eliminating strains that arent pest resilient

[purpleplayer007]

to anyone who knows the deal on pest resistance,
I have more than enough seedlings growing of a cross i made. some of them already have a decent amount of mites on them. i plan on getting rid of the least pest (mite) resilient ones to make crosses with the most resilient ones and hopefully keep clones of. My main question is if young plants (2 or 3 sets of leaves) show their pest resilient traits.. or in other words if i should be throwing all the ones with mites, or is it still to early to tell how resistant to bugs they are. thanks

 

[browntrout]

I mean where to start...

Veg and flower are two different things, but just eliminate the bottom 20% now, wait a couple weeks bottom 20% and so forth.

Typically resiliency to mites in certain phenos is just a slight resilience that shifts the mites on to other plants in the room, if that was the only strain/pheno they'd attack the weaker plants

I’ve only seen one extremely bug resistant strain.

 

[VerdantGreen]

a couple of points - there could be a large 'random' element as to which plants become infested with mites first - once they find a leaf they will often tuck in and multiply - and it may be just the first one they happened to hit.
- not a hard and fast rule... but often the best, most tasty buds come from the plants that the mites like best!
VG

 

[browntrout]

a couple of points - there could be a large 'random' element as to which plants become infested with mites first - once they find a leaf they will often tuck in and multiply - and it may be just the first one they happened to hit.
- not a hard and fast rule... but often the best, most tasty buds come from the plants that the mites like best!
VG

Agreed, certainly a factor. Could be lighting, watering, exposure etc.

I’ve also witnessed the same thing when it comes to A1 smoke, runts and lesser resiliency. Always seems to be a trade off.

 

[budsicles]

I wouldn't cull a bunch of phenos just because they got mites on the first grow. I think most top shelf cuts are capable of catching mites. Just imagine if the growers that found OG, 91 Chem, ECSD or GSC decided to cull them just because they found some mites on the first grow.

If there's a couple phenos that are totally covered in mites from head to toe, while the other phenos only have some mites...then I might cull the worst of the worst. But if the mites are pretty evenly spread out, I think it's a good idea to treat them then completely flower out all the phenos to see the quality. Then give the keeper phenos another grow from clone to see if the mite issue shows again. I've had mites pop up for one grow, covering all strains, and then completely disappear for years after spinosad and good clean up of the grow space. So getting mites could just be a coincidence or environmental issue rather than a sign that your phenos are abnormally susceptible to mites.

On the flip side, if you're working this line with mite resistance as your absolute top priority...and are willing to trash top shelf quality flower in order to reach that goal...then cull away

 

[harvestreaper]

a couple of points - there could be a large 'random' element as to which plants become infested with mites first - once they find a leaf they will often tuck in and multiply - and it may be just the first one they happened to hit.
- not a hard and fast rule... but often the best, most tasty buds come from the plants that the mites like best!
VG

i for sure noticed them mites have a great palate ,,always thought pests are getting something good from the plants they select ,,what exacty that might be i have no idea,,, the strongest resistance ive seen is from landrace and lr crosses which makes sense to me regarding the many factors removed from natures enviroment with indoor bred plants ,,

 

[burningfire]

There are a few research papers that cover the effects of terpenes as aracicidal pest control.

https://www.researchgate.net/public..._Mite_Tetranychus_Urticae_Acari_Tetranychidae

it's also important to note that certain terpenes will attract spider mites such as nerolidol

https://academic.oup.com/ee/article/5/1/133/2395846

It might be too early to judge a plant's resistance in seedling stage, I've had a few plants with strong stem odor in early veg but the opposite wasn't always a gauge of pungency in flowering.

I've been growing for a while now and I can sort of tell what kind of terpene a plant produces but a few still elude me and considering that concentration can affect the smell I think that the ol' smell test is probably not the best way to go about this.