InTheShed Grows Inside & Out: Jump In Any Time

After many weeks of testing, I'm here to offer my endorsement of 0.3% canola oil spray for powdery mildew (PM). And to break it all down for you, here is the Thursday update (after you've congratulated @Grand Daddy Black for his triple OTM win last night...I'll wait!).

Text, then pictorial:

As I mentioned back in March, I discovered a South Korean study from 2008 and seems well-researched and documented, and on the plus side, it's written in mostly non-technical language, dealing in percentages and ml rather than molecular weights and such:
https://circadiancropsciences.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/PM-and-DM-Control-Cooking-Oil.pdf

My post on it is here in case you missed it. Might be worth your time if you get PM.

[BACKGROUND: Normally I use neem oil in veg for PM, but that leaves me searching for another solution in flower. I had tried milk and H2O2 (neither of which were effective for me), citric acid (which worked but did some leaf and pistil damage), and potassium bicarbonate (which I found created more damage and seemed less effective than citric acid). Also, neem isn't even available for plants in Canada or the UK, which makes canola oil a viable alternative during all stages of growth for those members of the Commonwealth. :ciao: ]

The testing process I used started by letting PM grow on a couple of my Candida plants to use as test subjects. Once I had enough of the plants covered in PM I sprayed the mother with the canola oil mix and let the other one go. I kept them mostly in the shade during this time to prevent the heat or sun from affecting the PM growth, and I sprayed every 5 days as listed in the study.

Because I had let the leaves get so covered with PM I ended up having to spray every 3 days (to runoff) until it was gone, but it definitely worked. And after it was gone, every 5 days seemed to keep it away.

Once I was satisfied with that I needed to wait for some pistils to try it out on to see what it would do there.

Here is the flower I chose to spray with the 0.3% canola oil mix:

I sprayed it and made sure it was shaded until it dried.

Here is the same flower 72 hours later


Now, you are correct if you see some browning of the ends of the pistils, but here is a nearby flower that didn't get sprayed:


And an unsprayed top flower:


So you can see that the pistils are starting to brown across the plant rather than specifically from the canola oil. I will spray it again this weekend to see if every 5 days accelerates the browning effect. But either way, a little browning of the pistils seems like a reasonable trade-off for the treatment of PM on your flowering plants.

Also, spraying almost anything on the flowers will tend to brown the pistils somewhat, so if you have to spray, spray something that works!

All that said, here is how I went about making my 0.3% canola oil spray. Keep in mind that the beauty of the metric system is that it's easily scaleable.

500ml of distilled water:


I don't trust any single set of measuring lines so I made sure that the 500ml mark on the spray bottle was the same as the .5L line on the blender:


After that I needed the canola oil:


But really hardly any, so a small syringe is needed to get 1.5ml:


Here is the canola oil in water:


Oil and water don't stay mixed for long, even with a blender, so I used Dr Bronner's unscented castile soap as an emulsifier:


It took only 2 drops using this pipette I had on hand, though you could also use the same syringe from the oil:


After running the blender for a minute, here is the result:



I poured it into the spray bottle and sprayed down the plant in the shade.


Even though it's blended and emulsified, I still do a lot of shaking of the bottle to make sure before and in between sprays.

I'm now making 1L batches since that's as much as my blender will hold (3ml oil, 4 drops Dr B's), and if I end up with a lot of PM this fall I'll be doing four 1L batches to fill my gallon sprayer.

That's it from me, and I hope this helps someone out with their PM problem! :Namaste:
 
Green Lacewing posing for the camera for me!✌️

IMG20240802073440.jpg
 
My method Shed, just to give folks other options here, not knocking your treatment @ All Shed i used neem and and karanja oil nd soap for years it worked GREAT!
I need to do it this way as to keep my beneficials alive I use 1 oz cease and 1 Tbs Milstop to a gal of water haven't had an issue so far this year, well @ the Start i did before this showed up. I started treatment a little later than I should have almost got caught with my pants down!

IMG20240802074331.jpg
 
After many weeks of testing, I'm here to offer my endorsement of 0.3% canola oil spray for powdery mildew (PM). And to break it all down for you, here is the Thursday update (after you've congratulated @Grand Daddy Black for his triple OTM win last night...I'll wait!).

Text, then pictorial:

As I mentioned back in March, I discovered a South Korean study from 2008 and seems well-researched and documented, and on the plus side, it's written in mostly non-technical language, dealing in percentages and ml rather than molecular weights and such:
https://circadiancropsciences.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/PM-and-DM-Control-Cooking-Oil.pdf

My post on it is here in case you missed it. Might be worth your time if you get PM.

[BACKGROUND: Normally I use neem oil in veg for PM, but that leaves me searching for another solution in flower. I had tried milk and H2O2 (neither of which were effective for me), citric acid (which worked but did some leaf and pistil damage), and potassium bicarbonate (which I found created more damage and seemed less effective than citric acid). Also, neem isn't even available for plants in Canada or the UK, which makes canola oil a viable alternative during all stages of growth for those members of the Commonwealth. :ciao: ]

The testing process I used started by letting PM grow on a couple of my Candida plants to use as test subjects. Once I had enough of the plants covered in PM I sprayed the mother with the canola oil mix and let the other one go. I kept them mostly in the shade during this time to prevent the heat or sun from affecting the PM growth, and I sprayed every 5 days as listed in the study.

Because I had let the leaves get so covered with PM I ended up having to spray every 3 days (to runoff) until it was gone, but it definitely worked. And after it was gone, every 5 days seemed to keep it away.

Once I was satisfied with that I needed to wait for some pistils to try it out on to see what it would do there.

Here is the flower I chose to spray with the 0.3% canola oil mix:

I sprayed it and made sure it was shaded until it dried.

Here is the same flower 72 hours later


Now, you are correct if you see some browning of the ends of the pistils, but here is a nearby flower that didn't get sprayed:


And an unsprayed top flower:


So you can see that the pistils are starting to brown across the plant rather than specifically from the canola oil. I will spray it again this weekend to see if every 5 days accelerates the browning effect. But either way, a little browning of the pistils seems like a reasonable trade-off for the treatment of PM on your flowering plants.

Also, spraying almost anything on the flowers will tend to brown the pistils somewhat, so if you have to spray, spray something that works!

All that said, here is how I went about making my 0.3% canola oil spray. Keep in mind that the beauty of the metric system is that it's easily scaleable.

500ml of distilled water:


I don't trust any single set of measuring lines so I made sure that the 500ml mark on the spray bottle was the same as the .5L line on the blender:


After that I needed the canola oil:


But really hardly any, so a small syringe is needed to get 1.5ml:


Here is the canola oil in water:


Oil and water don't stay mixed for long, even with a blender, so I used Dr Bronner's unscented castile soap as an emulsifier:


It took only 2 drops using this pipette I had on hand, though you could also use the same syringe from the oil:


After running the blender for a minute, here is the result:



I poured it into the spray bottle and sprayed down the plant in the shade.


Even though it's blended and emulsified, I still do a lot of shaking of the bottle to make sure before and in between sprays.

I'm now making 1L batches since that's as much as my blender will hold (3ml oil, 4 drops Dr B's), and if I end up with a lot of PM this fall I'll be doing four 1L batches to fill my gallon sprayer.

That's it from me, and I hope this helps someone out with their PM problem! :Namaste:
Thanks for this most excellent study Shed!
 
After many weeks of testing, I'm here to offer my endorsement of 0.3% canola oil spray for powdery mildew (PM). And to break it all down for you, here is the Thursday update (after you've congratulated @Grand Daddy Black for his triple OTM win last night...I'll wait!).

Text, then pictorial:

As I mentioned back in March, I discovered a South Korean study from 2008 and seems well-researched and documented, and on the plus side, it's written in mostly non-technical language, dealing in percentages and ml rather than molecular weights and such:
https://circadiancropsciences.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/PM-and-DM-Control-Cooking-Oil.pdf

My post on it is here in case you missed it. Might be worth your time if you get PM.

[BACKGROUND: Normally I use neem oil in veg for PM, but that leaves me searching for another solution in flower. I had tried milk and H2O2 (neither of which were effective for me), citric acid (which worked but did some leaf and pistil damage), and potassium bicarbonate (which I found created more damage and seemed less effective than citric acid). Also, neem isn't even available for plants in Canada or the UK, which makes canola oil a viable alternative during all stages of growth for those members of the Commonwealth. :ciao: ]

The testing process I used started by letting PM grow on a couple of my Candida plants to use as test subjects. Once I had enough of the plants covered in PM I sprayed the mother with the canola oil mix and let the other one go. I kept them mostly in the shade during this time to prevent the heat or sun from affecting the PM growth, and I sprayed every 5 days as listed in the study.

Because I had let the leaves get so covered with PM I ended up having to spray every 3 days (to runoff) until it was gone, but it definitely worked. And after it was gone, every 5 days seemed to keep it away.

Once I was satisfied with that I needed to wait for some pistils to try it out on to see what it would do there.

Here is the flower I chose to spray with the 0.3% canola oil mix:

I sprayed it and made sure it was shaded until it dried.

Here is the same flower 72 hours later


Now, you are correct if you see some browning of the ends of the pistils, but here is a nearby flower that didn't get sprayed:


And an unsprayed top flower:


So you can see that the pistils are starting to brown across the plant rather than specifically from the canola oil. I will spray it again this weekend to see if every 5 days accelerates the browning effect. But either way, a little browning of the pistils seems like a reasonable trade-off for the treatment of PM on your flowering plants.

Also, spraying almost anything on the flowers will tend to brown the pistils somewhat, so if you have to spray, spray something that works!

All that said, here is how I went about making my 0.3% canola oil spray. Keep in mind that the beauty of the metric system is that it's easily scaleable.

500ml of distilled water:


I don't trust any single set of measuring lines so I made sure that the 500ml mark on the spray bottle was the same as the .5L line on the blender:


After that I needed the canola oil:


But really hardly any, so a small syringe is needed to get 1.5ml:


Here is the canola oil in water:


Oil and water don't stay mixed for long, even with a blender, so I used Dr Bronner's unscented castile soap as an emulsifier:


It took only 2 drops using this pipette I had on hand, though you could also use the same syringe from the oil:


After running the blender for a minute, here is the result:



I poured it into the spray bottle and sprayed down the plant in the shade.


Even though it's blended and emulsified, I still do a lot of shaking of the bottle to make sure before and in between sprays.

I'm now making 1L batches since that's as much as my blender will hold (3ml oil, 4 drops Dr B's), and if I end up with a lot of PM this fall I'll be doing four 1L batches to fill my gallon sprayer.

That's it from me, and I hope this helps someone out with their PM problem! :Namaste:
Very interesting & informative Shed nice experiment
 
Thanks for this most excellent study Shed!
Thank you Otter! I hope you never see PM, but if you do I hope you have canola oil in the cupboard. :)
Very interesting & informative Shed nice experiment
Thanks con!
After all these years you have been struggling with the PM I am excited for you to find something that will work all the way through and is Cheap !!
Thanks sb, it has been an ongoing struggle, but cheap, safe, and effective (and doesn't cause damage) is the name of the game!
My method Shed, just to give folks other options here, not knocking your treatment @ All Shed i used neem and and karanja oil nd soap for years it worked GREAT!
I need to do it this way as to keep my beneficials alive I use 1 oz cease and 1 Tbs Milstop to a gal of water haven't had an issue so far this year, well @ the Start i did before this showed up. I started treatment a little later than I should have almost got caught with my pants down!
I'm glad you found something that works to keep all those plants on the right track! :thumb:

I haven't seen that the canola oil spray does any damage to beneficial insects but it's also not like I spray my whole garden so it's tough to tell. I'm not spraying the insects themselves, and after it dries I can't see why it would hurt bees and such.

In terms of the Milstop and the Cease, Milstop is a very expensive way to buy potassium bicarbonate ($82 for a 5lb bag) which I didn't find all that safe and effective in my testing (YMMV), and Cease is $115/gallon (+ shipping). I like to look for less expensive solutions to my grow troubles than that, and I feel like it's more helpful to the folks here who may be on tighter budgets. Canola oil is in almost everyone's kitchen, and Dr Bronner's is cheap and handy for so many other things that it's well worth having a bottle on hand.
 
Great tutorial, Shed -Thank You..👍

I don't have any PM yet, but the nights are getting damper and cooler..and that's when I've seen it get started in the past..this year, I'll be ready for it (just need the Dr.Bronners)
I've used a weak milk solution before, which only "sort of" worked- and it needs to be re-applied every day...to keep it "sort of" working....:straightface:

I did notice a few years ago, that PM doesn't necessarily go after all of your plants- I had it all over my 2 Dr.Seedsman CBD plants, but the ChemDawg right next to them wasn't affected at all...

Your outdoor ladies are looking sweet! (although now I can't look at them without seeing googly eyes on 'em 🤪)
And props to you for growing out that little auto...so...would she be
a SPOG, or is that a bit different? 😁
 
Monday's update starts now, but if you really want to see some outside beauties, check out @Carcass' brand new update.

And props to you for growing out that little auto...so...would she be a SPOG, or is that a bit different?
Thanks Carcass, and excellent segue to The Wizard auto, here on day 44:

Since it's topped it won't qualify for a spog®, but even my spogs seemed more normal than this one. :hmmmm: It's barely grown at all since I topped it, as if it's in suspended animation. On the plus side it smells really good if you get your nose in it, like old-style skunky weed, and it's easy to schlep too!

Let's take a look at the Summer grow on flip day 31:


I've lost some of the lower leaves on both so it's a good thing I left them on.

They've stopped stretching so I'll get a measurement on them tomorrow before I pull in the outside branches of the Purple Ghost Candy to make it easier to fit through the door without scraping. Pulling will make them taller so I want to be more accurate.

Speaking of the PGC, here is the SaugaView®:


And a couple of flower pics:



Here's the leafy CapJunky:


And some flower close-ups:



Interestingly, I had to spray the CJ below the flower-line (with Dr Bronner's) because it's got an aphid problem, but the PGC remains pretty bug-free! They sit right next to each other in the shed all night so that's a fact worth noting.

I plucked a few larfy bits off both on Saturday but nothing even worth taking pics of. I'm leaving on more small branches than usual because I'm not sure if the tops on these are going to fill out like my previous hybrids. And I give them a gallon a day of 5.5g equivalent of MC.

That's the not-much-happening-here update from me! I hope your weekend went well and that your local athletes are doing you proud. :thumb:


Quotes:
Great tutorial, Shed -Thank You
Always glad to help where I can! :)
I did notice a few years ago, that PM doesn't necessarily go after all of your plants- I had it all over my 2 Dr.Seedsman CBD plants, but the ChemDawg right next to them wasn't affected at all
So true. Candida seems to be a PM magnet, and I guess I'll know about these two as the summer progresses.
Your outdoor ladies are looking sweet! (although now I can't look at them without seeing googly eyes on 'em
LOL thanks!
I had it outdoors in my first outdoor grow and last year when I took them down I noticed a touch. Thankfully just a few leaves and it was so late in the season it didn't hurt.
You've got a great garden for growing, or for getting lucky. :cheesygrinsmiley:
 
Beautiful SaugaViews® Shed!
The side shots just don't do them justice - overhead shots highlight all
the work you've done to make those sweet canopies!👍
On the plus side it smells really good if you get your nose in it, like old-style skunky weed, and it's easy to schlep too!
That's going to be 2 or 3 hits of killer weed once harvest day rolls around.!..:lot-o-toke:.
 
Highya ITS,

I gotta say, You have some gorgeous buds!! It's still early yet, but they look so good!! I have some in soil and they have yellow fans like yours. Seems they can go pretty fast. I even put bloodmeal around trying to slow it down. Helps, a little. I don't envy you any for the schlepping! I was wondering would it be better/easier to use a trolley like Beez uses? I thought that was pretty cool. They're easy enough to make. Great job getting them this far! Happy Smokin'
 
I gotta say, You have some gorgeous buds!! It's still early yet, but they look so good!! I have some in soil and they have yellow fans like yours. Seems they can go pretty fast. I even put bloodmeal around trying to slow it down. Helps, a little.
Thanks Bode...it is early so the bulking should start in a week or so!
I don't envy you any for the schlepping! I was wondering would it be better/easier to use a trolley like Beez uses? I thought that was pretty cool. They're easy enough to make. Great job getting them this far! Happy Smokin'
Beez's trolleys would be terrific if I had a large opening and flat surfaces, but the shed's door is narrow enough to require me to rotate the plants as they go through to avoid scraping the trichs off. Also the backyard is on a different level from the shed as well as the house (for when I use the tent), so I'll schlep until I can't schlep anymore!
 
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