Outdoor PM check...found a couple spots that needed immediate attention. Last year, I was not doing daily checks and it got away from me.
I'm hoping this helps someone that has to deal with caterpillars. One of the methods that worked for me last year on my outdoor romulan was cutting away the mildew affected area and drench the area with 3% H2O2. It killed the mildew and didn't negatively affect the buds. I saved many big buds this way toward the end. I should have not let it get that bad in the first place. The consequences of poor care and laziness.
Seeing a leaf like this on an other wise healthy plant is a tell tale sign of a caterpillar dumping its feces all inside your bud. Get your H2O2, scissors, and garbage bag ready.
Get the leaf out and then cut away all the moldy material and the surrounding area. You can see that brown in the middle.
This is a great example of what happened a lot last year. These little shits eat leaves with BT and still end up going into the buds to hide. You can see a caterpillar here that died from eating a BT covered leaf. Seeing this today is a little disheartening but it is what it is. It is NOWHERE near as bad as it was last year. Now that I know it's present, I will have to spend more time doing some clean up. I'm still optimistic that most of the buds will be clean and high quality.
I'd rather lose a little bit now than a whole bud later. I lost MANY huge buds last year to mildew caused from caterpillars.