Powdery mildew has finally arrived - this means war

It looks like I opened Pandoras Box the PM came in on some clones from Cali. I have got clones before with no trouble, so I was caught off guard. This indoor grow has never had PM in 7 years and the conditions did not change, so it was easy to figure out the source of the infection. It showed up first on the new clones, all of them 4 different varieties. By the time I realized it, it had spread to every part of the grow, a few spots here and there on at least 10 different varieties and for sure spores are everywhere now.

I quickly learned that it spreads to any plant no matter how healthy and it does not fluoresce under UVA light, so trying to track down the PM and cut off the affected leaves is a hopeless approach, which worked for spider mites if you catch them very early. So I realize this is going to require foliar spraying, which I normally avoid.

I have seen PM outdoors on a few jewel weed and catnip plants in the forest and I have never taken any steps to stop it from entering the grow and it never got in, so I assume this PM that came in on the clones is Cannabis specific?

Since I was PM free for so many years, the goal is complete eradication so I can hopefully be PM free again, without continuing any treatments or changing conditions and only using systemic fungicides as a very last resort if I get desperate. My friend says it can be eradicated and he has done it, maybe I am over reacting...

Possible foliar weapons:
Hydrogen Peroxide
Agsil 16H/Pro-tekt/Potassium Silicate
Mildew Cure (Cottonseed Oil, Corn Oil, Garlic oil, baking soda, oleic oil, lauric acid (coconut oil)
Garlic Extract
100% Neem Oil
Milk
Mouthwash
Compost Tea
Apple cider vinegar with mother
Baking Soda - Sodium Bicarbonate
Green Cure - Potassium Bicarbonate
Aloe/Yucca surfactant
Dr Bronners peppermint castile soap?


Other:
Nano Silver
Ultraviolet C treatment
Leaf-ectomy whenever possible
Temporarily increase circulation and ventilation air flow
Temporarily decrease relative humidity from 55-60% to 40%
Eagle 20 systemic fungicide

Once it has been controlled for awhile, hopefully I can take cones off the fastest growing branches of the most valuable cuttings, dunk them in nano-silver and separate them to a new location to make sure I don't lose years of work. Any suggestions or experiences are welcome, thank you!

That sucks man, sorry to hear.. I've never had it indoors but dealt with some outdoors.. The milk-water seemed to work but the serenade worked better. I've never tried peroxide

Can you burn Sulfur ?? in your room , ?? I have heard mouth wash works 1 part muthwash to 3 parts water

I had fungus gnats a while back from not having good enough drainage in the pots the clones where starting out in. Got 16 bottles of peroxcide from a dollar store. It worked well in conjunction with diatamtious earth. The soil likes the peroxide as it helps it breath and kills fungus and probably mold and mildew in the soil.

I've tried alot of the stuff. Use Infuse in veg and the first 3 weeks of flower. Then SM90 or Green Cure about every 10 days until the end. It's that simple. It's also a good idea to have an electric fogger. I picked one up at my local grow store for about $250. The fogger will give you better coverage with less want ever your spraying and make getting the PM that is down in the bud easier.

ketchup45685224 said:

I've tried alot of the stuff. Use Infuse in veg and the first 3 weeks of flower. Then SM90 or Green Cure about every 10 days until the end. It's that simple. It's also a good idea to have an electric fogger. I picked one up at my local grow store for about $250. The fogger will give you better coverage with less want ever your spraying and make getting the PM that is down in the bud easier.

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BOOM BOOM BOOM.

Killer advice right here. I've had my battles with PM and this guy is spot on.

with all the moisture around the country right now make sure your dehumidifiers are keeping up. Humidity is a big contributor. I just used baking soda on my veg plants every week or so and when they made it to flower i never had a problem but you need that humidity down in the flower room. Always bleach out but im sure you do and you should be able to kill it off in one whole cycle through. But dont let that stop you from treating new clones with a baking soda spritz in the future.
Also if you can get more air moving the plants. It seems to like to sprout in areas where the plants are not moving from air. That humidity builds up in a spot and it goes wild.
Lastly, water in the morning and not at night. You dont want a room full of extra humidity during sleep cycle when the plants are humid and cold enough already. The heat from the lights will help dry out the room for ya. Good luck man.

When you have finished battling the P.M your entire grow you may want to consider a sulphur burn for your equipment and ALL those cracks and crevices that sprays will not get in to. The gas/smell is permeating and its corrosive. Wipe everything down when your done. There is no cure for P.M , some homemade sprays can knock it back but its not gone or dead. I'm sorry but unless you use a bacteriological fungicide that gets into the plants cells and actually kills the spores you haven't done a thing other than keeping the fruiting bodies from being visible. Buy seeds make your own clones and avoid root aphids and all the other bullfuckery that you get from other peoples shit. Also plants in veg love the sulphur and you can sulphur burn with them in there also. I do it , no adverse effects . If the smell of sulphur bothers you then avoid this and good luck.

PM spores are EVERYWHERE all the time. They're on the air, your plants, you... all the time. You can't clean them all way. Although cleanliness is important. All you can do is keep conditions so they don't germinate. higher temps, lower humidity, healthy plants, good air movement, avoiding temperature changes greater than 5 degrees F between day and night. Some people say PM is systemic, it is NOT. It just seems that way because you can't ever get rid of all the spores. Those clones could be the source of a different strain of PM that your plants are less resistant too, but it's more likely the conditions in your room favor the germination and growth of PM.

Pm is technically not systemic you are mostly correct there. It typically does not affect the stalk (I have seen it though) nor does it affect the roots. However, the pm does pierce the cell walls of the plants leaves and inserts its feeding proboscis to take nourishment from the host plant. So no, the pm isn't being taken up by the roots and dispersed by the plant so it is technically NOT systemic but it it is making your plants unhealthy on a cellular level . wiping it off and spraying it down is still futile in my opinion.

Im with the sulfur burn crowd, it stops pm from spreading instantly.

Pm is treatable. It isn't deep inside the plant. If one uses the treatment I mentioned and they take care of the reason it's able to grow in the first place. They can cure the plants of PM. PM sucks but, it's not the end of the world IF catch and dealt with early. By early, I mean you find it you treat TODAY and don't wait until you get around to it. Burning sulfur isn't for everyone. If you have perpetual harvest in the same room you can't have sulfur on plants that are almost done. I know what I mentioned works. I've never heard of anyone in real life have success burning Sulfur. I'm not saying it doesn't work. I'm only saying I know 3 people that tried it and it didn't work.

I need to say also that if you do use the infuse with the electric fogger. You should wear a respirator. It's not going to give you cancer but it will irritate your skin and lungs. If using a pump or hand held sprayer you don't need one.

Just treat it as a systemic infection. Mineral magic (1shot per week)+ trichoderma to the rootzone til finish will help you. fking cheap, you ll need them next months.

Cultural methods: avoid pumpin whatever white mold spores into your teas, avoid gay perpetuals set up & hydro for a while, try bleach & acetone with your new cuttings, be prepared for male flowers (btw those seeds ll be usable)..

The backpack sprayer is mandatory in your situation. Those foliar weapons will only give you a 48h frame window. dont expect more (cultural methods^)

do all of the above to manage and in the meantime get yourself some eagle20 from ebay (20 mls will last you forever if used appropriately). take a break to where your veg rooms/tents are pretty much all down at the same time. use whatever you were using (greencure,serenade, pm wash, alkali wash) on your mothers and take them down to clones in rockwool. eradicate your mothers. at this point you should have only small clones. get a 1 gal bucket and mix 2ml/gal eagle 20 and dip all your clones as soon as they have roots and are ready to transplant. dip the 1" cube and all. grow them out and take clones for flowering from these.

take the time to completely clean your rooms (peroxide and 10% bleach spray are your friends of course).

next time you get any new clones dip them in azamax or avid, wait a few days, dip them in eagle 20. grow them out>clone from these.

it will be gone. permanently. will be the best few weeks of downtime ever. you can literally do your whole garden with 2ml in a gallon and still have 90% of the water left in the bucket.

you do the math on 0.2 ml spread out over clones, then grown out while its breaking down, then cloned again. id bet $1000 it is undetectable in the flowered clones - and you will have saved so much hassle.

dipping is way better than spraying as it is complete - and youre not aerating it or getting chems all over the place. way easier to contain and avoid exposure.

you will be so glad when its gone. its really a bitch. pm wash is great for maintenance as is some slightly alkali water (KOH, calcium carbonate, baking soda, etc) which creates an unfriendly environment for PM. surfur burner if you have one tho it can ruin taste of your buds if used too late in flowering

greencure is also great to prevent a hostile environment for those plants that are too old/too big to eagle 20 (potassium bicarbonate). harmless and of course K wont hurt your plants! can turn your pistils brown tho but thats better than mold

ttystikk said:

BOOM BOOM BOOM.

Killer advice right here. I've had my battles with PM and this guy is spot on.

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FWIW Infuse is prob close to eagle 20 in toxicity

http://pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC34271
http://toxipedia.org/display/toxipedia/Propiconazole

reproductive toxin
suspected endocrine disruptor
possible carcinogen

compare to eagle 20:
http://toxipedia.org/display/toxipedia/Myclobutanil

both are 'persistent' and 'release toxic gases when burned'

like eagle 20 use it very sparingly if at all - avoid spraying if possible. thoroughly clean up surfaces/throw away anything that came in contact with it that you dont need

good ol soap http://www.htgsupply.com/Product-SaferGro-Garden-Fungicide

Terry385 said:

good ol soap http://www.htgsupply.com/Product-SaferGro-Garden-Fungicide

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well, its good ol sulfur but yeah, less toxic for sure. a preventative not a curative.

Potassium bicarbonate, sold as Green Cure.