Organic Pest Control Question

[dookieface]

What are the different types of organic pest control? I hear ladybugs are a good way to control unwanted pests. But, I don't know much about ladybugs. Do they only eat other bugs?

[deftdrummer]

ladybugs are a useful way of eliminating their natural prey: spider mites and their eggs. I recently used 1500 ladybugs on my small 10 plant crop and they failed to do anything useful.

spider mites can also be eliminated by raising the humidity in your grow room.
spider mites can also be eliminated by spraying a mixture of dish soap / neem oil (hydro store), and water on your plants once every few days. This method is extremely effective.

Depends on your pest, but most pests can be taken care of or prevented with natural methods. Remeber, always start with natural methods before trying extreme unnatural methods.

[stinkyattic]

What are the different types of organic pest control? ?
First, there's environment control. Create conditions your pests hate. Like lowering the temps to piss off the spider mites.
Next, there's Integrated Pest MAnagement. IPM is just adding a natural predator to your little ecosystem, like ladybugs, mantids, nematodes, parasitic wasps, bacteria, or a bug-attacking fungus such as milky spore.
Next, there are plant-derived chemical compounds that repel, kill, or disrupt the life cycles of pests. Pyrethrum and neem fall into this category.
Then there are things like diatomaceous earth, which abrades the bodies of flying and crawling pests until they dehydrate and die.
Trapping pests is a way to organically control them. Yellow or bright blue sticky traps are IMO necessary to any indoor gardening operation even if it's just for monitoring the buggies.
Last, there's no end to the home-remedies. I've heard of garlic, chili oil, citrus, sesame, coffee, tobacco 'tea', you name it, it's been tried.

My picks are:
1) Sticky traps
2) preventative neem spray until the 4th week of flower
3) diatomaceous earth on the surface of the soil


Use all 3 together and you've got a great preventative routine.

[Organic Rasta]

Keeping the grow area clean is the first step in prevention and as stated above ......creat conditions that pest hate or won't live in.

and I 100% support the use of Neem Oil in the garden.....follow the directs ofcourse.

[emmpey]

As i discovered today, after finding thrip larvae on my plants, a very effetcive pesticide can be made from nicotine (100% organic).

See http://boards.cannabis.com/showthread.php?t=86626 for the instructions. Just need a few cigarettes - so its cheap too.

[deftdrummer]

First, there's environment control. Create conditions your pests hate. Like lowering the temps to piss off the spider mites.
Next, there's Integrated Pest MAnagement. IPM is just adding a natural predator to your little ecosystem, like ladybugs, mantids, nematodes, parasitic wasps, bacteria, or a bug-attacking fungus such as milky spore.
Next, there are plant-derived chemical compounds that repel, kill, or disrupt the life cycles of pests. Pyrethrum and neem fall into this category.
Then there are things like diatomaceous earth, which abrades the bodies of flying and crawling pests until they dehydrate and die.
Trapping pests is a way to organically control them. Yellow or bright blue sticky traps are IMO necessary to any indoor gardening operation even if it's just for monitoring the buggies.
Last, there's no end to the home-remedies. I've heard of garlic, chili oil, citrus, sesame, coffee, tobacco 'tea', you name it, it's been tried.

My picks are:
1) Sticky traps
2) preventative neem spray until the 4th week of flower
3) diatomaceous earth on the surface of the soil


Use all 3 together and you've got a great preventative routine. stinky thats great! thanks for the knowledge. I was leaning towards the sticky tape thing for preventative and you have confirmed this notion.

[stinkyattic]

stinky thats great! thanks for the knowledge. I was leaning towards the sticky tape thing for preventative and you have confirmed this notion.

I think sticky tape alone is not as effective as you are going to want.

Neem plus D.E. is a VERY effective prevention, and the stickies will tell you how well it is working and whether you need to be more aggressive, IMO