Late Start to Season: Delay flowering to catch up?

[grayarea]

i have to use a res to ph my water . i go by numbers because they are less confusing then terms like "main" when i separate that stuff from the work im doing i usually get better results

 

[Seamaiden]

Ah, that goes far beyond what I'm willing to do. Straight outta the well and onto whoever needs it.

 

[SunGrown]

Acidsourda

I'm saying don't use the white PVC if it's going to be left exposed to the elements, and I'm also saying that I would find using drip line *as* the main supply line entirely bereft. I don't use a reservoir. I feed the soil, it all gets watered. If a feed is needed, it's occasionally only, so again, no need for a reservoir (which would require what is to me constant maintenance). Using quarter inch drip line as *the* main supply line to get water to the gardens doesn't fit in my scenario.

not 1/4 inch line, typically 5/8" or 1/2" black pipe....

 

[Seamaiden]

Now that sounds more like it to me, though I'd go with 3/4" and step it down. But that's cuzza how I started out plumbing all those fucking aquariums. It's in the thousands.

 

[royfree2grow]

@AcidSourDank how's it going? i'm very interested in how it turned up, best of luck!

 

[infocus]

damn I'm jealous of all you guys have have massive outdoor grow spaces.

 

[SunGrown]

Any updates on this garden??

 

[below frigid]

I run 1 inch ID from the well to the 2500 gallon tank, it's a special hard coiled poly product made for wells and the same 1 inch back down the hill to a couple of hose bibs. One is 3/4 id the other is 1/2 id. My garden with 18 smart pots is connected to the 1/2" bib via 1/2" poly drip tubing and run 200 ft or more to the garden. Split off into 3 timers that have 3 connections each. 9 total connections. Each waters two pots and comes on at a different time so I make sure I have enough volume of water for the 20 drippers in each pot. I should of gone up to 3/4 poly and stepped it down to 1/2 at each timer. Just replaced the whole system last year so it's staying like it is for a while

 

[AcidSourDank]

Hey guys. . I meant to get back with an update sooner but I've been dealing with a life or death battle: RUSSET MITES!!!

I have never had these little fucks before. When I came to the area and heard about it I just didn't take it seriously because everything I grow, whether clone or seedling, originally came from seed companies or my own seed stock. I had learned too many times in the past just how easily one can receive someone else's pest along with their clones. Anyway, I had a friend call me because he had figured out that he had Russets. He took on a significant amount of damage before getting the issue properly diagnosed. Then another friend started seeing the tacoing leaves in his garden so I went on high alert because my plants had spent some time at his place while in transition. Searching the garden I was finding occasional leaf twists and curls but it wasn't until the following day when I saw the leaves starting to curl taco-style that I knew I was in the shit too.

It's amazing how much questionable info is out there about winning the war against these bugs. The following was done in a rush to attack the problem while still trying to determine what would actually work and what was bullshit:

1. The friend who first got them told me that sulfur would work. Starting on Friday, July 25th, I spent three days spraying sulfur using a hand-pump sprayer with a wand on sections of the garden in the evening and then washing it off in the morning before the sun was on the girls.
2. Then starting on Monday, July 28th, I spent the next four days spraying sections of the garden with malathion, again using a hand-pump sprayer with a wand. The local Home Depot actually had so many customers coming in with the same problem that they had made a little sign saying that malathion was the only insecticide they carried that was effective against "rust mites"- pretty funny.
3. Then starting on Sunday, Aug. 3rd, I used the same hand-sprayer to hit these little bastards over three evenings with Avid (1.25 ml/gallon with 10 ml non-ionic surfactant 10 ml/gallon)
4. On Thursday, Aug. 7th, I used a friend's Hudson Fogger to spray the entire garden over two evenings with Forbid (1 ml/gallon with 10 ml non-ionic surfactant 10 ml/gallon). I questioned the effectiveness of the Fogger because it didn't seem to really soak the leaves, especially the undersides, very well unless used up close but it also felt like it was blowing a lot of the material right through the plant and out the other side unless used from a distance.

A few comments on the above treatments:

• The sulfur is difficult to completely wash off, leading to some occasional leaf burn and its effectiveness against Russets is questionable. I think it may have slowed them down a bit but that's it. Considering the hassle of having to wash it off in the morning and its roughness on the plants I would not repeat the sulfur treatments.
• The malathion might be effective but it can also be pretty rough on the plants. I recommend only spraying this stuff in the evening and don't go over a plant more than once in a treatment. I did some spraying in the morning and had a fatality from applying it too close to the heat of the day. Use with caution.
• Avid is the first product I was able to get my hands on which seems to reliably kill of Russets. It was also the first product that made the plants actually look healthier the next day. I was upset when I looked through my 20x scope and still saw a shitload of eggs (my scope isn't powerful enough to see larvae clearly) but at least any adults I saw were dead ones. I used the concentration listed for mites (4 oz/100g = ~1.25 ml/gallon) but I've been told that I used too weak of a concentration and I plan to use 2.5 ml/gallon in the future.
• Forbid is also supposed to reliably hurt Russets, particularly their eggs. I dunno if I should blame the Hudson Fogger but I was disappointed after this treatment as you will see below.

After the Forbid treatment I took a night off from spraying. The next day, which was yesterday Sunday Aug. 10th, I was walking around the garden and I was seeing leaves that were still tacoing. Had this sign never gone away? I wasn't sure. I was also noticing lower leaves on some of the plants that were going brittle and falling off. I thought maybe I hadn't mixed the forbid well enough in the tank and so maybe some of the plants got too strong of a solution, but then I realized it was more wide-spread and I think I remember seeing a video with a guy who had Russets and his leaves looking like this. Then I started noticing mutated growth on the newest growth. Before I had seen leaf twists and curls on somewhat older leaves, this time it was the newest formed leaves! I scoped some of the new growth and saw eggs on it. This means I still have adult fuckers actively going around and, based on the mutated growth, the larvae have been hatching! FUCK!!! So, last night I drenched the main garden with Avid using a backpack sprayer. While I was out there I'm pretty sure I saw the same spindly new growth on a few of the plants that I had seen in pictures from people who had Russets. Those plants got extra drenching! Prior to yesterday most of the damage done was more from the sulfur and malathion treatments, the leaf twists and tacoing leaves not being all that bad but the leaf death and more sickly growth has got me going nuts. Considering that I was already behind for the season the mantra had been "no more setbacks". Can a guy get a break?

Here's some pics from yesterday:

Lower damage, from Russets?

Leaf tacoing and new growth curling:

More curling:

Here's some shots I took just now:

More leaf damage showing up today....:(

Some might say that it's not that bad yet. I am lucky that I got on this from the very first signs and the pics are from the worst affected, but it is very distressing that shit seems to be getting worse!!! Damage ain't that bad yet but if I don't get this licked then it's gonna be ugly. I only have a short time before I will have to stop these nasty treatments so that it doesn't end up in the finished flowers.

For the immediate future I plan to go on a constant rotation of spraying half the garden with Avid one evening and then the other half the next evening, then Forbid over two evenings and back to Avid. I *might* throw in a malathion rotation in there as well. I also need a more powerful scope so I can actually see if the larvae are active or dead. All I can see right now is just tiny beige blobs but I can't tell if they're moving.

As things get closer to harvest I want to be able to back away from the nasty stuff. The guy at one of the local grow shops convinced me to buy a bag of insect frass (bug parts and bug shit). The idea being that it contains a bacterial that will eat the Russets. So I add the frass to a tub of water and churn it with an air bubbler to get the bacteria really active, then spray it on the plants and it would both attack the bugs and act as a foliar feed which would strengthen the plant's resistance to attack. I'm not ready to dedicate any precious time to that yet. I've also heard rumors that spraying ice-water early in the morning will kill them but I'm skeptical of that one.


Now going back to the original subject of this thread, delaying the flowering has gone okay. In the main garden I have a 600 watt HPS turned sideways and positioned in the best spot for maximum coverage and a halogen lamp, like what painters use, at the other end which I try to move around to a few times each night in hopes of getting everything sufficiently lit up. On the smaller garden I have another 600 watt HPS turned sideways.

Back in mid/late July I got a bit of preflowering hairs on pretty much every plant shortly after everything was planted. I got concerned about things actually flowering early instead of late! I have been hitting all of the girls pretty hard with nitrogen (mixing in 1/3 Miracle Grow grass fertilizer, which is almost all N, to 2/3 Earth Juice Sea Blast Grow). I'm not sure whether it was the Nitrogen and/or the lights or if they just did it on their own but they all eventually came out of that preflowering. Then last week (early Aug.) we got a few cooler gloomy days and the flowering came back on the majority of the plants in spite of the lights and N. This time it looked more like legitimate beginnings of flowers and I've started to become more hesitant about feeding grow and putting the lights on the girls that look like they're really getting ready to flower. I don't want to end up hurting the quality of the flowers because I refused to let them flower when they wanted to.

Can anybody comment on how far into the transition I can go with nitrogen without hurting the flower quality?

To answer some old questions- We have solar and a powerful Generac generator which runs on propane. If I were to make any improvements to our power situation it would be more storage capacity because the batteries get full fairly quickly on a sunny day or whenever the generator is running. We have a well that hasn't showed any signs of slowing down yet. The well fills a storage tank which then provides water for both the irrigation and the house. We hope to have an injection system in the future so we can feed through the irrigation system. We got some Israeli drippers that are supposed to not clog even with nutes.

The comments about the PVC are appreciated. When there's time I hope to cover the PVC with dirt. I need to finish all the 1/2 inch black tubing spirals with drippers so that the PVC will actually get used and my pots can get better moisture dispersion with less effort. Right now I'm hand watering, then spraying, watering, spraying....

Thanks for all the helpful comments!

 

[Seamaiden]

I've only very quickly perused your post after I saw russet mites. You need to go read caregiverken's thread, start to finish.

 

[caregiverken]

Hey guys. . I meant to get back with an update sooner but I've been dealing with a life or death battle: RUSSET MITES!!!

I have never had these little fucks before. When I came to the area and heard about it I just didn't take it seriously because everything I grow, whether clone or seedling, originally came from seed companies or my own seed stock. I had learned too many times in the past just how easily one can receive someone else's pest along with their clones. Anyway, I had a friend call me because he had figured out that he had Russets. He took on a significant amount of damage before getting the issue properly diagnosed. Then another friend started seeing the tacoing leaves in his garden so I went on high alert because my plants had spent some time at his place while in transition. Searching the garden I was finding occasional leaf twists and curls but it wasn't until the following day when I saw the leaves starting to curl taco-style that I knew I was in the shit too.

It's amazing how much questionable info is out there about winning the war against these bugs. The following was done in a rush to attack the problem while still trying to determine what would actually work and what was bullshit:

1. The friend who first got them told me that sulfur would work. Starting on Friday, July 25th, I spent three days spraying sulfur using a hand-pump sprayer with a wand on sections of the garden in the evening and then washing it off in the morning before the sun was on the girls.
2. Then starting on Monday, July 28th, I spent the next four days spraying sections of the garden with malathion, again using a hand-pump sprayer with a wand. The local Home Depot actually had so many customers coming in with the same problem that they had made a little sign saying that malathion was the only insecticide they carried that was effective against "rust mites"- pretty funny.
3. Then starting on Sunday, Aug. 3rd, I used the same hand-sprayer to hit these little bastards over three evenings with Avid (1.25 ml/gallon with 10 ml non-ionic surfactant 10 ml/gallon)
4. On Thursday, Aug. 7th, I used a friend's Hudson Fogger to spray the entire garden over two evenings with Forbid (1 ml/gallon with 10 ml non-ionic surfactant 10 ml/gallon). I questioned the effectiveness of the Fogger because it didn't seem to really soak the leaves, especially the undersides, very well unless used up close but it also felt like it was blowing a lot of the material right through the plant and out the other side unless used from a distance.

A few comments on the above treatments:

• The sulfur is difficult to completely wash off, leading to some occasional leaf burn and its effectiveness against Russets is questionable. I think it may have slowed them down a bit but that's it. Considering the hassle of having to wash it off in the morning and its roughness on the plants I would not repeat the sulfur treatments.
• The malathion might be effective but it can also be pretty rough on the plants. I recommend only spraying this stuff in the evening and don't go over a plant more than once in a treatment. I did some spraying in the morning and had a fatality from applying it too close to the heat of the day. Use with caution.
• Avid is the first product I was able to get my hands on which seems to reliably kill of Russets. It was also the first product that made the plants actually look healthier the next day. I was upset when I looked through my 20x scope and still saw a shitload of eggs (my scope isn't powerful enough to see larvae clearly) but at least any adults I saw were dead ones. I used the concentration listed for mites (4 oz/100g = ~1.25 ml/gallon) but I've been told that I used too weak of a concentration and I plan to use 2.5 ml/gallon in the future.
• Forbid is also supposed to reliably hurt Russets, particularly their eggs. I dunno if I should blame the Hudson Fogger but I was disappointed after this treatment as you will see below.

After the Forbid treatment I took a night off from spraying. The next day, which was yesterday Sunday Aug. 10th, I was walking around the garden and I was seeing leaves that were still tacoing. Had this sign never gone away? I wasn't sure. I was also noticing lower leaves on some of the plants that were going brittle and falling off. I thought maybe I hadn't mixed the forbid well enough in the tank and so maybe some of the plants got too strong of a solution, but then I realized it was more wide-spread and I think I remember seeing a video with a guy who had Russets and his leaves looking like this. Then I started noticing mutated growth on the newest growth. Before I had seen leaf twists and curls on somewhat older leaves, this time it was the newest formed leaves! I scoped some of the new growth and saw eggs on it. This means I still have adult fuckers actively going around and, based on the mutated growth, the larvae have been hatching! FUCK!!! So, last night I drenched the main garden with Avid using a backpack sprayer. While I was out there I'm pretty sure I saw the same spindly new growth on a few of the plants that I had seen in pictures from people who had Russets. Those plants got extra drenching! Prior to yesterday most of the damage done was more from the sulfur and malathion treatments, the leaf twists and tacoing leaves not being all that bad but the leaf death and more sickly growth has got me going nuts. Considering that I was already behind for the season the mantra had been "no more setbacks". Can a guy get a break?

Here's some pics from yesterday:

Lower damage, from Russets?

View attachment 431806

View attachment 431808

Leaf tacoing and new growth curling:

View attachment 431809

More curling: View attachment 431810

Here's some shots I took just now:

More leaf damage showing up today....:(
View attachment 431811

View attachment 431812

Some might say that it's not that bad yet. I am lucky that I got on this from the very first signs and the pics are from the worst affected, but it is very distressing that shit seems to be getting worse!!! Damage ain't that bad yet but if I don't get this licked then it's gonna be ugly. I only have a short time before I will have to stop these nasty treatments so that it doesn't end up in the finished flowers.

For the immediate future I plan to go on a constant rotation of spraying half the garden with Avid one evening and then the other half the next evening, then Forbid over two evenings and back to Avid. I *might* throw in a malathion rotation in there as well. I also need a more powerful scope so I can actually see if the larvae are active or dead. All I can see right now is just tiny beige blobs but I can't tell if they're moving.

As things get closer to harvest I want to be able to back away from the nasty stuff. The guy at one of the local grow shops convinced me to buy a bag of insect frass (bug parts and bug shit). The idea being that it contains a bacterial that will eat the Russets. So I add the frass to a tub of water and churn it with an air bubbler to get the bacteria really active, then spray it on the plants and it would both attack the bugs and act as a foliar feed which would strengthen the plant's resistance to attack. I'm not ready to dedicate any precious time to that yet. I've also heard rumors that spraying ice-water early in the morning will kill them but I'm skeptical of that one.


Now going back to the original subject of this thread, delaying the flowering has gone okay. In the main garden I have a 600 watt HPS turned sideways and positioned in the best spot for maximum coverage and a halogen lamp, like what painters use, at the other end which I try to move around to a few times each night in hopes of getting everything sufficiently lit up. On the smaller garden I have another 600 watt HPS turned sideways.

Back in mid/late July I got a bit of preflowering hairs on pretty much every plant shortly after everything was planted. I got concerned about things actually flowering early instead of late! I have been hitting all of the girls pretty hard with nitrogen (mixing in 1/3 Miracle Grow grass fertilizer, which is almost all N, to 2/3 Earth Juice Sea Blast Grow). I'm not sure whether it was the Nitrogen and/or the lights or if they just did it on their own but they all eventually came out of that preflowering. Then last week (early Aug.) we got a few cooler gloomy days and the flowering came back on the majority of the plants in spite of the lights and N. This time it looked more like legitimate beginnings of flowers and I've started to become more hesitant about feeding grow and putting the lights on the girls that look like they're really getting ready to flower. I don't want to end up hurting the quality of the flowers because I refused to let them flower when they wanted to.

Can anybody comment on how far into the transition I can go with nitrogen without hurting the flower quality?

To answer some old questions- We have solar and a powerful Generac generator which runs on propane. If I were to make any improvements to our power situation it would be more storage capacity because the batteries get full fairly quickly on a sunny day or whenever the generator is running. We have a well that hasn't showed any signs of slowing down yet. The well fills a storage tank which then provides water for both the irrigation and the house. We hope to have an injection system in the future so we can feed through the irrigation system. We got some Israeli drippers that are supposed to not clog even with nutes.

The comments about the PVC are appreciated. When there's time I hope to cover the PVC with dirt. I need to finish all the 1/2 inch black tubing spirals with drippers so that the PVC will actually get used and my pots can get better moisture dispersion with less effort. Right now I'm hand watering, then spraying, watering, spraying....

Thanks for all the helpful comments!

It sounds like your going to get emunder control
I think some of that leaf damage is from the spraying and not the mites..
The mites seem to eat the pistols and tips of forming leaves..but They don't do much damage to fan leaves..except, where the fingers come together ..
Thats where they some live and a good place to look for them

Good luck and keep us posted!

 

[AcidSourDank]

Thanks Seamaiden. I've been reading through that thread over several days but it's a lot to take in.

Ken: Thanks for the input. I've been questioning whether the sprays might have caused damage but if that were the case then it would have to be the surfactant because that's the only thing that can be connected to the timeline of leaf death. I don't think that is the case though:

• The leaf die-off has progressed both times slightly behind the progression of mutated hooking/curling of new growth.
• The damage has been relative with more infested plants showing more of both types of damage. It has also been relative between the two gardens with the main garden exhibiting more tacoing, hooking and leaf death.
• Lastly, leaf chlorosis and necrosis are symptoms associated with Russet mites (see Hemp Diseases and Pests). The splotchy browning is the russeting that gives them their name

In my experience leaf tacoing is the first sign, then mutated new growth, and finally leaf die-off. When the first cycle of damage occured it was much milder. I put a dent into them but then they came back with a vengence: more tacoing, more distorted growth and then more extreme leaf damage. The leaf death on round two was both more prevalent and more sick-looking. In the first round the leaves had an even yellowing similar to the end of flowering. The second time they were splotchy brown and yellow, the damage being greatest at the point where the leaves all meet, like you described.

You had me wondering though so I called my friend who first got the Russets this season. He is deeper in the shit since his response to them was much slower. He has more more lower/inner canopy die-off like I described. I think the reason you haven't seen the leaf damage like I have is because you've held them back from exploding in numbers. You do have worse new growth mutation, so maybe different climates is playing a role in this as well.


So, question: Bayer 3 in1, Caps Foliar, Flying Skull Nuke Em, aspirin, Caps Biowar- are any of these actually proving to be effective?

Met52 looks to be getting promising results and it sounds kinda like the insect frass tea that I got. I haven't tried it yet but I might throw insect frass tea into the rotation soon. Movento also looks like it could be a good option.

With regard to boosting immunity and strength, can anybody comment on their experiences with silica or any other treatments which helped strengthen plants? I have used silica in the past but I'm not sure whether it actually made a difference or not. I don't have the time or money to waste on snake oil treatments at this point.

For next year I wanna get one of those fertilizer carts that you push around while it throws out material and fill it with a mix of sulfur and food grade DE, just cover the whole area with everything that mites don't like. Preventative spraying will also be mandatory.


GARDEN UPDATE: I drenched the back garden last night with Avid at a rate of 2.5 ml/gal. and the non-ionic surfactant (10ml/gal.) hoping that higher concentration of Avid proves more effective. I was seeing more and more of the mutated new growth and it was getting me pretty worked up. My backpack sprayer started leaking on me which was wasn't fun. After changing clothes I wrapped a beach towel around myself and went back to it. This is WAR.

I'm done using the grass Miracle Grow as 1/3 of my feeding solution along with my regular veg. nutes. I had put the high N fertilizer in because I had wanted to stretch out the short internodal spacing caused from sexing my F1 plants and because I wanted to promote fast vegetative growth before it was too late. But now I don't want to risk hindering the plants' natural defenses just to push vegetative growth.

I'd like to keep feeding the Earth Juice Sea Blast Grow until I get the Russets under control but I'm wondering how much longer I can afford to give them grow ferts. Can anybody answer this? At this point I have hairs popping out on most of the garden but the lights seem to be generally holding them on the tipping point of transition into flowering.

Today I went around to check things and at midday it was looking worse. Along with the curling of new growth and tacoing, leaf die-off was in various stages in most of the main garden. By the evening though it looked like they had shed most everything they were going to and were beginning to rebound. I think the Avid really blasted them but the damage the Russets left behind took 2 days to resolve.

South side of the main garden:

Southeast portion: a healthy looking Blueberry Headband in the foreground to the left, a Blue Dream in the center which was newly gutted by the mites , and between them a Pineapple Skunk farther back which was just starting to show leaf sickness on the lowest portions.

Back garden:
The back garden was only showing curling yesterday but today I was seeing the beginnings of leaf chlorosis on many of them as well. If this mirrors the main garden then they should be looking better by tomorrow evening. I decided to clear out any branches that were low to the ground so that spraying is easier. Last night I spent almost 3 hours spraying the back garden with somewhere around 24 gallons of Avid, just soaking them.

(Cayuga ducks and various laying chickens are in the building to the right.)

I finally got a 100x scope and I'm seeing only eggs today. Tonight I'm going to spay Forbid in the main garden at 1.2 ml/gal. I'm tempted to go with a bit stronger mix but I'll hold back for now.

 

[caregiverken]

You have an awesome Garden and property ACD!
and,to me, it sounds like you are going to win this battle
The Avid and forbid should do the trick.
Im pretty sure the asprin made my plants look better over night.
So does Caps Bio War foliar spraying.
If i had it to do over I would skip the nuke em.
The Met 52 worked for Sungrown..I have only sprayed a little bit of the Met so far.
I still have most of the $100 bottle..If i could figure out how to make it mix with water, I would spray it again

Best of luck to you! and everyone thats fighting these.
Keep us posted

 

[SunGrown]

so sorry to hear!

yes, met52 is what wiped mine out

You can and likely will beat them. Good luck!

 

[Seamaiden]

Met52 is a very specific cultivar/strain of bacteria, IIRC, whereas frass I believe may provide another specie or species of bacteria. Frass helps induce SARS (immune system response) as does aspirin.

 

[AcidSourDank]

Garden Update: The evening supplemental lighting has definitely done the trick of delaying flowering and allowing the girls to get bigger.

Thanks for the info on frass vs. Met 52. I just got done with a treatment of Dr. Zymes. Next I'm going to spray with frass tea bubbled for 2 hrs., then I'll do my first Met 52 treatment, then do a Conserve SC treatment

I ended the evening lighting in the main garden a few days ago. Some of the plants that were getting less light had already gone into flowering.

Main Garden South

Main Garden North

Pineapple Skunk pushing above 7 ft. and just beginning to consider flowering. :woot:

Blueberry Headband to the left, Blue Dream in the center and Pineapple Skunk between them.

I'm still lighting up the back garden for a few more days just to stagger the harvest so I'm not overloaded.

This is the sentry. Always on watch! :finger:

One of the worst hit girls by the Russets. She basically got an intense lollipop treatment.

All in all though I'm very pleased that I've been able to get more size out of these girls before they went into flowering. :D

 

[royfree2grow]

Great work man! glad to see its working, goodluck!