super important! I hated spraying my plants and would only spray them if they had bugs. well after the mites moved in, lemme tell ya, spraying every 3 days since basically this whole year up until two months ago, i hate it even more! however, spraying once a week is a small price compared to what i paid. please take this advice as i didn't and it blew up in my face.


UC Davis "What is IPM?"

With IPM, you take actions to keep pests from becoming a problem, such as by growing a healthy crop that can withstand pest attacks, using disease-resistant plants, or caulking cracks to keep insects or rodents from entering a building.
Rather than simply eliminating the pests you see right now, using IPM means you'll look at environmental factors that affect the pest and its ability to thrive. Armed with this information, you can create conditions that are unfavorable for the pest.


Monitoring means checking your field, landscape, forest, or building-or other site-to identify which pests are present, how many there are, or what damage they've caused. Correctly identifying the pest is key to knowing whether a pest is likely to become a problem and determining the best management strategy.
After monitoring and considering information about the pest, its biology, and environmental factors, you can decide whether the pest can be tolerated or whether it is a problem that warrants control. If control is needed, this information also helps you select the most effective management methods and the best time to use them.


The most effective, long-term way to manage pests is by using a combination of methods that work better together than separately. Approaches for managing pests are often grouped in the following categories.
Biological control
Biological control is the use of natural enemies-predators, parasites, pathogens, and competitors-to control pests and their damage. Invertebrates, plant pathogens, nematodes, weeds, and vertebrates have many natural enemies.
Cultural controls
Cultural controls are practices that reduce pest establishment, reproduction, dispersal, and survival. For example, changing irrigation practices can reduce pest problems, since too much water can increase root disease and weeds.
Mechanical and physical controls
Mechanical and physical controls kill a pest directly or make the environment unsuitable for it. Traps for rodents are examples of mechanical control. Physical controls include mulches for weed management, steam sterilization of the soil for disease management, or barriers such as screens to keep birds or insects out.
Chemical control
Chemical control is the use of pesticides. In IPM, pesticides are used only when needed and in combination with other approaches for more effective, long-term control. Also, pesticides are selected and applied in a way that minimizes their possible harm to people and the environment. With IPM you'll use the most selective pesticide that will do the job and be the safest for other organisms and for air, soil, and water quality; use pesticides in bait stations rather than sprays; or spot-spray a few weeds instead of an entire area.
IPM programs
These IPM principles and practices are combined to create IPM programs. While each situation is different, five major components are common to all IPM programs:
Pest identification
Monitoring and assessing pest numbers and damage
Guidelines for when management action is needed
Preventing pest problems
Using a combination of biological, cultural, physical/mechanical and chemical management tools


LLB note: when you read ipm plans you get info from conventional and organic farms so when they say chemical control, the spinosad, pyrethrum, etc is listed under suggested chemical pesticides. chemical meaning that you're not using mother nature in it's purest form but still using natural and safe means of erradication.

 

So i was told by this grower who had a degree in soil science is that when he was working on organic farms, the cleanliness standard is very high. he said that before you even stepped on the property, you would remove your shoes, put on boots which you then stepped into bleach water before even stepping foot on the property. his advice stemmed this idea about why my mites traveled from a tote in quarentine to my bloom room, my 4x8 tent, my cab which i moved TWICE and finally outside.


so now i go into the garage and a few feet before i will take some hand sanitizer and rub it all over my hands and arms. then i grab my suit which is hanging below in another picture and put that on. then i put on disposable booties which i do reuse and keep inside the grow room with my suit so it stays clean. after i do all of that, the last thing is to put on my gloves. touching plants in different gardens is the number one way to transport these little turds.


i also wanted to show off the BEST, even better than the coveted Chapin 1949 sprayer is my wagoner power stain sprayer which atomizes your pesticide making it last twice as long so you can use it double the amount of times. the water envelopes the leaf in a fog and will coat it perfectly before the leaf gets heavy and starts sticking to other leaves making it very tough to get every leaf surface. $70 and it will change your grow. i talked about it in the no till thread and people got one and loved it.




when i'm finished working in the garden, i will take off my suit and booties before stepping onto the garage floor. they never go outside the room. now once i'm standing on the garage floor, i will take off my gloves like a condom and tie it in a knot so anything that i might have touched is contained. now i will spray bleach water on the grow floor with the spritzer in the first pic. my plants are on dollies and can be pushed around easier so i can get access to the whole floor. you really need to be able to access every part of your room because they hide in the spots you can't get too. i think they're psychic or something. for deeper cleans, i use my wand sprayer to spray walls and the cement foundation which i also sprayed foam sealer in cracks too. i then close the door and begin to clean the garage floor with a broom. then i take the steam mop and i will open the door to my grow and mop the floors and then i mop the garage floor and take the cottom steam pad and wash it after by hand in some soapy water, then bleach water. you can probably tell that this process keeps me out of my room which also does keep me from taking them all over the place. when they had the bugs, i was going out there several times while i was there. then i would check all the rooms thinking i was being careful and they just followed me everywhere.




EWC and neem are going to be your best friends. EWC has pest fighting properties that have been recorded showing healthier more resistant plants to bugs and molds. neem is a repellant and also keeps bugs from growing into the next life stages. it didn't keep the mites out of my soil and there was a ton of it on there for a top dress. drenches in neem tea also didn't work and so i'm not sure how to advise you on what would. what worked for me was a tear down and cull, wait a couple months and then try again.





see! clean floors! inside and out!

 

white spots are bites from something. i turned my clover leaf over and saw them straight away. i just confirmed it with the loupe. the hairs on the clover are very fuzzy so it looks like the eggs are floating almost. probably some webbing too.


no they probably wouldn't be found in a salt packet of maxibloom. lol






STIGGY
yes, we ran out of punch and pie right away! i just got cold leftover pizza now.

 

yes! i was just comparing OSF and Ag Lime in the beginner soil thread. i have always thought that the OSF was the best of the best primo lime source but it's really not much different that cheap Ag Lime. OSF has 1% of soluble phosphoric acid which provides P but also buffers ph. from what i have read that soluble P sources are bad for your myco's; even at low levels like that 1%. the amount of calcium and carbonate is also around the same and it's not a significant amount of difference between the two. i'm really glad i went the cheap route and just used the lime i had laying around instead of purchasing something that i already had in a different form.


clove oil works too on eggs and bugs. no one mentions it but i see it used a lot in products you can buy. eucalyptus is also supposed to be great. lavender and rosemary too!


in GiMiKs PDFs there is several articles about rosemary oil and mites becoming resistant to it quickly so using a variety of oils will help, using a horti oil with them increases their potency too. I could really go on and on about each thing i tried but that would take ages. lol you can read about that shit storm in my Big Beds thread in organic grow journals.


i mostly wanted to express the importance of IPM and keep this thread mite free! half that thread is just talking about mites so if any one want to see what i used and follow the journey, go right ahead.