WTF is this nonsense?

BudgetMessiah said:

So I went to the local vitamin store and got a half ounce of their finest lemongrass oil and mixed with with about 7 parts water and a drop of iso alcohol, shook it really good, and misted the canopy lightly. About a half dozen sprays. I don't know about the aphids, but I know I wanted to die after about a minute of that. It's like a citronella apocalypse in there.

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I don't know how your buds will taste now, but we'll see. I would have ordered predators. I release ladybugs on my house plants in my living room sometimes when I see aphids on them. Ya they fly around a bit at first, but mostly stay where I put them. I mist the plants with water first and put a little tray with moist raisins and a slice of apple in one of the pots. That helps them want to make it a home around the plants and stay where I want them. They last a long time in the fridge too.

predators if u like good tasting weed...no chemicals

Neem oil didn't phase the aphids in my outdoor last season.
I did manage to get one tester plant under control with the ISO and water, contact killer with fast evaporation, but they weren't in bloom yet...
As far as the ladybugs, they absolutely worked wonders, I let a few batches loose in the cage outside, and within a week everything was clean... BUT, that was in July, and I'm still occasionally finding them around, IN the house, in the depths of a UP of MI winter...
So yeah, if you want to grow again....
There's gotta be other friendlies that eat aphids though...

I reckon they'll have some citrus flavor to them. But I'll take a little lemon flavor over a swarm of aphids bouncing around in a mylar paradise.
And predators were never on the table. The location does not make it possible.

Chip Green said:

Neem oil didn't phase the aphids in my outdoor last season.
I did manage to get one tester plant under control with the ISO and water, contact killer with fast evaporation, but they weren't in bloom yet...
As far as the ladybugs, they absolutely worked wonders, I let a few batches loose in the cage outside, and within a week everything was clean... BUT, that was in July, and I'm still occasionally finding them around, IN the house, in the depths of a UP of MI winter...
So yeah, if you want to grow again....
There's gotta be other friendlies that eat aphids though...

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Ya here's some aphid predators.

BudgetMessiah said:

I reckon they'll have some citrus flavor to them. But I'll take a little lemon flavor over a swarm of aphids bouncing around in a mylar paradise.
And predators were never on the table. The location does not make it possible.

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I just hope you didn't ruin your weed. Everybody loves ladybugs, tho......Only bug my gf tolerates

Chip Green said:

Neem oil didn't phase the aphids in my outdoor last season.

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I don't really know much about neem oil, but I know lemongrass oil is used in all sorts of commercial insecticides. It'll kill cockroaches and stuff, so I figured it was worth a shot.

To be fair, I've got a buddy whom had(has) aphids on every run. He didn't even notice until I pointed them out. He just refuses to improve his area for whatever reason, and he still manages to get pretty decent crops.
Not something I would allow to happen in my gardens, but surprisingly enough they seem to have little effect on his results.

I do want to add for full disclosure that I used a concentration of about 15% and this seemed to be too strong for a foliar spray. The buds that caught most of the misting from the fan blowing it around lost a ton of pistils on the side facing the fan. I also used it on a sage plant which was in my bathroom just near the grow tent (I figured better safe than sorry) and it had a huge leaf die-off in the following days.

In the future, if I use this again, I think I'll stick to 5-10% concentration. Also, it might not be necessary to spray down the plants. I would reckon just through fumigation it's toxic to these nymphs. I didn't really spray enough of the leaves to get rid of all of them through contact. You might even be able to knock down an infestation just by spraying down the pots below the plants and letting the fumes rise into the canopy.

Let's hope this never happens again so I don't have to find out!

Chip Green said:

To be fair, I've got a buddy whom had(has) aphids on every run. He didn't even notice until I pointed them out. He just refuses to improve his area for whatever reason, and he still manages to get pretty decent crops.
Not something I would allow to happen in my gardens, but surprisingly enough they seem to have little effect on his results.

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Now you tell me.

Leaf aphids or root aphids? Pray for the former, because you're not going to get eliminate RAs with lemon grass, neem, or any other oils. They'll happily do the backstroke thru lemon grass while flipping ya the bird.