Hello everyone! my name is Alex and I'm new to growing, cultivating and harvesting marijuana for recreation purposes. I'm currently in the last week of flower of two of my girls but I've encountered a lot of problems during the grow. Firstly, I had a large caterpillar infestation in my grow place, two of my girls suffered the most having some bud rot, a large amount of caterpillar poop in between the buds making it really hard to clean them. I'll take you through my first steps on trying to recover my plants, I would really appreciate some positive and negative feedback! As i mentioned before this is my first time growing so I still have a lot to learn. I'm growing outdoors in a beachly- desert climate, unfortunately the humidity averages between 40 -80% this time of year.
Steps for countering caterpillar infestation:
1) When I realised I had a caterpillar infestation it was a little bit too late, there were at least 40 of them per plant which I caught by hand inspecting the buds using gloves.
2) Ordered some bacillus thuringiensis off of amazon and got them a couple days later, I started the foliar treatment the first night and continued to spray it every 4 nights.
3) Continued with the hand inspection a noticed a large reduction on the population of caterpillars. However, the damage was already done.
4) Cut down the rotten buds and cleaned them from caterpillar poop.
I'll be attaching pictures of my girls so you can see what I'm talking about, the pictures are from today and the colas do not have any rotten buds anymore but you'll be able to see where the buds are missing.
I'm having a lot of issues trying to diagnose this girl, she's a sativa "Boss". I started to notice some of the leaves had a peculiar burn and yellowing in the tips so I tested the soil's PH and it was at 6.5 so that was not the problem... I assumed she needed more feeding as this looked like a Nitrogen deficiency, its been over a week since i fed this plant and the new baby leaves are still showing this 'defficiency' in them... I'm not sure if she needs more feeding? or what's wrong with her?
If you notice some white powder in the leaves and buds... don't worry that's the Bacillus Thuringiensis.
Before seeing the pictures I also want to let you know that I'm growing in home amended soil ( worm castings, perlite, compost and organic soil as main ingredient). I'm feeding using The Grow Depot nutrients ( Phosphorous rock, Zeofert, Cal-Mag, and compost teas) I know i'm probably missing some very useful nutrients! I would be really thankful to you all if I could have some of your own experiences growing organically, what nutrients do you use? How to keep up with a proper feeding schedule? I found it very hard to keep up with the weeks and feeding in veg and flower as I did not have any details on how long this breeds took from seed to harvest. I know I probably screwed a little bit!
As you can see in this next picture I started to notice some of the signs of caterpillars in this girl too...
This next girl "Cookies" hybrid sativa dominant: This girl had the caterpillar infestation and bud rot.
Pistils and Trichomes have been severely affected by the caterpillar resulting in a huge loss of both.
There's about 30% of amber Trichomes (or more) I found it very hard due to the loss of resin to determine the stage of the plant. I'm probably chopping her down in a couple of days.
Thank you very much for reading this post! I hope you find it informative and helpful. Feel free to comment you points of view!
Steps for countering caterpillar infestation:
1) When I realised I had a caterpillar infestation it was a little bit too late, there were at least 40 of them per plant which I caught by hand inspecting the buds using gloves.
2) Ordered some bacillus thuringiensis off of amazon and got them a couple days later, I started the foliar treatment the first night and continued to spray it every 4 nights.
3) Continued with the hand inspection a noticed a large reduction on the population of caterpillars. However, the damage was already done.
4) Cut down the rotten buds and cleaned them from caterpillar poop.
I'll be attaching pictures of my girls so you can see what I'm talking about, the pictures are from today and the colas do not have any rotten buds anymore but you'll be able to see where the buds are missing.
I'm having a lot of issues trying to diagnose this girl, she's a sativa "Boss". I started to notice some of the leaves had a peculiar burn and yellowing in the tips so I tested the soil's PH and it was at 6.5 so that was not the problem... I assumed she needed more feeding as this looked like a Nitrogen deficiency, its been over a week since i fed this plant and the new baby leaves are still showing this 'defficiency' in them... I'm not sure if she needs more feeding? or what's wrong with her?
If you notice some white powder in the leaves and buds... don't worry that's the Bacillus Thuringiensis.
Before seeing the pictures I also want to let you know that I'm growing in home amended soil ( worm castings, perlite, compost and organic soil as main ingredient). I'm feeding using The Grow Depot nutrients ( Phosphorous rock, Zeofert, Cal-Mag, and compost teas) I know i'm probably missing some very useful nutrients! I would be really thankful to you all if I could have some of your own experiences growing organically, what nutrients do you use? How to keep up with a proper feeding schedule? I found it very hard to keep up with the weeks and feeding in veg and flower as I did not have any details on how long this breeds took from seed to harvest. I know I probably screwed a little bit!
As you can see in this next picture I started to notice some of the signs of caterpillars in this girl too...
This next girl "Cookies" hybrid sativa dominant: This girl had the caterpillar infestation and bud rot.
Pistils and Trichomes have been severely affected by the caterpillar resulting in a huge loss of both.
There's about 30% of amber Trichomes (or more) I found it very hard due to the loss of resin to determine the stage of the plant. I'm probably chopping her down in a couple of days.
Thank you very much for reading this post! I hope you find it informative and helpful. Feel free to comment you points of view!
I'm afraid it might get too hot in there! temperatures rise all the way to 90F in the summer. The bud rot wasn't caused because of the humidity, it was because of the caterpillar eating the buds and stems and slowly killing some parts of the plant. I fed both girls (cookies and Boss) using the same ratios and only one is presenting this discolour in the leaves.... I'm starting to doubt nutrient burn but haven't discarded it yet! I'll be feeding less as you mentioned and see how it goes... Also, I think my girl Boss is showing some fade in colour in the leaves.... what could this suggest? the specie? Cookies looks greener than Boss
) , from what you have said i would suggest lowering your feed and getting a nice run off, if you can keep bugs at bay then ride it out and you should still have a smoke at the end.... fingers crossed that somwone who has more experience in your circumstances (heat, high humidity etc) can chime in. If not keep bumping the post once a day. 
