Hello, new to the forums but thought I would share. One thing I don't see a lot of is the signs of Russets on buds. Usually , pictures are shown of effects on leaves and the plant overall (tacoing of leaves, yellow or stunted growth etc). I am officially considering myself an expert on these bastards because I have had them now 3 years in a row and have learned to recognise the signs of when plants have them. The pictures below are from a Granddaddy Purple in my current outdoor garden. You can see the stunted, red pistils which is a sure sign. Another sign is in one of the pics you can see an ant. What I have found is, If I see ants on a plant, it means russets or some other insect that they are feeding off the excretions, like they do when aphids are on plants.
The first year I had them, I didn't know what was wrong until it was almost too late. I went through a list of treatments before I finally found the 2 that seem to work best for me;
Grandevo and
Green Cleaner.
Grandevo, from my understanding, is made from a type of bacteria (or a by product of the bacteria) that when ingested, causes them to stop eating and die, similar to what BT does for caterpillars.
Green cleaner is basically shampoo (sodium lauryl sulfate) +soybean oil with some alcohol. It
will burn the shit out of your plants if you're not careful but it is good as part of a 1 - 2 punch. Mix it at 1 to 1.5 TBSP per gallon. Don't go with the initial recommended application of 2 TBSP /gallon because that will fuck up your plants, trust me, 2 years in a row and I finally figured out it was the GC that caused all kinds of burned /yellow leaves that eventually went necrotic with black dead spots. The GC is supposed to hit the eggs as well as the adults and larvae whereas the
Grandevo primarily targets the bugs that are actively sucking the life out of your plants.
Here is what I have learned...the hard way.
DONT BRING NEW PLANTS into the garden from an unknown source. I CANNOT STRESS HOW STUPID THIS IS (and how STUPID I am for letting it happen twice, guess I have a hard head). 2 years ago I was "gifted" a plant from a friend of a friend who grows. Within 1 month I started to see the tacos on that plant and through it was heat stress as we were currently under a heat wave (Sacramento, Ca summers can get to 105/110 for a few days to a week). My nephew came over who also grows and called his buddy who accurately diagnosed the issue on his description. Got a scope and sure enough, I saw the "maggots" as I call them all over the plant. They spread to 3 of my others in the garden before I got them under control. One plant was a total loss.
This year, I got some clones from the same friend, who in turn, got them from the same guy who "gifted" me the plant 2 years before. This Mother ff'er must breed russets because dammned sure they had them. Now, this was really early in the season this year in april and they were young so I dusted them with sulphur to see if I could save the plants (that's actually mistake
#2, once a plant has them, burn it, don't try to save it and infect your grow). After continuous checking it seemed the plants were mite-free so I continued to let them grow in my garden. One thing I have noticed about mites in general (take your pick,,,spider/russet) is they seem to explode when the temps start to get above 95 consistently. Sure enough, after our usual late July heat waves and going into August, I started noticing weird looking leaves on the prior mentioned clones...and after inspection sure enough, there they were...Maggots. Having th plants in pots makes it easier to relocate them so I removed those from the main garden area to start the
Grandevo and
Green cleaner treatment. Yeah...I know I said I should just burn em but, I wanted to really confirm the Grandeve and
Green Cleaner combination. 3 weeks later and after regular treatments, I can say that the populations have been nearly eliminated, but will continue the treatments until the buds really start to stack up then it's just praying.
This year I also tried going with completely organic foliar sprays of Insect frass and Neem seed meal teas. Supposedly the Chitin (ky-Tin) in the frass prompts the plants to think they are being attacked and sheild themselves naturally and the neem seed meal is just a repellent. Well , this seems to work for other insects like spider mites, thrips etc...but still got russets. SO Next year I will start witht he
Grandevo+
Green Cleaner earlier as a weekly preventative spray along with the frass/neem combo.
Or I might just say f-it with outdoors and stick with indoor.
Happy growing! (Growmies of the world UNITED!)