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Enjoying watching y'all go go go. I'm still battling. And learning. Put on my big boy pants and dealing with it. Haven't seen many thrips lately, but I swear the gnats just lay their fucking eggs right inside the mosquito bits. I don't blame them, my soil in the SIPS is "teaming with fungi", lol. The only time it's not fuzzy is right after I top water.
I'm trying to turn what I thought were negatives into positives. One big tent? Positive is one space to climate control, enough space to walk around, and I can swab the deck daily with clorox. Doing a deep dive into IPM has caused me to change a lot of practices, especially with regards to keeping my tent really, really, really clean. Properly disposing of waste and leaves. Timing and methods of growing. I feel fortunate that I'm spinning up my pest knowledge before I get any of the bad ones. Thrips and gnats are largely nuisances.
I've been slowly doing treatments of sort to see what works. BTI doesn't seem to do shit, I literally have a solid layer of mosquito bits and they laugh. Maybe if I soaked them and top watered for a week straight but not impressed. A week or so ago I did a top dress of some neem meal watered in with some spinosad. At that point harvest was at least 2 weeks out so I felt comfortable with a soil drench (even though you could theoretically do that up to harvest, I'd rather be cautious).
Yesterday I picked up some play sand. On my 5g grobucket, I sealed in the soil with 1/2" of sand. Get through that, MFrs. I also plugged all drain holes with some landscape fabric. On the Jrs I have a mound of sand surrounding the fill tube under the cover(which seals that) and put some sand on top of the cover around the stems (seals that). I've refrained from nuking the soil.
I haven't given up on organics yet, still learning, still planning. I think I've come to the conclusion that I hate the Jr covers. On the one hand it's a decent barrier. On the other if you don't maintain your hermetically sealed cover..... I might give it a whirl with a largeish fabric pot, cover crops, etc. Maybe some banker plants. Maybe some lacewings. I've come to the conclusion that using dirt (particularly store bought bagged organics) bugs come with the deal.
My coco 4AM girls are getting close. I had to tie one of them up last night because of bud weight. Good problem It's a contrast to the dainty little organic girls. I know they are a different strain so it's not apples-apples I've ceased all organics on them and reverted to h2o2.
I'm itching to drop new seeds. Couple more weeks and I'll feel ok bringing new plants into the tent.
Gotta give credit where credit is due don’t give up, organics can be very rewarding ......
Junior Covers are tough to work with - I have mine taped up pretty good and even some tape around the pipe - my stem cut was a simple slice and then I pulled girl up through and taped slice and now stalked swelled and is actually tight to plastic ...... I also taped some areas, corners and sides right from the start - prevent defense ...... another idea is put two covers over but too late this round ......
The sand on top - was it mason or playground sand? I don’t really know much about but I do know playground sand is fine whereas mason is sharp .....
Current crop of nasty gnats may not disappear until Grow is over and sources are eliminated - and tent cleaned .....
Good luck with those nasty things.