Hey Lester
I have a question for you, help a "New Grower" out if you have some time or lead me to a previous post. I can tell you have a very keen eye & see everything in your garden, you probably just don't see things, you probably have a good sense of feel when something just isn't right or looks suspicious.
Can you describe a little about how you inspect your plants? Do you have a system? Do you check from top to bottom or do you start from the bottom up working your way through the plants?
You have a nice size garden & have it "Pest Free", so any tips as to how you go about your daily routine of how you inspect your lovely ladies would help me out.
Also, glad you got a kick out of the "Light Shock". A buddy of mine told me that. I am starting to figure out that the only real good advice comes from the Growers at
.
SABO - my method is this, the main issue in terms of inspections are that we want to check the buds to make sure they are free of mold and pests. First I look for the obvious critters who hang out on the leaves, or the undersides of leaves. Sometimes, if the buds are really dense than aphids can congregate on the underside of those very small fan leaves accompanying a bud. Next, I try to examine each cola by doing the tug test, meaning I slightly tug on the fan leaves accompanying the stem of the bud in a vertical fashion till we get to the tip, if ANY leaf slides right out with no resistance ( perfectly healthy looking leaves), than it is quite possible there is internal mold, most likely botrytis, once I see that, I have to crack floral clusters open and poke around with an ice-pick to see if that is indeed true. Often times, with the corn-borers *European High Flyers* they're saliva that they travel in actually induces botrytis growth, so that species is the real hell on Earth, anyhow, in that case one small problem leads to a MUCH bigger one. If I find mold growing on the inner buds I have to cut and remove all infection sites using a santizied scissors and ice-pick being careful not to knock any spores off onto any other buds! If I am going after the loopers than I have to have a better eye, there's no mold to tell you they're there, they're typically green and blend in so you have to really look hard, and as I was mentioning to Rooster they can often go unseen! Anyway, my main inspection tool for the actual colas is the ice-pick for carefully removing dead fungus gnats stuck in the trichomes, or trying to stake a worm out, since they run and hide into the internal crannies, you cannot just stick your finger in there and grab it, you have to catch it on the ice-pick. This manual form of inspection is required to ensure a clean crop, I cannot simply rely on any form of pesticide to do the job. As I have said before, the art of applying the product becomes important, and every outdoor gardener realize what works and doesn't work for their unique circumstances, so the ultimate defense against these problems are manual inspections, although tedious, it must be done. The colas are the main bulk of work, but some sly and slick types of bugs can get survive by living in the lower area of the plant, some types attach themself to the stem and can create a kind of "host" system, so you do want to check every square inch of the plant for signs of unwanted pests, disease, or un-normal problem. All the way down to the root zone, growing 100% organically, fungus gnats become my almost constant threat. They adapt quite well and find ways to burrow down to where there is water, and sometimes they can even go down the sides of the pot, or come up from the drainage holes. Making sure not to overwater becomes very important here, the last thing you want is to be literally feeding a thriving fungus gnat nest of over hundreds of larvae without you even knowing it! SNS-203 has proven to me to be a knockem dead tactic, I would recommend that product to a friend. Anyhow, it takes a lot of work, but there are so many details to look into, and since the bugs and pests are always adapting, we have to adapt to become better gardeners so we can get a decent crop in. Some people have it better than others with their grows, be it environment or circumstance that makes them more successful, I just have to work with what I got. It's the great outdoors so we work with what we got to make sure things are as successful as possible. Not sure if that answers any of your questions or helps, but I'll be around later to rant some more.
got all fogged up!
