This article shows you how to fight back against bugs & diseases that hurt your marijuana crops!
Marijuana growers want to defend themselves against police, snitches, and rippers, and they also want to defeat Nature’s attackers such as spider mites, thrips, aphids, powdery mildew, gray mold, and other diseases.
There are specific steps to take when you’re countering an infestation of pests, mildew, or mold, and you can check the links in this article to see more BigBudsMag.com that go in depth on that.
Today we’re focusing on general strategies that deter and defeat Nature’s enemies of marijuana.
Seal & Control Your Marijuana Grow Room. This is the best thing you can do to avoid pests and diseases.
You put filtration on ALL air intakes and outflows, gaskets around any doors, windows or anything else that opens to the outside world, and generally seal up your grow room like it’s a bank vault.
Not only does this stop pests and diseases from wandering into your hydroponics marijuana grow room, it also prevents light leaks, lowers your electricity costs, promotes atmospheric control so you don’t waste any C02 you’re adding, and cuts down on cannabis odor venting from your room.
Another tip: keep clean the entire house or other building where your marijuana plants located.
If you’re growing marijuana in a greenhouse or other outdoor structure, for sure these strategies are difficult but not impossible to use.
Don’t bring pests or diseases into your grow room. For example, if you buy or trade cannabis clones, carefully inspect them with a magnifying glass before you bring them anywhere near your hydroponics grow room.
Many clones have powdery mildew, mites, thrips, or other problems, and if you bring those problems into your home and grow op, they’re hard to get rid of.
Some growers who procure marijuana clones from outside sources automatically dip them in an organic pesticide and fungicide solution whether they see problems or not.
Also, don’t wear your street clothes into your grow room. Some marijuana growers even shower and put on fresh clothes before they go into their grow room.
Don’t let pets, outsiders, kids, food, cigarettes, trash, dust, or other vectors into your grow room.
Sterilize all tools, equipment, and water (reverse osmosis), before it goes into your room. This is especially important if you’re using aeroponics or deep water culture.
It’s a commonly known fact that you should beware commercial soils like Fox Farm or Miracle-Gro that often have pests on-board when you buy them.
That’s why I prefer to run a hydroponics grow room with soilless media or water culture such as aeroponics or DWC.
I’ve never bought rockwool or hydroton and seen it come with an infestation of insects or diseases on-board! But I have seen that most soil you buy in a hydroponics store or elsewhere has problems built in.
Never use chemical pesticides in your marijuana garden. It surprises me when I meet an otherwise-intelligent weed grower who sprays or otherwise poisons his marijuana crops.
They make excuses saying “well, it’s only grow phase or early bloom phase, so the poison won’t hurt the plants or me.”
Unfortunately, poison is poison, and no matter what the poison manufacturer tells you, the poison will be there on and in your plants and it does affect your health when you use poison and when you consume marijuana grown using poison.
Find a hydroponics store that’s skilled at helping marijuana growers, even if they won’t explicitly mention marijuana, and they’ll direct you to organic, safe systemic and spray products that will stop pests and diseases…without harming you or your cannabis plants.
It also helps to spray your crops through the first two weeks of bloom phase with potassium silicate, horticultural soap or a surfactant, Mother Earth Super Tea, and beneficial microbes.
Not only does this form a protective barrier that deters pests and diseases, it feed your marijuana plants so they have better growth and yield.
If you grow marijuana long enough—and especially if you grow outdoors or in an unsealed hydroponics grow room—you’ll likely encounter at least one if not more of the pests and diseases mentioned earlier.
By using the strategies in this article and in the article links, you do your best to protect your valuable marijuana plants so you always get a successful season.
