DoingMyBest
Active Member
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2020
- Messages
- 35
- Reaction score
- 70
I’ve been reading this board for six months. I couldn’t have gotten this far without all the helpful information. Thank you to everyone here!
My grow has had its ups and downs. I started with 8 seedlings in 6 containers. My best plant turned male, then two plants in the same pot turned male too. I then transplanted my four 5 gallon containers (in FF soils) into four 20 gallon smart pots in June. I was surprised to find one of my double plants (the second two that were somehow germinated together) turned male, so I cut it out and tossed it. That was pretty painful. I had separated one of the double plants but didn’t with the second two because it seemed too rough on the roots. I was very shocked to see my new best plant, at about six feet tall at the beginning of August, go male. In the end, three females. I didn’t know that a plant assumed to be female, looking quite female, would start flowering seeds so late in the game. That sucked. The beginning of August was rough with that plant going male, then I experienced lots of breakage on my remaining three plants. I had topped a lot so have lots of branches and flowering spots. It was also very hot. I learned that I can tape them up and prop them, and boy have I done a lot of that! It’s not pretty but it works. My plants were then looking beautiful! My real troubles began while I was admiring plant #1. The buds were developing nicely with good trichome development. I was so incredibly proud to have made it this far! Then I noticed it. A big, fat caterpillar just sitting on my bud, chilling. I immediately googled it, knowing I’d read about them prior. It’s been as bad or worse than what I read. Those little *******s sit in/on your buds sucking the living juices out them while they Just poop. They sit there and poop and eat. That’s all they do! The devastation they create is beyond words. I immediately bought BT and Spinosad. I doused plant 1 and 3 with BT. And then with the Spinosad. It was not very effective as I had a major infestation by then. We manually removed them for days, I still do. I thought it was amazing that plant 2, sitting right in the middle of the two infested plants were escaping the problem. I began pinning all my hopes on plant 2. Plant 1 and 3 are white widow, while plant 2 is a hybrid white widow and something else. It’s buds are very different from the other two plants. They’re very thick and difficult to dig inside of to see what’s going on without harming them. I realized when I began seeing damage on plant 2 that it didn’t escape anything. Those *******s were all up in the buds and destroying the plant from the interior portion and lower down then making their way around to the giant buds. The last two weeks have been absolutely devastating for that plant. Plant 1 seems to be okay in terms of something to harvest, in spite of its damage, but plant 3 may have around a 10% yield, accounting for the damage. It seriously makes me want to cry. I’ve spent over $2k on soil, nutes, ph pen, pots, molasses and so on. I’ve spent endless time reading and researching. In July and half of August, I was giving about 46 gallons of water each! During the heat wave I still had to top them off with a few gallons of water on my non watering day to prevent them from wilting. I water them every other day. I went from one gallon watering containers to 2 gallon containers. The manual labor was extremely time consuming. I was ready to give up, but of course I didn’t. Now, I really want to give up! I have 3 gallon watering containers now and do 11 rounds, so 33 gallons of water each and it’s not so bad. But while watering, I see the massive destruction of plant 3 and just want to burn it to the ground. Plant 2 makes me sad and angry too because it was so beautiful just a couple of weeks ago. Sometimes I feel like I’m watering to keep the plants alive so the caterpillars have something to eat. I didn’t know until last month that moths make caterpillars. I thought it was only butterflies. Silly me. Now I know.
What primarily have I learned? Always ph your water, don’t overdo the nutes, learn to read your plants, when transplanting, make sure it’s straight up and not tilted at all, and start using BT as a preventative measure at the beginning of flower if you know certain insects are an issue. I also am looking at auto flowering plants as I’d prefer smaller plants and a shorter harvest window!
Questions I have right now - should I trim off the dead buds now or wait until harvest? It’s very dry here, so not too worried about rot. Should I be? If I cut off dead branches will it harm my buds further while the plant tries to heal itself as a result from the cuts? Will the dead stuff spread on its own?
Sorry this post is so long! I hope I put my post in the right place! I survived the male plants, the heat wave, the smoke from massive fires and my ignorance, but the caterpillars have destroyed much of what I’ve worked so hard for. This last month until harvest will be challenging. It’s tough to be motivated when you’re so sad and so disgusted!
My grow has had its ups and downs. I started with 8 seedlings in 6 containers. My best plant turned male, then two plants in the same pot turned male too. I then transplanted my four 5 gallon containers (in FF soils) into four 20 gallon smart pots in June. I was surprised to find one of my double plants (the second two that were somehow germinated together) turned male, so I cut it out and tossed it. That was pretty painful. I had separated one of the double plants but didn’t with the second two because it seemed too rough on the roots. I was very shocked to see my new best plant, at about six feet tall at the beginning of August, go male. In the end, three females. I didn’t know that a plant assumed to be female, looking quite female, would start flowering seeds so late in the game. That sucked. The beginning of August was rough with that plant going male, then I experienced lots of breakage on my remaining three plants. I had topped a lot so have lots of branches and flowering spots. It was also very hot. I learned that I can tape them up and prop them, and boy have I done a lot of that! It’s not pretty but it works. My plants were then looking beautiful! My real troubles began while I was admiring plant #1. The buds were developing nicely with good trichome development. I was so incredibly proud to have made it this far! Then I noticed it. A big, fat caterpillar just sitting on my bud, chilling. I immediately googled it, knowing I’d read about them prior. It’s been as bad or worse than what I read. Those little *******s sit in/on your buds sucking the living juices out them while they Just poop. They sit there and poop and eat. That’s all they do! The devastation they create is beyond words. I immediately bought BT and Spinosad. I doused plant 1 and 3 with BT. And then with the Spinosad. It was not very effective as I had a major infestation by then. We manually removed them for days, I still do. I thought it was amazing that plant 2, sitting right in the middle of the two infested plants were escaping the problem. I began pinning all my hopes on plant 2. Plant 1 and 3 are white widow, while plant 2 is a hybrid white widow and something else. It’s buds are very different from the other two plants. They’re very thick and difficult to dig inside of to see what’s going on without harming them. I realized when I began seeing damage on plant 2 that it didn’t escape anything. Those *******s were all up in the buds and destroying the plant from the interior portion and lower down then making their way around to the giant buds. The last two weeks have been absolutely devastating for that plant. Plant 1 seems to be okay in terms of something to harvest, in spite of its damage, but plant 3 may have around a 10% yield, accounting for the damage. It seriously makes me want to cry. I’ve spent over $2k on soil, nutes, ph pen, pots, molasses and so on. I’ve spent endless time reading and researching. In July and half of August, I was giving about 46 gallons of water each! During the heat wave I still had to top them off with a few gallons of water on my non watering day to prevent them from wilting. I water them every other day. I went from one gallon watering containers to 2 gallon containers. The manual labor was extremely time consuming. I was ready to give up, but of course I didn’t. Now, I really want to give up! I have 3 gallon watering containers now and do 11 rounds, so 33 gallons of water each and it’s not so bad. But while watering, I see the massive destruction of plant 3 and just want to burn it to the ground. Plant 2 makes me sad and angry too because it was so beautiful just a couple of weeks ago. Sometimes I feel like I’m watering to keep the plants alive so the caterpillars have something to eat. I didn’t know until last month that moths make caterpillars. I thought it was only butterflies. Silly me. Now I know.
What primarily have I learned? Always ph your water, don’t overdo the nutes, learn to read your plants, when transplanting, make sure it’s straight up and not tilted at all, and start using BT as a preventative measure at the beginning of flower if you know certain insects are an issue. I also am looking at auto flowering plants as I’d prefer smaller plants and a shorter harvest window!
Questions I have right now - should I trim off the dead buds now or wait until harvest? It’s very dry here, so not too worried about rot. Should I be? If I cut off dead branches will it harm my buds further while the plant tries to heal itself as a result from the cuts? Will the dead stuff spread on its own?
Sorry this post is so long! I hope I put my post in the right place! I survived the male plants, the heat wave, the smoke from massive fires and my ignorance, but the caterpillars have destroyed much of what I’ve worked so hard for. This last month until harvest will be challenging. It’s tough to be motivated when you’re so sad and so disgusted!
