The Dank Tank- FLX420 Summer 2022

Your grow issues diagnosed by the doctor himself

Hello Grow Fam!

M A R C O asked: What is causing the white spots on my leaves?

Let’s start with the good news, M A R C O: your plants look extremely healthy in color and development. But unfortunately, you’ve got thrips – a common pest in greenhouses and on indoor plants and gardens.

The key to dealing with any pest issue is to have a preventative method already in place. We refer to this as IPM, or Integrated Pest Management. If you are seeing pest damage, it is too late to “prevent,” but there are a few things you should do when you discover pest damage to your cannabis plants.

Fun fact!

A female thrip lives for more than a month and lays up to 80 eggs a week. Multiply that by 300 females and you got yourself a big problem!

1. Isolate the infestation. Pests are attracted to weak plants and tend to favor one plant in the beginning. If you can remove this plant early enough, you will significantly slow the spread, making treatment easier and more effective.

2. Identify what type of pest you have. You’ll be able to tell by looking at the pest’s damage to your plant. You can also look at the pest itself through a magnifying lens, but some cannabis pests are invisible to the naked eye.

3. Smoke a joint and chill out! The infestation is not a problem that will go away quickly. Making uneducated, irrational decisions will not help. It could even make your situation worse.

How to ID the pest

As I mentioned before, look at the damage to your plants. This is where thrips are unique. They create small white streaks on the leaf where they are, quite literally, sucking the life out of your plant. Pretty twisted if you ask me.

After examining the damage, try to locate the culprit. Most of the time pests can be found on the underside of a leaf – if they’re large enough to see. Fortunately for you, M A R C O, mature thrips are visible to the naked eye and are typically very easy to spot. So … we have identified the pest. Now we need to let out a big “Shitttttt!” then smoke another joint and continue to chill out.

Stalking is a very important step We need to find out every tiny detail about this bug’s entire life. Where does it like to hangout? Is it single? If not, where does it lay its babies? Has it paid its taxes?

Stalking is a very important step. If the pest lays eggs on the foliage, you might not need to treat the soil. Depending on your method, treating the soil can be very stressful to your plant.

Unfortunately for us, thrips lay eggs under the foliage, in stems, or really any soft tissue of the plant. Then, the creeps will hatch into a larva and start going to town chowing on your plants. Afterwards they fall down, creepily, into the soil to pupate. (Yes! I looked that word up on google lol.) They emerge from the soil a creepy adult thrip – with wings!

Killing the bug-gers

For thrips, the first step is to remove all the damaged foliage and purchase an insecticidal spray. There are a ton of options, but I recommend Athena’s IPM. It’s an organic mixture of essential oils that kill thrips and most pests on contact. You can use it as a weekly treatment so it will never happen again.

When spraying the plant, you want to soak every part. If your plants are small enough, fully submerge the plants into a pail full of the IPM mixture by flipping them upside down and dipping them in.

Treating the soil and foliage

You can do a soil drench with any number of different solutions but be careful: your root zone is delicate. It’s not easy to reverse the damage done because of hard oils. I prefer using beneficial nematodes which are equally as creepy as the pest, maybe more so.

But sometimes the only way to kill a creep is to find something creepier.

You mix the nematodes into your water and then water your plant thoroughly. Directions vary depending on the species you have, so read them! The nematodes will attack the thrips and lay their babies in them (told you they were creepy).

Since it takes two to 14 days for thrip eggs to hatch, we will be repeating foliar sprays every four days and treat again with nematodes once a week. Then you will have resolved your issue like a true OG.

In conclusion Thrips are one of the easiest pests to identify. If caught early by an observant gardener, they’re also one of the easiest to eliminate. But as I said in the beginning, the best way to get rid of pests is to prevent them from the beginning

Got a grow issue? Send your questions to the Dank Tank at flx420.com/submit-here/. To read more about Dr. Dankenstein, visit flx420.com/findus and pick up a copy of the summer issue at a retailer near you!

Summer 2022 • FLX420.com