Thrips or no thrips...
 
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Thrips or no thrips, that is the question.

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cosmic flake
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Geraniol
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Hi all,

I'm puzzled to be fair, in the pat few weeks, some of the fan leaves of my indoor grow have started "growing" spots. It started slowly, but now that I've gone into flower, it seems these spots have gotten more and bigger.

I've taken one of the plants with more spots and took the more affected fan leaves off to get a closer look.

And to be honest with you, I can't really tell what I found. The issue affects only the top of the leaves and while it looks like the "spit" typical for thrips, I would say it looks like snail trails as it has a sheen to it that reflects light.

Upon closer investigation with a 30x/60x magnifier, I saw that it looks like the top layer of the leaves has been broken down and there are black spots within the centre of these and there is no visible movement at all. When I brush over with my finger, nothing gets wiped off or removed, these black spots stay firmly in place.

The underside of the leaves look completely fine, there's nothing running around whatsoever, nothing that would indicate thrips or other bugs.

I'm really puzzled what this is, anyone got any idea? Here are some photos to show the leaves and a close-up as close as I could go.

Thanks so much for your help. 🙏

IMG 20210809 200727
IMG 20210809 201123
IMG 20210809 200908
IMG 20210809 202016
IMG 20210809 201138
IMG 20210809 202028

 

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Chillbert
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@cosmic-flake its puzzling for sure.. the damage looks like mites to me.. they prefer it at the top of the plant in the drier enviornment.. the eggs arent black though and usually on the underside of the leaf

im guessing it is a boring type insect of some sort but surprised you cant find anything?

how fast is the damage spreading? i'd be tempted to remove any damaged leaves to slow any spread

have you iused any treatments yet?

Are the plants in veg still ?

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cosmic flake
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Hey @chillbert

Thanks for your response. 

I've put the plants in flower last Tuesday, so they're now a week in, the stretch of the cola stems is coming along nicely and the terpenes are starting to grow around the bud sites.

I'm still monitoring the spread of the damage, there aren't crazy things happening but it seems that it does spread on some fan leaves more than others. Just ordered my tent today so I'll be doing a fan leaf trim as soon as it arrives and move them inside.

Still need to figure out how much trimming I can safely do in order to not stunt the growth and have a bit of research ahead of me here.

So far I've not issued any treatments as I'm not sure what I'm looking at, but in all seriousness, if this is a bug infestation, they are the most elusive of insects I've ever seen, because there are none. Or they're nano-sized, as even my 60x magnification didn't pick up on anything.

Aside from these spots the leaves are clean, especially on the bottom there isn't a single flaw or marking.

This brings me back to thinking it must be some kind of infection or nutrient issue instead and considered getting either BioBizz Leaf Coat, or Neem Oil to treat the leaves. 

Would either of these be a good way of dealing with this issue?

Adding new photos of the situation:

IMG 20210811 181916
IMG 20210811 181901 1
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Lucas3330
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@cosmic-flake i might be wrong, but in my first grow i remember seeing these white marks on some my leafs and over time i came to the conclusion it was the water from my humidifier, I cant see a humidifier in yours though so maybe thats out of the question. but just a thought  xD 

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cosmic flake
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@lucas3330 Thanks, yea that's right I don't a humidifier in operation and the humidity levels are typically in the mid 50's to mid 60's.

It remains a mystery, the only leaf problem I've found looks like thrips alright, but still no sign of these. 🤞

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cosmic flake
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Oh goodness, I discovered a 2 1/2 hour stream of Thrips eating and shitting...

<a title="Thrips - All they do is eat and poop!" href=" removed link " target="_blank" rel="noopener">Thrips - All they do is eat and poop!

I mean, the black spots check out and all the look, but are these critters by chance scurrying at the sight of a human entering their domain?

I need to find one to be able to make sense of this all! 

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cosmic flake
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Posted by: @cosmic-flake

Oh goodness, I discovered a 2 1/2 hour stream of Thrips eating and shitting...

<a title="Thrips - All they do is eat and poop!" href=" removed link " target="_blank" rel="noopener">Thrips - All they do is eat and poop!

I mean, the black spots check out and all the look, but are these critters by chance scurrying at the sight of a human entering their domain?

I need to find one to be able to make sense of this all! 

Are Youtube links not allowed on here? Apologies if I broke any rules!   Tears  

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Chillbert
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Posted by: @cosmic-flake

plants in flower last Tuesday, so they're now a week in

ok you have a week or so if you want to use a foliar such as the ones you mentioned.. neem oil is a general pest good deterrent,, wouldnt spray this once you see any sign of flower and the leaf coat i havnt used.. a bit gimmicky imo but it might be useful here as it helps make a waxy coat for the leaf which again deter pests..

keep looking for pests.. they are very hard to spot regardless of what magnification you have .. mites, thrips both make that kinda damage.. but so do other leaf boring insects

remove leaves which are receiving rapid damage for sure.. 

can you post a pic of an underside of one of the damaged leaves?  may be of help

 

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cosmic flake
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@chillbert

Cheers, at this point I'm treating it as a thrips infestation. I'll do a bit of a leaf trim tomorrow to get the worst leaves out of the way.

I'm not familiar at all with these pests, so I might pop down to the shop for that BioBizz Leaf Coat, it might seem gimmicky but I like the idea that it's natural and you can use it during flower - or so it says - as it breaks down naturally from light. 

I'd give that a shot for one to three weeks to contain the spread of the bugs, if this works as it describes, they won't be able to spread and maybe even asphyxiate under the layer of coating.

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From that first pic mate, I would 100% say thrips...I've had them 3 times, little bastards are hard to spot...HotShot, all I'm saying LoL  

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cosmic flake
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Posted by: @zn

From that first pic mate, I would 100% say thrips...I've had them 3 times, little bastards are hard to spot...HotShot, all I'm saying LoL  

Thanks @zn, I'll get some of that, is this the Hot Shot No-Pest Strip 2? 
 
(I also found plant feed bug poison with that name and I don't think that'd be it...)

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@cosmic-flake It is mate, 100% guaranteed effective 😉

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cosmic flake
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Posted by: @zn

@cosmic-flake It is mate, 100% guaranteed effective 😉

Alright, cheers! 

First shop I found here in Ireland sells it at this magnificent price, which seems about 4 times of what it should be and that's the reduced price as they claim!

2021 08 12 09h29 44

 
Doesn't look like I can get that unless I order from Amazon US, which probably takes two weeks to arrive.

A bit worried about the acute toxicity of the dichlorvos that immediately popped up reading about the strips. What's your experience with that?

As I was searching around I did find an electric UV light buzzer for cheap 12£.

Has anyone ever tried a zapper in a grow room, do they work for bugs like these?

I would keep it on the same day-night schedule so the light wouldn't be an issue for the plants.

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@cosmic-flake Yeah, its a damn ripoff but it does work...never had issues with the contents and one of my tents is in my bedroom, lol...I sleep next to it...anything extraneous I guess is sucked up the extractor

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WoodI2
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The yellow sticky traps might get something, maybe. Just don't trap your plant, LOL!!! But you might get something but I can see whatever it is very small, micro size. Some type of Leave Miner bug? I don't really know.

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cosmic flake
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@woodi2

Now we're quite positive on the thrips I'd say with everyone who was so kind to weigh in.

Thanks, I'll be using the yellow sticky tape now that I do have lying around and place them between the the pots, yea that stuff is nasty but as I'm below the scrog I shouldn't have issues with any leaves getting trapped.

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I will chime in to say it is unequivocally 100% thrips. I am EXTREMELY familiar with them and I would give away all my ganja if I'm wrong.  And that's a lot of ganja. That scraping away of the leaf surface and the little black shit is telltale. Thrips are a mafk to get rid of once established tho.. unless you nuke em like Zombie suggests.I choose to manage them rather than obliterate and use a combo of swirskii mites on the foliar and nematodes in the soil in order to control their numbers. They do suck a lot tho.

Look for very small brown/beige coloured fast moving bugs that mostly like to hang out along the veins of the leaves. They move pretty quick once disturbed but once you see em, you'll know.

Thrip close up
thrip damage
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cosmic flake
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@templegrower Thanks TG, I still haven't found a single thrip to this day but the foliar spray I've used once seems to have done a rather decent job - well, that or I just can't tell the difference between the residue of the spray and thrip damage. 

In any case, there's no alarm bells going off since I've moved them into my new tent and fingers crossed 🤞🏼 it stays that way, since I'm dealing with a whole new problem now. 🙄

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Posted by: @woodi2

Just don't trap your plant

I did that not long ago I cut a sticky trap into 1/4's and was going to set a bit on the soil in each pot, I left the paper on the bottom so soil didnt stick to it, but of corse me being me the first thing I do is get caught up in the leaves and had to rip the ends of one leaf to get the trap off 😆 

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Posted by: @cosmic-flake

which seems about 4 times of what it should be and that's the reduced price as they claim!

Probably even more, they are actually relatively cheap in the US:

8581A41D AD21 472B B9D0 21EC41B27431
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Mix
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 Mix
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@monkeydo 

are those hotshot strips simply yellow glued paper ? 

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@mix Basically yes, infused with dichlorvos

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Mix
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Cheers I have wondered in the past when it’s been mentioned. Should rename the stuff to hair remover lol the amount of times I got snagged on them.

cheep & cheerful stuff mind that does what you expect 

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