I will be using Botanigard to kill root aphids in my veg and clone tent. I skipped using Botanigard last time because of the price. That was a mistake! One great advantage of Botanigard is that it is organic. Also root aphids wont develop a resistance to it.
Probably the most important factor for me was the fact you can use it in flower if you find an infestation. Root aphids are a serious pest and I have no problem taking a nuclear approach and using chemicals on clones or young plants. But I wont use them in flower because they are systemic and will be in the buds. This is not a problem with Botanigard.
I made a video explaining what I am doing and how to use Botanigard 22 WP. To me everything starts in veg. If those plants are free from bugs you will have a good grow. If not you should wait until they are clean because options for treatment are less in flower.
BotaniGard Review And A Peak In My Veg Tent
This product comes in a liquid and a wettable powder form. I chose the wettable powder because it is cheaper. Same product but lower price probably reflects that its easier to ship and also it is eligible for Prime while the liquid isn’t.
How To Use BotaniGard And Get Rid Of Root Aphids
Root aphids are a serious pest in cannabis. They can mimic nutrient deficiency symptoms so they often go unnoticed until you are well along in your grow and options are limited. This is what happened to me. Things just were not right but I couldn’t put my finger on what the problem was.
So after the grow was over I started examining roots and I found some. They can be hard to see and I did not find any in the first couple of plants I checked. But the third plant definitely had them. Not a lot but it was enough. So I knew I had to take action.
I had them once before and drenches with Acephate and IMD got rid of them so that is the route I went again. Botanigard was not on the market back then and although I now knew about it I decided to skip using it because it was expensive.
That was really stupid. Root aphids generally dont kill a crop outright but they lower yield and quality. So if they lower your yield by even an ounce then treating your crop with a dose of Botanigard is well worth it and pays for itself easily.
Everything Starts In Veg
For good harvests you need healthy plants. So cloning and veg is all important so you dont bring pests into flower. I am pretty sure I got rid of my root aphid problem. But just to be safe I decided to assume there were still some there.
I had issues with mother plants that looked like calmag deficiency but adding calmag did not correct the problem. Epsom salt foliar sprays did not work either. I am pretty sure my moms had root aphids. Occasionally they do crawl up the stems so they could have been on my clones. To make matters worse I was growing them out in reused coco.
Starting Fresh With Botanigard And Multiple Treatments
Those original moms are all gone. Before I trashed them I took fresh clones and started them again after treating their coco. Now in another area I am rooting clones from these treated moms. So all my new mothers will be bug free.
Because root aphids have a short 5 day cycle it is necessary to use multiple treatments to get rid of them and prevent resistance. Nothing is 100% effective so you need to get any survivors with something else.
Clean,Clean Then Clean Again
The next step for me will be sterilizing my clone and veg tent. I use ozone for this. It is a gas and can penetrate areas you could never get at by scrubbing. If there are any root aphids or their eggs they will be killed.
All my growstones will get placed in an oven in turkey trays at 350 degrees for an hour. That will make sure my media is sterile. I love growstones and prefer them to hydroton. Since they are no longer made I want to preserve them. If I was just using hydroton I would have tossed it and started with new stones.
Have A Treatment Plan
All my plants were treated with BotaniGard. They will get a drench with Spectracide as a quick knockdown in a few days. More Botanigard 5 days later. Then a drench with IMD and acephate followed by another dose of Botanigard. By then everything should be gone. Most of my clones and seedlings will be flowered at this point. My new moms will probably get flowered. The tent will be sterilized again and empty.My newly rooted clones will go in as replacement moms.
It is a lot of work to get rid of these little bastards but I think it is worth the effort. Do it right once they are gone. Skip steps and they will be back.
