Yeah! It's Bud Worm Season. Pics

If it makes anyone feel better I lost well over 2 oz's to them this season.

ahh fellas, I would never crush up and smoke a worm even if it was full of my hard grown THC. Was just joking around

Is it okay to soak your budding plants with neem oil and will that prevent or kill these worms and caterpillars? Also, will neem oil help keep rot and/or mildew in check on your maturing buds?

I went out this morning and after 3 doses of BT I still had worms. So I decided to start taking the plant down. As I started manicuring the buds I learned a little about Bud Worms. They seem to hatch and grow from the inside of the bud and then eat and crap their way out. Sometimes they take a round about way out to the surface and sometime they come straight to the surface. I had one work its way half way up to the top of a nice cola.
To me it stands to reason that the moth comes in and lays its eggs on the buds, then the plant grows the bud around the eggs, then after the bud has developed the worms hatch. This makes it real important that you start spraying early because its hard to get the BT deep enough into the bud to kill the worms when they first hatch. You can spray late and still kill the worms that are already on the surface and you should, but the damage has already been done once you see the worms on the surface.

Conclusion: Follow fdd's advice and start spraying early and spray often. I think that if you did this you could use lighter concentrations of BT.

Fortunately I've had a lot of worms that made for the surface right away. So I've only lost about 8 buds, which were all at the top of the plant. The lower limbs have little to no damage so far. I'm glad that I cut it. Two more weeks and I would have probably lost half of the plant. And when you're only growing two plants that's a lot of loss.

I would have taken pictures today but my hands were so stickey that I didn't want to pick up my camera.

I do have some Pics of the plant just before I started chopping it. The first four pics are of the infested plan and the rest are from the other plant that needs at least another three weeks but seems bug free so far. I'm sure bummed that I had to cut her down early. But its better than giving half of it to the bugs.

beautiful plants. stupid worms. i have those little tiny brown moths all over my backyard. i'm still lightly misting every 3 or 4 days. everything looks ok, so far.

Hope all works out well for ya CrazyChester . Those are butes !!!!

Originally Posted by fdd2blk

beautiful plants. stupid worms. i have those little tiny brown moths all over my backyard. i'm still lightly misting every 3 or 4 days. everything looks ok, so far.

You probably won't have the problems I had since you started early. Next time I'll take your advice and start as soon as I see flowers. I'll still get about a half pound from this plant which would nearly fill my needs for the year. And I'll get nearly the same from the other plant as long as the bugs don't start in.

I noticed one other thing about my two plants. The plant that is bug free has spiders on it and the bug ridden plant doesn't. Could be that the spiders either ward off the moths or they eat the eggs or the eat the hatchling worms. Who knows.

Originally Posted by CrazyChester

You probably won't have the problems I had since you started early. Next time I'll take your advice and start as soon as I see flowers. I'll still get about a half pound from this plant which would nearly fill my needs for the year. And I'll get nearly the same from the other plant as long as the bugs don't start in.

I noticed one other thing about my two plants. The plant that is bug free has spiders on it and the bug ridden plant doesn't. Could be that the spiders either ward off the moths or they eat the eggs or the eat the hatchling worms. Who knows.

spiders do help. i have little brown moths flying everywhere. those ones you find in your flour or whatever. as i walk across my yard they fly up outta the grass. they are EVERYWHERE!! i hope the Bt is working. my plants are too tall for me to see the tops. i have no idea what's going on up there.

I know the little brown moths lay eggs on broccoli plants and broccoli has flowers that in some ways resemble pot flowers. BT works great on the broccoli worms.

I've also found that bud worms like sunlight. Last year I brought my buds out into the sunlight to take some pictures and as soon as I spread them out in the sun they all came up to the surface. That's probably why I find them in heaver concentration on the colas.