OUTDOOR SEASON PESTS
Outdoor Season Pests
Pest insects aren’t as common during the early growing season as they are in mid to late summer, but that doesn't mean a cannabis garden will be pest free. In the early weeks after planting, a seedling’s or plant’s most destructive enemies are slugs, snails, or cutworms. These critters usually inflict their damage during the night hours by cutting small plants down to just stalks, completely obliterating seedlings, and/or leaving a trail of eaten leaves on larger plants. To protect a cannabis garden from slugs, snails, and cutworms, growers can implement a variety of defenses against these nasty critters.
Diatomaceous earth can be sprinkled around the perimeter of the garden or around each individual plant to create a barrier of protection. Diatomaceous earth is a popular insect deterrent among organic growers and works on a variety of pests, including slugs, snails, and cutworms. The skeletal remains in diatomaceous earth act like tiny razor blades which lacerate the pests as they pass over.
Once a cannabis plant is properly acclimated to its outdoor environment, it will be able to live up to its full potential. After transplanting, the plants will become established and early season pests, such as snails, slugs, and cutworms, will no longer pose much of a threat. In fact, once cannabis plants are established outdoors, they have a naturally heightened resistance to pests and pathogens. This, combined with the presence of natural predators, makes pest control in an outdoor cannabis garden relatively easy compared with indoors.
Cannabis plants that are properly hardened off, carefully transplanted, and supplied with the proper nutrition for the early growth stages and root development will form a healthy root mass and have strong structural integrity, which will be the foundation for enormous cannabis flowers. Patience and attention are required of a gardener in the early stages of the outdoor growing season.
However, if the time is taken to properly acclimate his or her plants, provide them with optimal nutrition, and prevent pests, the cannabis cultivator will be rewarded in spades come harvest time.
