What products are you using for your pest management?

I always like to ask what other growers are using for their pest control to expand my arsenal. I've been having great luck with spinosad (captain jack's dead bug), citric acid, and neem oil. The captain jack's works great at the suggested dose of 1tbsp/quart. The neem was a little tricky. I could not get the stuff to emulsify at the recommend ratio on the dyna grow bottle. I had success at .75tsp neem and .75tsp dr bronner's per quart. Any higher than that burned young plants. I've got venerate CG on hand but I don't use it often. I bought some horticultural soap too and burned some young plants at the 18.75ml/quart the safer bottle recommended. I'm gonna try it again at 9ml/quart.

I'm trying to get away from the toxic pesticides and work on my organic arsenal. If anyone has experience with the horticultural soap what are your application rates? Do you use different ratios for small plants versus large plants?

I'm hearing some good things about Pyganic which is a pyrethrin product and the price is reasonable:

There's a concentrated version of spinosad under the brand name Conserve SC:

The captain jack's goes pretty quick at 4tbsp/gallon. I'm planning to add the pyganic and conserve sc to the arsenal. Anyone out there have experience with eithe conserve sc or pyganic? I hard pyganic is used frequently at large indoor commercial grows in colorado along with venerate CG. There was a 3rd product they used but I can't remember the name.

I'm big on neem oil it works great when applied correctly, just avoid the flowers

BT is popular but it takes time to get the colony up and running, great if you expect a battle forthcoming

Dr Bonners is good but like neem read the label ..lol

good luck

I would stay away from neem oil, it can cause stokes and even kill a diabetic if they ingest it! Its banned in CA and in 23 US states for commercial use. Anyhow, when it comes to growing anything that can be consumed the only garden spray I use is white vinegar / distilled water 1 part / 16 parts, it kills anything (bug or fungi) that could invade your indoor garden!

What medium you growing in?

GrassBurner said:

What medium you growing in?

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#4 chunky perlite in water to waste hempy buckets. I'm unhappy with the root structure in perlite so I recently switched to coco. Roots only grow in the 3" reservoir and nothing throughout the rest of the bucket with the perlite. I saw some coco hempy root balls posted by other growers and the roots grow like soil. Thick white roots from the top to the bottom of the medium. So far this cycle has 3 coco / perlite mixed plants and the rest are all #4 perlite. I'm running the canna brand coco because it's clean and requires no preparation. Rinse and go. Next cycle will be all coco/perlite mix.

For my indoor growing the small flies are my only problem.. Just got some Mosquito Bits I read was recommended and watered . Once every two weeks they say.

I saw an agricultural consultant take charge if an apple orchard and raised profits 3 million bucks just by making sure any and all measures done to the trees had to happen a a ph of 6.4... this is the harmony of earth and a major pest deturant. Something about frequency and charge of the plants.

My ipm includes a biweekly neem foliar - I emulsify with dr bronners as well, but find the trick is using warm water - I go about 1 tsp neem oil with about the same soap and then mix that in a small jar with warm water, then mix that in a 2L sprayer filled with lukewarm water.

I also recently knocked out an early thrips infestation with citric acid foliar -2.5 tsp per litre - and it did a great job.
I’ve also done a isopropyl foliar during veg to knock down spider mites.

one other thing I’d add is a foliar early-midway in veg with a splash of LAB - the bacteria will essentially colonize on the leaf surface and create a bit of a ‘bio-barrier’ against invaders like PM

Three Berries said:

For my indoor growing the small flies are my only problem.. Just got some Mosquito Bits I read was recommended and watered . Once every two weeks they say.

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I got some of this, but I haven't used it. I didn't know if it would do anything like make my soil pH wonky. You've had good luck?

LeastExpectedGrower said:

I got some of this, but I haven't used it. I didn't know if it would do anything like make my soil pH wonky. You've had good luck?

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Just put it on today. It has no affect on pH or nutes. Other than killing the bugger larvae and offering their bodies for nourishment.

jonnynobody said:

#4 chunky perlite in water to waste hempy buckets. I'm unhappy with the root structure in perlite so I recently switched to coco. Roots only grow in the 3" reservoir and nothing throughout the rest of the bucket with the perlite. I saw some coco hempy root balls posted by other growers and the roots grow like soil. Thick white roots from the top to the bottom of the medium. So far this cycle has 3 coco / perlite mixed plants and the rest are all #4 perlite. I'm running the canna brand coco because it's clean and requires no preparation. Rinse and go. Next cycle will be all coco/perlite mix.

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I'm in soil, no experience with the coco. I'm sure the fine folks around here have plenty of good advice

Three Berries said:

Just put it on today. It has no affect on pH or nutes. Other than killing the bugger larvae and offering their bodies for nourishment.

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I'll try it my next water. I don't have a fungus gnat problem but enough that they're a mild annoyance when I put my head in the tent. I have stickies but they really only control population.