I’ve got a couple 1,000-watt lamps in a marijuana grow room that’s a 100-square foot shack on my property. Unfortunately, summer has brought with it an invasion of bugs including mites, aphids, thrips, and whiteflies. On the bright side, harvest is just around the corner (end of July). Do you think I should put in a new crop and fight the insects or just wait a couple of months? How do you suggest I preserve the marijuana plants if I don’t want to totally start over with seed?
If you start the garden over in the middle of summer after a harvest, insects will probably infest your cannabis crop. Keeping the pests out is difficult and almost impossible to do. From what I can tell, the battle between you and the bugs would be constant. You can, however, put up a decent fight.
Spray a combination of Cinnamite and neem oil on the mites both to kill current mites and repel future ones. Thrips and aphids might also be affected by this. Throw in some Botanigard to the mix to get rid of aphids. The fungus in Botanigard attacks only soft-bodied insects like aphids, thrips, and whiteflies.
Encarsia formosa can get rid of whiteflies. It is a very small type of parasitic wasp that will lay eggs in whitefly pupae. These wasps manage to keep the population under control and will be there as long as whiteflies attack.
The neem oil, Botanigard, and Cinnamite will likely get rid of the thrips, but, if you want to kill their pupae, introduce some beneficial nematodes to the soil. The nematodes will prey on insects in the soil where the thrips larvae reside.
When the cold weather comes back in the fall, bugs will go away. You might want to wait until that time to replant. You might miss a crop, but just enjoy the rest of your summer.