How to Get Rid of Weed Eating Caterpillars

[0:00] As soon as you notice them, they cause all kinds of problems, and they get quite big quite fast. Welcome back to the Home Grown Garden. This is one of the first plants that started flowering in our set, and this is also one of the first ones that I've noticed the presence of caterpillars. So these things start out tiny, and they can do a lot of damage very
 

[0:38] quickly. Being out and being present in the garden and noticing changes is key to salvaging bud and making sure that you have a productive harvest. So these things, they're about half the length of my pinky fingernail at this point, but they're going to grow very fast, and like I said, they can do a lot of damage very quick. So what's keyed me
 

[1:00] into this particularly is I'll see these kind of brown, dead growing tips. So where I would normally expect a nice healthy cola, you'll see what almost looks like bud rot. And then when you kind of splay these things out, you will find caterpillars inside, and they'll eat off some of these stems and leaves. You'll find a lot of caterpillar droppings in here.
 

[1:24] I've actually pulled some of my plants a little early to try to salvage what I can before I see presence of caterpillars on those particular plants. So this was found in the middle of the greenhouse. I've since pulled it out. It's my attempt to quarantine this one and prevent it from spreading to other plants here. This is about midway through flower, and a lot of
 

[1:45] these hairs are white, and that's how you can tell that this has got a few weeks to go. Some of these tips that have been affected by caterpillars look a little prematurely dark. I've even noticed some dead spots on the side, and you'll kind of spread these out. And I don't know if you can see in here, but
 

[2:05] we get some real dark areas here. Like I said, the bud seems to be hollowed out, and more often than not, you'll find a big fat caterpillar in the middle. So the first step in dealing with these is physically removing any caterpillars that you find. The next step that I'm doing is I have one of those pressurized garden sprayers. I have a caterpillar spray.
 

[2:26] It's Monterey BT. So if I was going to do this same thing next year... Oh, here's a caterpillar right here. So it's right on the top of this cola. I don't know if you can see it right here by my index finger. So yeah, these things, as soon as you notice them, they cause all kinds of problems, and they get quite big quite fast.
 

[2:50] So physically removing these and killing them, along with removing any trimmed leaves and stuff from your garden will promote general health. The spray that I'm going to be applying has different types of bacillus in there. What that does is the caterpillars will ingest that and then die. So it's not a contact kill spray. So part of dealing with these things is also having a bit of
 

[3:16] prevention. So if I was going to be doing the same set next year, I would probably start applying the spray even before I see any flowers, a couple of weeks before I see that, just to get a nice coat on these leaves and prevent any caterpillars from being laid and growing into bud-damaging full-grown monsters. Yeah, so we're going to be removing the caterpillars, spraying them,
 

[3:43] checking the whole garden constantly for signs of these things. And I have a couple of plants that I cut last night, and they looked almost finished, but I'd rather pull the buds and make sure that I have something usable rather than offering it all up to these pests of ours. I've probably pulled off 20 caterpillars from this plant since I started noticing them,
 

[4:05] and I've seen a range of sizes, but some of them are surprisingly small. So you just kind of look through these things, and I've seen them. Here's another one hanging right off of a leaf tip. Some of them will be actually burrowed into the buds. And within the garden, we have a variety of plants. We have some that are in a vegetative state, some that are
 

[4:28] flowering. So the butterflies and moths that are laying these are always attracted to the flowering plants. These trichomes and terpenes that the plant's putting off, it has a strong scent, and all these butterflies are drawn to it. So if I had unlimited money, I would have a hermetically sealed greenhouse with a positive airflow to try to keep these pests out. But as it stands,
 

[4:56] I think it's certainly helping us, but some of these pests do get through. So we're just dealing with them as they come. We'll see what a bit of attention and treatment will do to this plant. I've already started to see some little dead baby caterpillars with this treatment, so I'm hoping for good things. Other than that, I may just be pulling some of these buds, especially off the
 

[5:18] top of the plant, that I know I can salvage and let this plant continue to grow and mature. Hey, guys. I'm Parker Curtis with the Home Grown Cannabis Co. And if you like all this free cannabis content, be sure to hit like and subscribe to keep up to date.