First Grow & Need Help With Pests

[NoBoysAllowed]

Hey guys,

I have been noticing small holes on my leaves for about 3 weeks and cannot figure out what is causing it. The symptoms surprisingly have not gotten worse with time, but rather slightly better. The issues started right before flipping to flower when I was dealing with some heavy deficiencies so some damage to the leaves can be attributed to that. I have been checking the plants over every day and have never noticed anything out of the ordinary. I applied sticky pads to the soil and the only thing that they caught was what seemed to be a singular fungus gnat. I have also been checking under leaves and on top with and without my jeweler loupe and didn't find anything.

Its quite a frustrating phenomenon that has been driving me insane. I attached a bunch of photos from 6 days ago when I was doing some defoliation. They are on there day 21 of flower currently so I thought it would be best to reach out for some advice before it the buds start really plumping up. Please help me sleep again lol

Thanks Everyone!

Also, some of the damage could possibly be attributed to the fact that the leaves brush up against the zipper of the tent whenever I remove the plants. (the tent is in a closet with 2" of clearance so I cant open the tent all the way)

 

[NoBoysAllowed]

Some more pics.

 

[NoBoysAllowed]

And the last of them.

 

[013]

Hey NoBoysAllowed,

Welcome to the forums at 420... Your garden looks nice! Generally speaking if you find one theres a couple dozen hiding somewhere, truly hope that’s not the case for you. Fungus gnats fly over canopy, land in foliage and then burrow soil to lay eggs. Yes good, add sticky traps above canopy too, fan at soil line and on top of canopy helps. The chunks of missing leaves could be moths or caterpillar. Mosquito bits contain BTi a biological for caterpillars. Safers soap, insect soap, BTi, Neem and Spinosad all are a gardeners best friends.

See page 1 of my journal Visualize Whirrled Peas in my signature line below for ideas, the opening paragraph should include details about your setup. Drop a journal and stay a while. How to make a Grow Journal

see what other replies come in...

 

[MochaBud]

What soil are you in? Miracle Grow?
With fungus gnats, you can get some "yellow" construction paper and cut "plates" to fit over your pots and a spot for the stalk, then cut from the hole for the stalk straight out so you can slip this "plate" over your soil...

Gnats absolutely hate the color yellow I don't know why it works, but it does

 

[BillFold]

What soil are you in? Miracle Grow?
With fungus gnats, you can get some "yellow" construction paper and cut "plates" to fit over your pots and a spot for the stalk, then cut from the hole for the stalk straight out so you can slip this "plate" over your soil...

Gnats absolutely hate the color yellow I don't know why it works, but it does

Those little whit flies are a bitch, but if you can go to a grow store, they have Yellow Flypaper, $5 bucks for 5 of them. You put in 2, one on either side or one on each wall of your tent and they will fill it up fast. They cannot resist Yellow. ALSO, you can get some Mosquito Control juice that works on their reproductive ability(just add to the dirt, 2 drops per 100 gallons of water so you gotta be careful) so that no matter what soil you use they will not be around anymore after about 2 weeks. I also spray(conservatively) the OUTSIDE walls of my tent, one squirt per wall with "Bayer" bug spray-Home Depot), and on the top, NEVER inside. NO Bugs ever bother it anymore and it doesn't get on the plants. Sticky Pads and Bug control for dirt: https://ecogardensupply.com/var/images/product/300.300/SAT705_1.jpeg

https://ecogardensupply.com/images/product/0402_1.jpeg

 

[BillFold]

I need someone to look and tell me when to TOP my plants. Here is a picture of one of them today. Do I top it yet? 4+ weeks since germination, Early Girl OG plant, about 16 inches high right now. Thanks Much!

 

[BillFold]

I need someone to look and tell me when to TOP my plants. Here is a picture of one of them today. Do I top it yet? 4+ weeks since germination, Early Girl OG plant, about 16 inches high right now. Thanks Much!

B y the way, you can see the white flies captured on the sticky pad. I treated my soil (Frog) 1 week before I plantyed this time so there haven't been very man. In fact none for a couple weeks now.

 

[013]

Hey Billfold,

Welcome to 420.... If that’s a photoperiod and you want to top it then yes go ahead. Take the very top out but leave the stem stub sticking up tall even tho it looks weird by not having branches. By leaving the stem long it’s less likely to split the main stalk if / when you train on her.

Most growers top when they have 5 nodes or 5 pairs of stems, it looks like you have 6 or 7 nodes before the main top. So it’s kinda late but should work out just fine. Since she is bigger it might not even hiccup. Heads up on it would be good to top earlier next go round.

Topping can be done on autos but it can also stall a plant, fortunately that’s not a tiny girl - she’s got some heft to her. If that’s an autoflower then it’s your call, she’s big enough but you never know how an auto might respond.

nice looking girl you’ve got there! You should drop a journal down, see my post and link above

more people will drop in soon



my 2 cents please consider other opinions

 

[BillFold]

Hello. I am on my 2nd try at growing, having learned a lot from the first 5 seeds I found in a bag and planted outside.
I started looking up videos to guide me along and wow, there's tons of those out there. Anyway, I did start a Journal and posted, it seems to be working good. When you say "photoperiod" do you mean at the end of an 18 hour lights on period, or before? I just clipped em and there is still about an hour left before it's dark-time. Curious. Thanks.

 

[013]

Photoperiods have to be flipped to 12/12 lighting to initiate flowering, auto flowers begin to flower regardless of light hours. Check your pm’s up in menu bar

 

[NoBoysAllowed]

Hey NoBoysAllowed,

Welcome to the forums at 420... Your garden looks nice! Generally speaking if you find one theres a couple dozen hiding somewhere, truly hope that’s not the case for you. Fungus gnats fly over canopy, land in foliage and then burrow soil to lay eggs. Yes good, add sticky traps above canopy too, fan at soil line and on top of canopy helps. The chunks of missing leaves could be moths or caterpillar. Mosquito bits contain BTi a biological for caterpillars. Safers soap, insect soap, BTi, Neem and Spinosad all are a gardeners best friends.

See page 1 of my journal Visualize Whirrled Peas in my signature line below for ideas, the opening paragraph should include details about your setup. Drop a journal and stay a while. How to make a Grow Journal

see what other replies come in...

Thanks for the response 013,

I don't believe I have a fungus gnat problem. I have had the yellow sticky traps down for a week or so and that was the only fungus gnat that I noticed. I will add some stick traps above the canopy for sure. At the start of the grow I had a pretty bad fungus gnat problem, but they quickly went away after I stopped over watering and put down some DE. I have not seen the fungus gnats flying around for a while now.

As for the leaf damage, I have been constantly inspecting all the leaves and have not noticed any caterpillars and definitely have not seen a single moth. Do you still think I should do a treatment? The buds are starting to bulk up as those photos were taken a week ago, so whatever pesticide I use, it must be safe for consumption.

Ill consider throwing a grow journal up, its just I don't know if I would be very active as I am already a very busy college student/gardener lol.

Also I do have one strong fan on the floor that gets air moving below the canopy, then I have 3 computer fans above the canopy that put out 130 cfm each to keep the noise down. when everything is on all the leaves have a little bit of movement to them.

Thanks

 

[NoBoysAllowed]

What soil are you in? Miracle Grow?
With fungus gnats, you can get some "yellow" construction paper and cut "plates" to fit over your pots and a spot for the stalk, then cut from the hole for the stalk straight out so you can slip this "plate" over your soil...

Gnats absolutely hate the color yellow I don't know why it works, but it does

I am using equal parts Happy Frog, Ocean Forest, and Perlite.

Im not too concerned about a stray fungus gnat, because I have not noticed any flying around or hanging out on the soil. That fungus gnat was probably because I had just transplanted so it was taking longer than normal for the soil to dry out.

 

[013]

Apologies for the break. Good deal on not seeing any more gnats. Well search me, stick bugs, caterpillars, cats, rodents or little elves coming down to steal their share. The crawler types are stealthy. I’m not a fan of spraying in flower either but I try to get as much pest managment done in veg before the flip as possible hoping that will carry me thru.

Even the stronger pest sprays are all natural. Neem comes from crushed Neem seed, Spinosad is a bacteria that was found in sugar cane extract, pyrethrin comes from crushed Chrysanthemum. Yet I still hate the scent and idea of putting Neem oil on my plant. There are home remedies too some use rosemary, or iso, dish soap, horticulture soap or any number of home ingredients.... not gonna address these any further since I don’t have much practical experience there.

it’s not like your plant is heavily chewed up so I’d be conservative for a bit
a spray can cause pistils to darken out so don’t jump based on my word but see what other opinions come in... in a garden it’s easy to jump in a do an action but it’s much harder to undo or retract that previous action.

 

[Buds Buddy]

Looks like a Fly, Grasshopper, Cricket or Caterpillar has been nibbling. Grasshoppers & Crickets tend to hide under your pot until it's dark. In 1 pic I thought I seen a Potassium Def.

 

[NoBoysAllowed]

Hey guys,

I finally found what could be eating my leaves. I caught 2 of the same bugs on a sticky pad that I had placed on the floor.
I took a few pictures at 30x and 60x.

Anyone know what this thing is?

 

[BillFold]

The white ones sure look like young Aphids. To me they do. They also prefer to hide under the leaves.
They go after my tomato plants almost every year. Sometimes they are brown. NOT saying definitely they are, just sayin.

 

[013]

Look like beetle family to me.... go to insectidentification.org

 

[NoBoysAllowed]

Look like beetle family to me.... go to insectidentification.org

The closest thing I could find was something called a flour beetle...

Coincidentally I brew beer and just bought 3x 55lb bags of grain and stored them a few feet away from the tent for about a day before I moved them. This was Friday... Maybe they were attracted to the heat?

 

[013]

Sounds plausible to me..but since you caught them on a sticky trap near the plant it’s a good thing, hopefully they won’t be doing any more damage!