Jeffrey Hickey Writes Blogs

A sign in my part of the world that is . . . confusing.

When I was researching writing the Home Grow program, I spoke with various manufacturers and quality control people about their products. That’s how I found out the best time of day to spray BT, for example, which I alluded to in my previous blog.

Another product I inquired about was PyGanic, which has been described as “nuclear death” for insects. This particular chrysanthemum based insecticide will kill whatever infestation you’ve got, but in order to use this safely, you need to exercise extreme caution. PyGanic kills the insects you want dead, and all the ones you’d rather live, including bees. When I was teaching, far too many students were using or had used this product without much thought or awareness. They wanted their problem bugs dead right now, and were only too happy to spray something that obviously worked. I get it.

But I do not use Pyganic as a garden insecticide. There are safer methods that are just as effective. 

On the outside of the Pyganic bottle, under DIRECTIONS FOR USE, it says, “It is a violation of federal law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling.” Then below that, in bold, it says, SEE BOOKLET FOR DIRECTIONS FOR USE.

Only problem was mine didn’t come with a booklet. So I called them and discovered that their directions (at that time) were not as thorough as I would have liked, so we discussed the proper method to use Pyganic and we came up with a few important additional instructions:

1. Before using, tent all your plants.
2. Only spray inside the tented area of the impacted plant. Limit the amount you spray. It only takes a little Pyganic to be effective. 
3. Only spray Pyganic in the evening, after all the pollinators (bees) have gone away for the night.
4. Leave tents overnight.
5. Never spray Pyganic randomly. It will kill every insect it accidentally encounters.
6. Wear a mask when applying. 

I have personally only used Pyganic one time, and that was not in the garden. We used it to kill Bat Mites that had infested a bat house. It effectively killed the mites in the house, and on the outside of  the house. We also had to replace the bat house.

I have never used Pyganic to fight insects on my plants; and I never will. I am a big believer in growing plants that help control unwanted insects, and inviting predators that eat the bad insects. I also use a two part bio insecticide foliar spray (Grandevo and Venerate) that organically controls the worst insects. Grandevo is even a Western Cucumber Beetle deterrent. 

Assassin flies eat mites! Thanks to Bee for this amazing action photo.

Pyganic is the absolute last resort for an insect infestation. It works, but it’s messed up for everything living within the reach of the spray. I’m not a fan of anything that kills everything; especially bees.

As an alternative, check out the organic products made by Pro-Farm. (I am not an affiliate, just a user and fan). They make Grandevo and Venerate for insects, Regalia for powdery mildew and the miraculous Stargus for mold prevention. They make many other beneficial farming products as well, that are safe for your plants and your families.

I do almost all my foliar spraying pre-dawn. It’s a good discipline as a grower, and it gives your plants an entire day to work with whatever has just been sprayed. It’s also a sure fire way to never expose them to the sun and the spray at the same time. Two of the spays under sunlight, Regalia and Neem, will cause plant burns.

I was not always so disciplined, however. There have been years where it was more overcast than usual, and it was hugely tempting to apply a foliar spray when the sun was covered by clouds. I’ve done this safely several times. I always justified it by saying that it was saving me from having to get up early to spray the next day.

But this has also happened–It’s a deeply overcast day and I’m out there spraying Regalia, when suddenly, and completely without warning, the sun breaks through and stays out a while.

Moments like this are when I’m most grateful that no one in my valley can randomly look out their windows and watch me work, and either photograph or videotape me. Because if they could, they would have watched me gently put down the foliar sprayer, climb on top of a bed or a ladder if necessary, and spread my entire self over the plant I was spraying like some large, bald bird, expanding my jacketed arms like wings, holding myself in position over the potentially impacted plant for up to 30 minutes, until the cloud covering returned, or the plant dried. It’s a good thing that I stretch and exercise regularly, or at my age, I could potentially freeze into one of these positions for the remainder of the season. No thank you. The last two years, it has been pre-dawn for everything but BT. I also now have white cloth covers for the plants in case this happens again. 

This is nitrogen burn. It’s not major, but if continued, your plant’s growth could be impacted.

Another fairly common issue is nitrogen burn. I’ve had this; especially in the years we’ve fertilized the beds with fish. When we planted the fish early in the year (January or February), it had not decomposed enough and been absorbed by late May, so in a couple of beds, we got some limited nitrogen burn on lower level leaves. The plants grow past it, but if you bury the fish soon enough (we usually bury fish in late October or early November, at the same time as solarizing), the growing medium will have a full six months before you start putting cannabis or seeds in the beds. It needs that time for the fish to dissolve and be absorbed.

If you notice nitrogen burn is happening, you should flush your growing medium. Give a good watering, even if it slows growth a couple of days while things dry out. You can wash down some of what causes the burn.

Let’s address the most common problem for first time or inexperienced growers: Too much water. I understand that how water is used for cannabis varies from indoor to outdoor. Further, I understand that the differences remain wildly different for outdoor growers alone. Climate and soil control how much water we have to use. Let’s establish that as a given around the world, that every region is unique in terms of how much water is appropriate to grow effectively.

But I’ve lost count of the number of times that growers have shown me photos of their little plants and asked me what was wrong. Why weren’t they growing?

Most of the time, the answer is the plants are being over-watered. As in, every day. When they’re 4-7 inches tall. There is this horrible knee jerk obsession with watering plants. 

Don’t get me wrong, watering is critical. The quality of water you use on your plants is everything. But if your little plants aren’t growing, and you’re watering them every day, there’s a good chance it’s because they’re drowning. 

Give them enough water to make them look for more water. 

That’s how they grow. Give them too much water, they stay in one place and rot. I never starve my vegetative plants. I never allow them to droop or sag in any way from a lack of moisture. But I only water my plants, all of them, one time a week. You have to know what is growing beneath you. Is there ground water that your plants can tap into? Have you ever tried? Are you close to any large trees that might have mycelium networks beneath your plants?

A way to safely find out is to designate one plant for testing. Grow the others the way you’re used to, but try to grow one using less water. See what happens. It will take some trial and error, and some potential mistakes, but this is the only way to learn. Almost half the years I’ve grown, I’ve designated a plant or more for experimentation, to try something new before I try it on everything. This is how I discovered how little water I actually need.

With less water, as flowers develop, you plant will age and die. But the flowers you produce will be stronger, and/or the fruit you grow will be sweeter. That’s the choice. In my mind, the objective should be the flowers and fruit, not the plant.

I understand my growing situation is not the norm. At a very early point in their growth, my plants find ground water. Once that happens, you really don’t have to water much. I water mostly because my water is full of unique micro and macro nutrients, coming from a spring, and I use that water to help dilute and spread the benefits of my compost teas throughout the growing mediums. But I only water once a week, and I stop watering completely the day I notice they’re flowering. They only get a quart of tea a week for the first half of flowering and then nothing at all the last month. We let them finish as nature intended. This lack of extra water from us allows the flowers to be their most potent. Let me repeat that: Less water during flowering means more potent flowers. Since I stopped watering during flowering, my test scores have exploded. That’s not just THC or CBD, it’s also terpenes, like getting my first plant with 3% terpenes. Water reduction isn’t breaking news. I was told in school to cut off water for the last three weeks. Through experimentation, I found out that I don’t need to water at all during flowering, other than whatever is in the compost teas the first four weeks.

It is the exact same strategy for growing the sweetest possible tomatoes. When the plant is about ¾ covered in small fruit and flowers, you stop watering and allow the fruit to drain the plant. The plant will look ugly, but the fruit will thrive. The sweetest tomatoes and the strongest cannabis come from the exact same method of water deprivation. The first day I was in school, the teacher said that if you know how to grow tomatoes well, you can grow cannabis well.

I know growers (of both cannabis and tomatoes) who won’t allow their plants to visibly die for the sake of the flower or fruit, and they always wonder why their flowers are not as potent, or their tomatoes as sweet, as they dreamed they’d be. I’ve told them why, and some still prefer a green and vibrant looking plant, over an ugly, dying plant that produces the sweetest and strongest fruit. To each their own.

I think the entire issue of watering in cannabis needs to be studied far more than it has. The way I grow simply doesn’t jibe with how others are saying it has to be done. I’m not saying that other growers are wrong for using water the way they do. I don’t know every specific situation and what that involves.

This Czech Stupice tomato plant hasn’t been watered in a month. She’s still growing and flowering. She’ll produce well into fall.

What I know is how I grow, and this is how it has evolved for me, based on the way things grow here. I’ll admit that I’m fortunate and I never take it for granted. But my situation cannot be completely unique. Others probably have similar situations as mine, and haven’t yet taken the time to find out how far they can push their land and their plants. Remember that stress creates better medicine in cannabis.

I am in a constant state of evolution regarding my grows. They change every year in my attempt to get better. It’s the process, of course, and not the end result that I seek. That’s a long game strategy.

On the lucky side of the coin, there’s also this: I write a lot about the difficulties I have had with getting a consistent 12 hours plus of sun for my plants to grow vegetatively. But because of where I live, I also receive an unusual break for my grow. I cannot fully explain this, only that it seems to be something unique to the geographic region of the world where I live. It’s probably different where you live.

(I would love for someone out there to explain this to me, thank you)

On Solstice, the longest day of the year, the sun came up at 5:49 am and set at 8:39 pm. Of course, immediately after Solstice, the days began to grow shorter. I always assumed (the most basic mistake) that the days would begin to grow equally shorter on both ends of the day, dawn and dusk. But that doesn’t happen here. What happens here is the day immediately begins to grow shorter on the dawn end, but much more slowly on the dusk end. Within a couple of days of Solstice, for example, dawn had moved to 5:50 am, while sunset remained at 8:39.

On July 20, one month after the Solstice, sunrise was at 6:05 am, 16 minutes later. Sunset was 8:31, 8 minutes earlier.

The net effect of this has been to the great benefit of my plants. On Solstice, the first of my plants to receive a touch from the sun was Purple Hindu Kush at 6:49 am.

One month after the Solstice, even though the sun was rising 16 minutes later, Purple Hindu Kush once again got the first rays of light at 6:49 am.

Purple Hindu Kush

The reason is because even though the sun is coming up later, it has shifted south and moved from behind a redwood grove, and is now unblocked from my plants a bit earlier than it was on Solstice. And for this last month, because the sun has only lost eight minutes to sunset, it is still hitting my plants as long as it did on the Solstice. 

This will change rapidly, and very soon. A tree will shortly block any light from my plants after their eleventh hour of sun. The move toward flowering will hasten.

Seven days earlier, beds were in full light at 6:00. Now, one row is blocked.

But for one month before and after the Solstice, I experience a period of days that are virtually identical, in terms of length of day and direction of the sun. For me, these months are the time of year where I take each almost identical long day into my soul, and count my blessings to be able to live and grow this plant. 

The 2024 grow is taking shape.

Hey Friends: If you’d like to support jeffreyhickeyblogs.com, please feel free to donate to PayPal @jeffreydhickey.
Disclaimer: The majority of the links in jeffreyhickeyblogs.com posts are affiliate program links. This means that (most of the time) when you purchase a product linked from my site, I receive a commission.