How damaging to plant are thrips? Late flowering thrip problem.

[Ziemelblazma]

Hey GWE community!

I have been a long lurker and built my knowledge mostly from GWE! I thought my first post would be a nice grow journal, but thrips had other plans.

I have been growing for about 9 months and had 2 successful harvests (single plant and re-veg)

Now I have a nice AK-48 photo-period girl. Sprouted on 3rd of June and set to flowering since 15th of July, so about 4 weeks in flowering.


Problem is thrips and the grow setup. Main question is - can thrips kill the plant or ruin yield/quality of bud harvested?

There are quite a lot of them, they had a chance to thrive and left unnoticed because of grow-box design, basically I did not notice them because I had no access to mid part of the plant. I cleaned up (trimmed) many branches and lower leaves and added 2 extra fans for a nice breeze yesterday (I read that they don't like that). Thrips are still there and I won't be able to any non-toxic insecticides to spray the plant because I have a harvest in 2-3 weeks and I can't find anything with spinosad in local stores. Ordering would take 3+weeks. I am now thinking to not spray anything on the plant because I don't feel like spraying anything on the flowers of my girl because of soon harvest.

Many leaves have spots on them, but the do not look that bad and only few bottom leaves have died and dropped. And they are not eating top leaves/buds yet. Could the plant survive for 2-3 weeks or should I do something about them?

It is quite hot summer and I am not able to reduce temperature lower than 25 °C

 

[SoOrbudgal]

Are your buds getting bleached out from light to close?

 

[Ziemelblazma]

I am not sure, leaves closest to the lights are 100% fine and 100% green, but I am getting completely white flowers especially the highest ones, so I am confused about this.

Edit. they are close to LED chips, I have reached the height limit in my grow-box, I could reduce power going to LED chips, but I must be confident that it is light burn. Can delicate flowers be bleached before leaves take any damage?

Edit2: I added 2-hour night in the middle of day, so it is now going 12-5-2-5 (night, day, night, day), maybe 2 hour pause will give the buds a break.

 

[SoOrbudgal]

Just seems like bleached out flowers. Does your light height adjust? I don't think changing timer helps I think it's height of light? I hope someone else chimes in but that's my opinion. You could also remove inner leaf from centers of plants allow more air flow. That's an auto flower right? "sprouted 3rd of June and flowering since July 15th"?

 

[Rwise]

That light schedule could cause them to hermie,,,,

 

[Ziemelblazma]

Thanks for reply!

Sadly, this is as high as it goes. Plant has stopped to grow higher, and the bleached flowers does not seem to increase in numbers, so that is really not the main problem.

As I said in first post, I already removed a lot of leaves and branches, I will remove some more, but I'll let her recover a bit. Also 2 extra fans are blowing air from below, so there is a nice breeze in grow box.

And no, it is photo-period plant, by "flowering" I meant when I switched to 12-12.

What about thrips, anyone has experience with those bugs?

 

[Rwise]

I use these sticky traps, they are tied to a fiberglass fence post and whatever lands on them stays there. I also smash as many bugs as I can,,,,

 

[Ziemelblazma]

Thanks!
That is a helpful idea, I'll do that. BUT, I don't think I have seen any thrips anywhere else except on a leaf. Do the wonder around? And I smash any bug I see, feasting on my plant! Sadly thrips are quite unnoticeable.

Also removed dark break from timer. Thanks!