I just noticed quite a few of these tiny bugs crawling on the floor of my tent. I’m not sure which pest they might be, but I killed all of them that I could find and disinfected the whole floor with alcohol wipes. I’m also getting some diatomaceous earth to sprinkle on the top of the soil and around the base of the pot because I heard that was a good nontoxic way to get rid of crawling bugs. Have you ever encountered this problem before?
I don’t recognize the bug. It’s got little pictures on the front. Fortunately I’ve never had any pests in my plants or soil a fly here and there.
I’ve used DE for fleas on my dogs and it kills them and works well. I see a lot of people utilizing DE on weed outdoors as well as indoors.
A bug is a bug I don’t see it being a threat to your plants with just finding a couple on the floor. But like you, I would take all necessary for precautions to prevent any bugs.
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Edit to the above post. Your picture of your bug is very unclear. I started looking at it and it reminded me of what we call pincher bugs
So I looked up the picture bugs and I’m 99% sure that’s what you have. They come in from outside. And the only thing to be concerned with having pincher bugs in your house are your plants
So Yes, I would be slightly concerned. They seem to be pretty easy to hand
I can try to get a better photo, but it was unclear because they are so tiny you can barely see them with the naked eye. I took that photo with a microscope and it still looks small.
I think pincher bugs are also called earwigs, which I’m familiar with and are much bigger. I tried taking more pictures of the bugs but I couldn’t get any to come out more clear than that first one because they are so tiny.
I got the DE and sprinkled it around the base of the pot, in the corners of the tent, on the top of the dirt, and on the base of the stem. After waiting a little bit I don’t see any bugs anymore so I’m hoping that’ll fix it.
I’m at week 7 now. I gave her calmag for the last time a couple days ago. The ppm of the water I gave her today without calmag was 475 and the runoff was 693. Runoff ph was 6.3. What changes would you suggest I make in the coming weeks?
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Good day. Welcome to week 7
Let’s start with…
you… as a new grower and a first grow attempt I’ve got to say you’ve done an above average job and should be commended on a beautiful job well done!
pest
I didn’t realize that the pincher bug was called AKA earwig as far as pest goes I know the corn earwig is the number one enemy for outdoor growers as it causes bud rot as the pest invades the bud eating it and pooping all through it. Hopefully you’ve got that under control by now.
Foxtailing
Unfortunately, I❤️GM GSCE autoflower has always been one of the heaviest foxtailing strands that I’ve ever seen and personally grown. You’ve already adjusted your light and your plant appears to continue to aggressively foxtail even down into your lower buds. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like anything works to reverse this. The entire 20 pack of seeds that I purchased all foxtails some worse than others. On a more positive note, it’s been one of the strongest and most productive strain I’ve come across.
Environment
Just as a reminder. During the last stages of flower with an indoor grow I like to stay as close to 72° - 77° and 45% relative humidity. I keep my light at 75% and my recommended manufacturers height is 16 in during this stage.
Feed
I see you’ve already eliminated calcium magnesium and your last runoff PPM was 693ppm… the magic number you’re looking for is 700-750 ppm and you’re pretty much dead on it. I would continue to feed accordingly to maintain 700 to 750 PPM run off through week 7 depending upon your buds at the end of week 7 will dictate how much you feed going into week 8 (typically it’s a 50% reduction at that point) we can look at it at the end of week 7
Trichome camera practice
I’m not going to sugar coat this. I’m going to tell you straight up. With the aggressiveness of foxtailing on your plant it’s going to make reading your trichomes productions and maturity a very challenging task.
Foxtailing is simply new buds growing over existing buds. You got new trichomes and new pistols making the original buds trichomes very difficult to see and the new foxtail growth confuses tricone readiness.
I strongly suggest you start practicing frequently on finding areas that you can get to the original bud and viewing it’s trichomes. This way you’ll familiarize yourself with what you’re looking for when it comes time to do so (that time is approaching quickly)
Some including myself find it easier to select a few spots on the plant cut out the foxtail giving us a better view of the original production of the original bud. This is not going to hurt your bud for your plant.
What am I looking for in the trichomes
Trichome development happens in three stages. Trichomes go from clear to cloudy and then turn Amber most people look for trichome readiness to be all cloudy with approximately 10% Amber giving them a more pungent buzz without getting into couch lock. Below are some identification samples.
The more practice you have differentiating between your real trichomes and you’re foxtail trichomes will dictate a proper harvest. PRACTICE
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Thanks for the encouragement! I think the pest problem has been dealt with for the most part. I haven’t seen any crawling on the floor of the tent and more, but a few have been in the runoff tray so I’m going to continue with the DE as needed, but it is definitely helping. That all makes sense with cutting the feeding down next week and looking at the inner buds for trichome checking, thanks for the tips.
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How’s your plant doing?
I’m in week 9 and 2 of them turned hermie on me. I chopped down 1 and cleaned the other so hopefully I caught it before the seed.
It’s always something
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I’ve heard about the hermie plants, I’m glad I haven’t encountered that yet. My plants doing good. I’m seeing more orange hairs, definitely more than 50% now. I’ve cut my feeding back to about 500ppm the last few times. I’m going to water her again today, but I am waiting for my dehumidifier to produce more water because I just had to dump out my big bucket of water and clean it since I saw some sort of scum growing in the bottom of the bucket.
Do you think I should keep giving it nutes, or just plain ph’d water?
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First off she looks fantastic. I would say continue the rest of this week with your 500 PPM feeds as I see a lot of cloudy still in your trichomes.
Then next week give her two feeds at 300 PPM and then take the nutrients away. (Be sure to do your Fox farm flush thing after the two 300 PPM feeds)
I understand what you’re saying about the scum the bottom of the dehumidifier. It actually gives the water a slimy texture as well. Just clean it every couple weeks.
You’re doing a fine job tag me if you need me for anything
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Everything going ok?
Everything’s going good as far as I can tell. I’m going to give her the flush solution today, since I feel she has come far enough along now. Here’s some photo’s I just took, so day 125:
The last trichome picture I took was 2 days ago
It looks to me like there’s some cloudy trichomes coming in, and maybe a couple starting to turn amber
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Should I be removing any of the leaves that are dying at this point, or is it better to leave them for trimming at the end?
Damn that looks so good. At this point you can start taking off the nasty leaves.
She’s very close. I would do the flush, and stop feeding her nutrients.
Just give her tap water ph’d to 6.5 from here out.
Your trichomes are coming along nicely. You have maybe 1-2 weeks left at the most. We want to see a little bit more Amber show up.
Late next week (Friday) take some more trichome pictures. Get them from a few different spots. Post them and tag me in it. We can go from there.
Super nice job. I’m so impressed in your abilities. 
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Your looking at close to 1 lb + of weed. Them colas are FAT
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Here’s an update on the trichomes today. I’m definitely seeing some more amber now, and it looks like there’s some on all the colas. The leaves have mostly dried up or turned yellow and the flower turned more purple.
If you think it’s ready, do you recommend doing the two days of darkness before I chop it, or has that not made a difference in your experience?
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Sup bud! Wow your plan looks amazing.
You’ve taken all the nutrients away correct?
When was the last time that you watered?
I’ll be honest with you. I see some Amber but I don’t see a lot it could just be from your pictures if you think you’re seeing a good 7 to 10% Amber on them colas then you’re in the zone for shopping.
It was in my experience that girl scout cookie extreme took forever (14 to 15 weeks of flower) to get sufficient Amber for my liking.
I say you’re in the window of chopping. So here’s what I recommend that you do.
You’re going to let your soil dry out to the point of total dryness (just like you would before feeding again)
When she’s 100% dry naturally in her soil you’re going to chop her down.
What you can start doing now is getting your snippers and take off all the fan leaves leave all the sugar leaves on her. This will help prevent a super long dry yet give you an average dry.
Then when the soil dries cut each cola off and hang them up. To dry
Drying
Do you want to pick an area that you can control the environment the best. The environment that you’re looking for is 60°, 60% RH and total darkness. The longer the dry the better without over dry I like to shoot for 10 days. (It’s all going to depend on your environment)
Have some type of fan blowing around the area of your hanging plants but not directly on them you just want air movement.
So the important things to remember
1.) As close to 60 degrees as possible
2.) as close to 60% relative humidity as possible
3.) airflow in the room
4.) total darkness
(To answer your question about total darkness for 2 days prior to chopping the answer to that is no it’s more of a myth
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That all sounds good. I watered her two days ago and I haven’t given nutrients since I flushed about 10 days ago, so I’ll give it another 2 or 3 days to dry out completely and let the trichomes continue to develop a bit. I was planning on drying it in the tent so I can monitor the temp and humidity, and I should be able to hit 60 and 60. I was also planning on cutting it at the bottom and hanging it all from the light upside-down in one piece. Is doing the colas separately better, or does it not really matter?
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