caterpillar alert! please help!!

BuckP · Oct 12, 2012

Azamax sounds like an ideal solution. Will check it out. Thanks again!

MitchyNugz · Oct 13, 2012

BuckP said:
Azamax seems to be advertised primarily for spider mites which, thankfully, I've not yet experienced. Great to know it also works for caterpillars! Thanks for that wisdom, Mitchy. Curious if it works to repel or if it simply penetrates the buds to kill any caterpillars which might be present at the time of application. Just found a good link to info on Azamax which may contain that info: -

Not a 100% sure on if it will kill the worms in the buds.....I thought once they were in the buds your pretty much in trouble..........I just had some wrapping fan leaves up into lil cacoons and living in them and eating the buds....you could pull one of them fan leaves that was curled and every one had a lil worm poke his head out.....The azamax was what I could get my hands on and I have heard it's a lil safer being omri listed so I used it.....I drenched the plants with it really well plucked off the caterpillars I could see and it worked very well and Im sure it repels for awhile cause I sprayed once early in flower and none came back at all was very happy so Im guessing azamax does last and repel seems to be very oily and sticks to leaves nicely.....and it kills them instantly once in there imune system id assume found lots of other dead bugs after spraying.......casulties of war!

all i can say is that it worked for me very well!

BuckP · Oct 13, 2012

Thanks for the thorough explanation of your experience with azamax and caterpillars, Mitchy! Read up on it last night - sounds like great stuff and also realized it's widely used for issues I've not yet encountered. This OD grow had all kinds of little bugs & critters but, looking at the girls generally, none of those bugs were much of an issue except the caterpillars. Used a mix of one shot glass of neem along with 7 drops each of lavender, rosemary and peppermint oils per gallon which seemed to do the trick for everything except those evil cats... The tomato worm caterpillars we have here tend to quickly duck inside the buds so you're lucky if you see one crawling up a plant so you can kill it. You can always tell the location of a caterpillar, once it does a little damage, by a single wilted brown leaf at the site of caterpillar. If you carefully look around inside the bud at that spot, you'll usually find a cat, unless he's had enough and moved to a fresh bud.

Again, the good news is you can cut out caterpillar damage unless they take an entire plant you're not watching closely then they can make every bud on the plant a crumbly mess.

bongstar · Oct 15, 2012

your best bet is to be proactive not reactive! i use to have worm problems, now i built a cage that has smal diamond lath around it so moths cant get in but my plants get full sun. i had o worms at all for the first time.

Sir Puffs Alott · Oct 15, 2012

This year "Safer® Brand Caterpillar Killer with B.T. 8 oz. Concentrate"
worked for me. :D Next year definitely going with a mesh cage. o_O

BuckP · Oct 25, 2012

Bongstar, you can bet I'll be proactive next outdoor season... This was my first year to have a serious problem with caterpillars. Had a few last season but no big problem. This year had a lot more - not sure why except had more sativa which they seem to like best. In the future, I'll plan to use either or both Safer and/or Azamax from the get-go... Bongstar, your mess cage sounds interesting. Thanks for that tip!

mr roboto · Nov 9, 2012

Spinosad will kill all of them . they will be upside down under your leaves hanging dead! Safe for flowering also

randy s · Jun 6, 2013

i grow outdoors in the san diego area and where i grow, the neighbors have huge honeysuckle bushes that, along with weed, are hosts plants for moths to lay their eggs in. so naturally, my plants are targeted by these critters as well..since very early on a few years back when i realized this fact by losing most of my crop and i followed the advice of ed rosenthal and began spaying my crop with a light mixture of BT and de-chlorinated water when they first start to go off at least two or three times a week all the way through the budding process. it's huge to use de-chlorinated water because as most people might know, chlorine kills bacteria and that's all BT is.. i don't like using anything much on my plants but doing this works quite well and doesn't affect the taste or is harmful to anything else on earth except caterpillars and is as organic as it gets being nothing more than live bacteria that hate caterpillars more than anything else in the world. i also do the best i can to spray everything in site that grows around there before the things hatch out including sneaking over to the neighbors place when he ain't there and spraying his gawd damned honeysuckle bushes too..but if you do get your crop ravaged by these little devils, i may be wrong, but it seems like you could still make bubble hash out of it by filtering out the bad chit and at least salvage your efforts to a degree..if anyone has a problem with my methods to try and stay away from using any poison on the plants please let me know because i'm always willing and anxious to add to what i know as all thinking people are . no one knows everything there is to know about anything on earth and i'm always willing to learn and try new chit if it makes good sense and won't hurt me or anyone else...except those phucking worms..

Capulator · Jun 6, 2013

FWIW I used to put a mosquito net on a simple wood frame over my outdoor plants to keep the little white butterflies out. I always thought that was where that shitty green caterpillar that shits in your buds and causes rot comes from.

After I started using mosquito netting, I never had caterpillars again.

Seamaiden · Jun 7, 2013

Mosquito netting, eh? I'm in need of a physical barrier, but for thistle seed. My past experience dictates that once the milk thistle blooms and sends out the white fluffs, it IS going to get plastered all over my buds. I was thinking landscape cloth or shadecloth, but mosquito netting sounds much better.

caregiverken · Jul 11, 2013

Covering trees isnt so easy :grumpy: Or cheap.

Seamaiden · Jul 12, 2013

No, it isn't, is it? Scale, my friend, everything changes with SCALE.

geologic · Jul 13, 2013

[Yep, watch out for them scale insects, Heh.]
　
Here's a new one on me:
　
Last week I ran into some different kinda Lepadoptera larvae; not our typical "budworms",
whose known suspects here include Cabbage Butterflies and two (or 3...) varieties of Skippers.

These things were totally different, observed on the leaves of only one plant. I removed 'em , and the plant (don't want any possible future susceptibility problems). The weird thing is that (trying to identify 'em) I put 'em in a jar that was used to hold Herb last year, and it was coated in kief/resin.
The "worms" immediately moved from leaves to the jar--
and started grazing...

Seamaiden · Jul 14, 2013

I found something very similar to those things on my poplar a few months ago, just ate the branch DOWN. I discovered that if I knocked them off they weren't able to find their way back onto the tree. I had BETTER NOT find anything like that on my ganja!

<shudder>

caregiverken · Jul 14, 2013

wow those are scary looking Geo! and scary to hear they like Trichomes :eek:

geologic · Jul 14, 2013

caregiverken said:
wow those are scary looking Geo! and scary to hear they like Trichomes :eek:

Yep, the trichome part is scary; and with half a premise, I've been known to embrace conspiracy theories.

I mentioned the two varieties of skippers (2/3 of the main source of "worms") here.
I grew up close by, and we had those two same kinds 55 years ago.

I used to pick worms by hand, er, tweezers, then, maybe the year of The Laguna Canyon/Canyon Acres Fire (93?) a third variety showed up. I thought wow, a cross; then I thought: why a cross now???

These new worms were 10 times the population and 10 times as voracious as the indigenous ones.
I assumed it was a government anti Cannabis drug war bio engineering project and started using Bt.

The third, mystery variety, Skipper "disappeared" or crossed with the other(s)--
the "worms" were always worse after that...

caregiverken · Jul 14, 2013

I assumed it was a government anti Cannabis drug war bio engineering project and started using Bt.

I don't doubt that for a second

baba G · Jul 14, 2013

geologic said:
Yep, the trichome part is scary; and with half a premise, I've been known to embrace conspiracy theories.

I mentioned the two varieties of skippers (2/3 of the main source of "worms") here.
I grew up close by, and we had those two same kinds 55 years ago.

I used to pick worms by hand, er, tweezers, then, maybe the year of The Laguna Canyon/Canyon Acres Fire (93?) a third variety showed up. I thought wow, a cross; then I thought: why a cross now???

These new worms were 10 times the population and 10 times as voracious as the indigenous ones.
I assumed it was a government anti Cannabis drug war bio engineering project and started using Bt.

The third, mystery variety, Skipper "disappeared" or crossed with the other(s)--
the "worms" were always worse after that...

Do you preventatively spray your plants with anything besides BT?

geologic · Jul 14, 2013

I never liked the smell of Thuricide, and I never liked the residual power (or smell) from the dry Bt.

Last year, thanks to lurking here, I switched to Spinosad. Not only do I like the way it smells, but I love the way it was discovered: in the bottom of a fermenting vat of an abandoned rum distillery in The Virgin Islands.

I don't spray until I see the first "worm"--
or I see the adults actively laying eggs...

vaporedout · Jul 14, 2013

follow the poop trail, youll find em in your bud, then squish em

caterpillar alert! please help!!

caterpillar alert! please help!!

BuckP

MitchyNugz

BuckP

bongstar

Sir Puffs Alott

BuckP

mr roboto

randy s

Capulator

likes to smell trees.

Seamaiden

Living dead girl

caregiverken

Fear Not!

Seamaiden

Living dead girl

geologic

Old Pharmer

Seamaiden

Living dead girl

caregiverken

Fear Not!

geologic

Old Pharmer

caregiverken

Fear Not!

baba G

bean sprouts are tasty

geologic

Old Pharmer

vaporedout

caterpillar alert! please help!!

caterpillar alert! please help!!

BuckP

MitchyNugz

BuckP

bongstar

Sir Puffs Alott

BuckP

mr roboto

randy s

Capulator

likes to smell trees.

Seamaiden

Living dead girl

caregiverken

Fear Not!

Seamaiden

Living dead girl

geologic

Old Pharmer

Seamaiden

Living dead girl

caregiverken

Fear Not!

geologic

Old Pharmer

caregiverken

Fear Not!

baba G

bean sprouts are tasty

geologic

Old Pharmer

vaporedout

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