As the title suggests, I harvested my plant today. For a while, I had noticed the small white dots on the buds, but I thought it was just bits of dust from my fan blowing on the plant. I decided to look with the microscope today and felt sick when I saw it lol. So sad, 3 months of work out the window. There were an array of microscopic bugs on there, I think I have aphids, spider mites and mealybugs. That would also explain the poor growth and yellow leaves of my plant, combined with the overwatering.
After chopping, I washed the branches and buds in 3 buckets of water - room temp w/ lemon juice and bicarb/baking soda, one hot water and one cold water (recommend bud washing technique). This definitely got rid of around 75% of them but the ones that remain are still alive. I washed them again but not much more happened. They are now hanging up to dry.
Should I bin the crop now, leave it to dry and see if the mites take off or I was perhaps thinking - quick-dry them in the microwave to potentially killl the bugs and eggs? If I have a choice between quick-dried but smokeable weed and dead bugs, or slow drying weed and half-eaten maybe un-smokeable bud, I'll take the former... it's my only plant, and it's a CBD-high variety. Kinda need this! Big lessons leant.
Cheers all!
After chopping, I washed the branches and buds in 3 buckets of water - room temp w/ lemon juice and bicarb/baking soda, one hot water and one cold water (recommend bud washing technique). This definitely got rid of around 75% of them but the ones that remain are still alive. I washed them again but not much more happened. They are now hanging up to dry.
Should I bin the crop now, leave it to dry and see if the mites take off or I was perhaps thinking - quick-dry them in the microwave to potentially killl the bugs and eggs? If I have a choice between quick-dried but smokeable weed and dead bugs, or slow drying weed and half-eaten maybe un-smokeable bud, I'll take the former... it's my only plant, and it's a CBD-high variety. Kinda need this! Big lessons leant.
Cheers all!
