Teaming up with ‘The Predator’ for growing killer buds!

ladybugs and marijuana

When you’re growing weed, there is no doubt that eventually you’ll run into some trouble. Perhaps you overwatered your plants and the leaves began to curl and dry, or maybe you’ve got some mold forming on the base of the plant.

However – if there’s something that growers from all experience levels can agree on – pests suck!

We have written about the top 3 bugs you’d want to avoid in your cannabis grow with a few tips on how to handle them.

However – sometimes when pests are so out of control you can’t send in poison to do a bug’s job – and by this I mean, “PREDATORY BUGS!”

Not all bugs are the same and today we’re going to be talking about bugs that help your buds grow big by straight up 86-ing the opposition.

Let’s take a closer look at the bugs you’ll want to team up with to end your infestation woes.

She’s a killer!

We might call her a lady but in reality – she’s a vicious devourer of pests. She’ll eat aphids, spider mites, whiteflies, insect eggs, leaf beetle larva, and small caterpillars.

I’m talking of course about the lady bug or more formally known as Coccinellidae. These have long been allies to gardeners fighting a wide range of pests. This is why these days you can actually buy ladybugs, most gardeners simply encourage growers to make their environment more hospitable for native ladybugs to come.

You can grow a bunch of flowers outdoors to attract the ladybugs. If you’re issue is indoors – then perhaps you’d need to consider harvesting ladybugs or buying them – but if you’re patient and do the legwork – you can have ladybugs come visit you on the regular. You simply need to up your “flower game”.

Not Praying no more…

The Praying Mantis is a scary looking bug and a straight up murderer when it comes to other insects. Depending on the size of mantis – they can even kill rodents and small birds.

Having a few mantises in your garden is good – but having too many could be a problem. A mantis will slay everything in its path without remorse – this includes butterflies, ladybugs and other mantids.

In the US – the two most common species are the Chinese Mantis and the Carolina mantis. The Former being larger in size.

You can attract mantises in your garden outside if you’re not using pesticides. Ladybugs and mantises don’t like pesticides.

However – let’s say that you have a problem and no mantis in sight – you can always buy husks online. Once again – always be careful when introducing insects into your garden – there’s a balance to be maintained. Too much of anything can be a problem.

She’ll spin you a tale…

If there’s one killing machine every garden needs it’s a spider. Garden spiders are primed for insect annihilation and spin cool looking webs. They may not be as efficient as ladybugs or mantises – but they definitely get the job done.

Capture a spider and move it to your grow – see what happens.

Why use bugs over pesticides?

Within the pursuit of growing greener – reducing the amount of pesticides we use is good. While pesticides do kill the bugs that ruin our crops – it also kills plenty of other beneficial bugs and small animals too.

Monocrop cultivation kills billions of smaller animals every year through pesticides. This includes things like birds, rodents and reptiles along with all of the beneficial predatory animals.

What this does is throw the entire ecosystem off balance and suddenly you have more pests the next year because their populations replenish rather quickly – whereas predatory animals take longer.

This means that over time, the predatory animals become insignificant against a swelling pest population and you’ve got a full on infestation on your hands.

Using predatory insects instead of using chemical pesticides allows nature to take care of itself – as opposed to us forcing it to bend to our will.

A new standard of cultivation

Cannabis cultivation will be undoubtedly an “outdoor activity” and is naturally resistant to pests [especially when talking about hemp]. Being a relatively “new” crop to be in production at mass scale – in the near future – it would be excellent to see a new approach to agriculture develop.

Cannabis has the opportunity to redefine the game – companies like Natural Enemies work with cannabis farmers to implement non-toxic pest control methods and it’s proven to be effective. It’s a far more sustainable approach to dealing with harmful bugs in your garden than dousing it with chemicals – which we would have to consume eventually.

I for one I am excited to see how this develops and hopefully it can catch on. We need to change the way we do things and using bugs over pesticide could be one of those minor changes with major impact over time.