What's your IPM?

Booyah! said:

*Serenade spray once a week to prevent mold. It's a bacteria that eats fungus.
*BT for butterflies during the summer in the same spray. To prevent worms.
*Azamax once a month to prevent insects like aphids.
*Going to try praying mantis' this year to take care of some grasshopper that was a new type that caused a lot of issues and hung out on the frostier plants.
*Also airated compost tea once a week (not same day as Syranade) for overall hardening.
*Great white microbes to prevent invasive harmful bacteria and fungi.
*Worm castings to prevent harmful neematodes by adding beneficial ones.

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seems like a lot of shit to be using, organic or not....i don't use anything till there's a reason to use it.
using a product once a moth to prevent insects isn't a good practice. don't use it at all until you actually have some. right now, you're giving any insects in your grow area the opportunity to build up a resistance to it. if they start to multiply, what are you going to use against them?
and..if you're going to be trying to introduce mantisses to your garden, you'll have to lay off the BT and azamax, or you'll kill them, too

Roger A. Shrubber said:

seems like a lot of shit to be using, organic or not....i don't use anything till there's a reason to use it.
using a product once a moth to prevent insects isn't a good practice. don't use it at all until you actually have some. right now, you're giving any insects in your grow area the opportunity to build up a resistance to it. if they start to multiply, what are you going to use against them?
and..if you're going to be trying to introduce mantisses to your garden, you'll have to lay off the BT and azamax, or you'll kill them, too

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Seems to be working great for me. No butterflies, no mold, no mites or aphids. It is better to prevent problems than to play catch up. I space out my sprays and no this isn't overloading the plants by any means. If anything they are loving it. Nothing I do harms my beneficials.

http://toxicsactionorg.live.pubintnet-dev.org/problems-and-solutions/pesticides

http://www.bt.ucsd.edu/pest_resistance.html
^click the link at the bottom of this page, they purposely leave areas of crops untreated with BT to prevent insects from becoming resistant to it

https://pesticidestewardship.org/resistance/

https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/slowing-and-combating-pest-resistance-pesticides

if it's working for you.....go for it
doesn't seem to be working for anyone else, though...you must be a lucky guy

Thanks for your concern. I don't use synthetic pesticide and with organics I found you need to attack from multiple fronts to prevent a resistance. I am aware of the phenomenon.

Here's a quote from a link you posted:
"Currently in the field, the diamondback moth is the only insect found to have developed resistance against Bt. The diamondback larvae feed on all plants in the mustard family, including canola, mustard, broccoli, and cabbage. The diamondback moth larvae is resistance to proteins made by the Bt strain kurstaki.'"

That's great news to me because I haven't seen one of those type of butterflies yet. I went from having butterfly damage to a clean harvest. If you wait til you see them they are already infested.

Also a tip is to mix BT with your Serenade to prevent mold as well. BT alone can sometimes cause too much moisture during moist times of the season. Azamax however needs to be done on it's own because it interferes with the beneficial bacterias in the BT and Serenade. Those Bacterias also need to be done separate from Great White as well because they are so dominant.

Booyah! said:

Here's a quote from a link you posted:
"Currently in the field, the diamondback moth is the only insect found to have developed resistance against Bt. The diamondback larvae feed on all plants in the mustard family, including canola, mustard, broccoli, and cabbage. The diamondback moth larvae is resistance to proteins made by the Bt strain kurstaki.'"

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read further down....."In the laboratory, scientists have found many species of insects to be resistant to Bt. These insects are currently studied to further our understanding of Bt resistance and prevention."

i wasn't thinking about it at first, but you're growing outside, aren't you? different regime for inside and outside. but you still want to at least rotate a few things.
and no one has brought up one of my favorite IP components yet. Frass is the shit....literally.....
black soldier fly frass is my favorite, the brand i use is 3-1-1. i top dress with it twice early in veg, and have had a lot less problems with insects in general, and have also noticed that my stems seem stronger, and less likely to split from the stem while lst'ing....it seems to me that it makes for shinier, healthier looking leaves as well, but that may be the result of something else...or a combination of a few things...so i can't attribute that directly to the frass.

Many insects besides butterflies. And those same farmers in your article use pesticide as well which I won't. I stay organic and work all year building my beneficials. Next year I will add Praying Mantis's as well.

Many outdoor growers in Norcal use BT and for good reason. It is a very beneficial bacteria to introduce to your crop.

Yes I do mainly grow outdoors. Thanks for the information on the soldier fly frass. I used regular insect frass for chitin last year and heard about black fly frass but haven't tried it yet. Stuff is expensive! But, I'll pick some up for my compost tea this year.

https://www.amazon.com/Garden-Grub-5LBS-Conditioner-Alternative/dp/B07D938B5G/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?s=lawn-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1545073786&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=Insect+Frass&psc=1

cheapest brand i've found, and a good product, the plants respond to it well

Thanks! I appreciate it...that is a lot cheaper

Roger A. Shrubber said:

https://www.amazon.com/Garden-Grub-5LBS-Conditioner-Alternative/dp/B07D938B5G/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?s=lawn-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1545073786&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=Insect+Frass&psc=1

cheapest brand i've found, and a good product, the plants respond to it well

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I don't think that you are going to get through to this guy. I think that I would rather have a healthy plant with a high SAR and Brix value for my IPM. I also developed breathing problems about 2yrs ago, so the only thing that I spray with is sea salt for minerals.

I'm really not sure what is going on here. I simply shared my Integrated Pest Management that has worked very well for me. It is 100 percent organic involves working with beneficials. Out of three other outdoor growers that I consolidate with in the area, my crop had the least issues. I contribute that to the preventative measures I have taken. And if you're insinuating that I don't consider SAR and Brix levels you're completely wrong. A nice healthy plant might be resistant to a lot of issues but still is a great target for butterflies.

Most everything I spray is made up in a 55 gallon drum, and pumped out to the crop using a low pressure paddle pump to preserve the microbes. I also filter compost teas by lacing a hash bag around the pump to prevent any particles from getting through. I found the filter that was included bogged down too often.

I could easily use Avid or Eagle 20 and call it a day but I don't use pesticides and won't smoke that poison either.

Butterflies have been a real bad problem here in the last couple years. If you had to bury huge plants full of caterpillars, you'd understand how ignoring this problem doesn't work anymore.

Sorry about your respiratory problems. I hope you get some improvement. What did you used to spray that caused your issues? I use a small amount of sea salt in some of my compost teas. What amount do you use? How often?

Booyah! said:

What did you used to spray that caused your issues?

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Booyah! said:

I could easily use Avid or Eagle 20 and call it a day but I don't use pesticides and won't smoke that poison either.

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I was a dumb kid that didnt know better! Also, I should have read your post a little more. Spraying bacteria won't hurt, but I thought that you were talking about stuff like Avid. Clackamas Coots was an outdoor grower that constantly had to fight spider mites. In his recipe he uses neem meal and crustacean meal(chitin) and barley(chitinase) which will raise the plant's SAR value. Raising Brix levels will also help and a good way to do that is by avoiding high amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus. In abundance, they will both keep your roots from producing exudes and lock out other nutrients. P will lock out micronutrients which is essential for high brix #'s. I spray sea salt to increase the micronutirents, which will in return raise my brix level. Outdoor grows might have less of a problem with micronutrients than indoor potting soil. I had my ground soil tested and it was near perfect in the micros. Farmers call ground soil "mineral soil".

I don't claim to be an expert and I haven't had an outdoor grow yet, but I am looking forward to it and try to absorb all of the info that I can.

Booyah! said:

Yes I do mainly grow outdoors. Thanks for the information on the soldier fly frass. I used regular insect frass for chitin last year and heard about black fly frass but haven't tried it yet. Stuff is expensive! But, I'll pick some up for my compost tea this year.

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See, I missed the part about you being outdoor. Around July, the black soldier flies come around and they are ALWAYS in my compost bin around that time. They seem to eat the food faster than worms and they also seem to co-exist with red wigglers. The first time that I noticed BSF in my worm bin, I thought that they were HUGE maggots. I was dead wrong. BSF produce a hormone that keeps the fruit flies away.

Keep an eye on the elapsed time, I think that this video was over a 24hr period.

I'm definitely going to look into Barley as well to incorporate into my tea and top dressings. Thanks for the advice on SAR and BRIX levels. I knew a little, but that is some great information. Outdoors can definitely be forgiving in some respects. Soil has a good amount of minerals, but unless you are close to a volcano, it doesn't hurt to remineralize the dirt in between seasons. I use different rock dusts. Glacial Rock Dust, Basalt and Gypsum alone could cover just about everything, but I have others as well just to cover a larger variety of sources. The great thing about rock dust is that it keeps on feeding for not only the season, but decades. It feels good to improve the land. That video is insane BTW.