First time grower, chopped my outdoor girl less than a week ago and hung upside down to dry. Plant was cut into smaller pieces to dry. I now have a crazy amount of bugs crawling all over!
What are these and how can I fix my bud so that it’s still smokable? Or is my harvest ruined?
Needless to say but I’m panicking right now
Hey! could those be arthropod’s?
I think Ladybugs may be a good solution (check local greenhouses or amazon), I believe they would leave the buds alone, but I’m not 100% sure. Maybe even going through with a lint roller and trying to pick them off would help reduce the numbers…although time consuming.
I was thinking aphids and spidermites? But I’m really not experienced enough to know for sure. I’d like to use something more natural to fix the issue. Maybe neem oil? Don’t really know lol
Don’t use neem oil on flowers. How long have they been drying for?
Since September 16 so not long.
I’m almost positive they’re aphids. I don’t know about washing them this long after you cut them so I would get rubbing alcohol and a q-tip and literally rub some on every one of them. While still on the plant I’ve used those air cans to blow dust off your computer to blow them off but that’s when I used to grow miles away from my house. So blowing them off then use the alcohol and q-tips would be my go to. Unless someone who knows more about washing them this long after being cut. Because I’m sure there’s some all up inside the buds. That’s all I got good luck
Not sure if there’d be an adverse effect by bud washing now. I’d think it’d just extend drying time. I’ll tag in @Myfriendis410 to get his input.
No idea. I would say if plant material hasn’t dried and is still pliant you could wash everything in 1 cup of peroxide to 5 gallons of water. It will kill aphids and sterilize the plant material. Just don’t know what else it may do once plant is being dried.
I feel like using rubbing alcohol is a bad idea if I want these buds to be smokable still after killing the bugs?
Maybe I could just use all of this plant to cook with instead of smoking it
Don’t spray your drying weed. Just take a vacuum cleaner, and put a filter over the tube part so you won’t suck in any buds. You should end up with those aphids against your filter, and your fine. If you spray while your drying you will darken the color of your weed, risk mold, and prolong the process. The mites will run to the highest point b4 webbing but I’m not sure if the aphids run up or not. So just vacuum along your string that the buds are hanging from, your bugs should be collecting there for you
Alcohol is used to extract THC from buds it evaporates I wasn’t saying to submerge them just use a q-tip to brush the bugs off the alcohol was just to kill the bugs.
But I actually like @ThirtyThree idea with a vacuum much better than my idea
That is a good idea! I already washed my buds and there was bugs the next morning again anyways. Much less but they were still there. So I sprayed an organic pesticide on it just now before reading your comment lol. Oh well.
If there is bugs again in a few days I’ll definitely be vacuuming them out. Finally I can get some good use from my expensive ass Dyson vacuum lol
Don’t worry, bugs happen :). They won’t ruin your herb tho! I stick to live culture and working with my environments beneficials, so at this point my plants each have a pig-pen style cloud of lacewings, a handful of praying mantis’s, robber flies taking out moths and butterflies, lizards and frogs, and a crew of birds that fly through and inspect each plant each day. So my plants are absolutely crawling with life and it never effects the quality. My good bugs eat my bad ones and luckily they scatter when I cut them down
Thanks for the response. This makes me feel a little better lol.
Why did my plant get infested with these bugs after cutting her down anyway? She grew with 3 other plants and those plants are showing no signs of any bugs as they still grow.
Those looked like aphids, and most likely they were already on your plant, but hiding/blending in. I think aphids feed on sap, so maybe when you cut your plants down they hauled ass to the bottom of the stalk where the fresh juices were available
