Caterpillars Under the Harvest Moon.

YesMamNoSir

Active Member
Hello everyone,

I have two plants under 500W HPS. They're both in 5 gallon coco/peat homemade amended soil. One of the plants is due to be put into dark tomorrow and the other has about a week left on it.

The problem is CATERPILLARS! I had several plants and was letting the last two amber up a little bit before the chop. About a week ago I noticed a leaf that was disintegrating. Upon further inspection I found a couple caterpillars in the mulch. Now this week my two plants are totally devastated. I pulled nine 2 inchers off the ladies last night. They seem to congregate on one more than the other. They have eaten off all of the fan leaves are working on the sugar leaves. The buds are very dense so I do not think they could penetrate into the middle, but I may be wrong. They have chewed up some of the supplementary limbs so much so that they can barely support the buds and are bending from the weight.

Is there anything this close to harvest that I can do? They have had barely any bug maintenance. Ladybugs and some neem spray in veg kept them bug free until now. Is spinosad or bacteria bacillus thurgeinsis of any use this late in the game? Pyrethrum? I kept the caterpillars alive so that I can test products on them, but I don't want sprays to ruin my buds.

If I put them in the dark for several days before harvest will the caterpillars keep eating them in the dark? Should I chop and wet trim to make sure they're rid of the cats? I have never dealt with this before sorry so many questions. Usually an inside grow but i had to keep doors and windows open because of intense heat....guessing how moths got in.
 
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