🦠Biological Pest Controls, Insect Killing Fungi, and More IPM Discussions with Matthew Gates

9:23AM Jan 29, 2025

Speakers:

Jordan River

Matthew Gates

Keywords:

bio control sprays

microbial pest control

IPM discussion

beneficial insects

Bacillus thuringiensis

BTi

BTK

Bavaria bassiana

spinosad

insecticidal fungi

pest resistance

environmental effects

storage recommendations

pollinator safety

crop scouting

Greetings, growers of the world. Jordan River back with more grow cast, and I am fond of the fungi. Today we have Matthew gates back on the line. We just got back from some Pesta paloozas. We are fresh and ready, having talked a lot about IPM. So I wanted to do an episode on bio controls, specifically bio control sprays, utilizing microbes in your garden for pest applications and more. So this episode is all about bio control sprays. I know you're gonna love it, but before we get into it with Matthew, shout out to Li hydro. That's right. We love li hydro out in Long Island, two convenient locations, Bethpage and Islandia. That's right. Li hydro, our friends. They support education. They support home growers. Wonderful staff out there. Super knowledgeable. Great selection. If you're in the New York City area, you want to hit up li hydro on Long Island, like I said, two locations, and they always got something awesome going on, from community events to classes like pasta Palooza we were just at in June. Incredible staff. Thank you so much to Li hydro and the whole team they're serving the New York area. You know, New York is blowing up in a big way, so you need a good store that you can rely on for information and products that are gonna work. Li hydro has you covered. Huge. Thank you to Li hydro for hosting us at Pesta Palooza, and we look forward to coming out there and seeing our New York growies again. Support the real hydro stores who support the community shop with Li hydro on Long Island. Thank you to Li hydro. All right, everyone, let's get into it with Matthew gates, thank you for listening and enjoy the show. Hello, podcast listeners. You are now listening to grow cast. I'm your host, Jordan River, and I want to thank you for tuning in again today. Before we get started, as always, I urge you to share this show. Hit that share link, hit the thumbs up. Give us a follow. We're on Spotify. We're on all your favorite apps. If you're just tuning in for the first time, be sure to follow us, YouTube, Spotify, wherever you like, and see all the action at growcast podcast.com/action there you'll find the seeds, the membership, the classes and so much more. Speaking of classes, we just got back from a couple of awesome classes on the west coast and the East Coast with today's guest. Pesta Palooza was so much fun, and today we are talking about bio controls with none other than the host of Pesta Palooza, Matthew gates, what's up? Matthew, thanks for coming back on the show. Of course, I'm always happy to be on. Man, those past classes were just fantastic. These last few on the West Coast, la showed out for us. That was a ton of fun. And then New York as well, out in Li hydro, I want to thank everybody who hosted us. Mighty hydro, Li hydro and pulse grow. Really. Great job on those classes. Matthew, I got rave reviews from those students. I

was pretty happy with how those turned out. I really appreciated the passion and all the people who came. And I could tell that a lot of people, whether home growers or commercial growers, were just really interested in learning more about the scientific topics, and they're trying to learn more and in that way, just be better at growing in that way. And you know, of course, I'm going to support that.

Yeah, really great stuff, man. And I love to see your passion. You're like me. You like to shake these growers hands, hear their stories. I know you really liked the Q and A learn and burn sessions, because I saw you out there, like meeting with these growers, learning from them. You learned a bunch on these trips. That's what I always say, is I always pick up stuff going on these grow, cast, grow, class tours. So really great job. And I applaud you for being one of the content creators, like myself, who actually goes and interacts with fans and, you know, hits the streets and really meets these people. It's my favorite thing in the world.

No, I appreciate it. And you're totally right. I learned a lot on these trips, and then I'll learn a little bit about what people are dealing with, pest wise. And sometimes people come in with techniques that will be helpful for other people. So it starts sort of a community appreciation. And that's honestly what we need a lot of I

would say that's a big part of the community side of those classes, you know, everybody talking sharing, talking about different products, you know, and their effectiveness, which is what we're going to get into today, specifically focusing on bio controls and bio control sprays. This is a in depth topic. Man, we could probably do a three hour class just on this, but I want to go over the 30,000 foot view and a couple of the specifics when it comes to these bio control sprays, you know, applying these fungi and parasitic, you know, bacterium and different things like that that aren't your traditional toxic chemical pest sprays. That's what I'd like to cover today, Matthew, how they work, how to apply them, what these different species are, and just pick that brain of yours. Does that sound good? Sounds great? Let's dive right into it. Man. Let's get the terms out of the way, because I'm saying bio control spray. But I want to hear from you, what is a bio control specifically, what classifies that?

Yeah, so many people are probably aware that there are you. Various organisms out there that will attack or parasitize or another way, like affect other organisms. Sometimes this will be in a beneficial way. Sometimes this will be in a negative way for the target. And so like predators and things like this can can be bio controls. But what makes something a bio control explicitly has a lot to do with its ability to actually affect a certain target. So that's usually in some way confirmed or verified lot of times through research. So although you might have natural enemies in general, like in and around your property, you don't necessarily have like, a bio control, because it might not actually keep up with the pests that you're worried about, right, or various pests that you might be worried about. So in that way, bio control is usually such a natural enemy or parasite that it is really effective, because otherwise it might not be worth it to apply it, or it might even be ecologically damaging and possibly economically damaging if it affects a bunch of non, yeah, and a bunch of non target organisms that are native to your area. You don't really want that. And there's certainly examples where that's happened in the past.

Okay, so that's interesting. So this is a living organism of some kind that it's not just capable of, for instance, consuming another insect, or, you know, deterring another. It's not just capable of it, but it's very effective at controlling this pest. That's what classifies a bio control. So, so a beneficial insect might be capable of eating this pest, but they're not classified as a bio control necessarily. It has to be effective. I hadn't quite thought that through all the way,

yeah. And there's like examples of, like generalist predators that might maybe they'll snack on, like a like, for example. I say this about cocoros mites, for example, or Swiss guy another predatory mice. Sure, they might snack on a spider mite or something like this, but they won't necessarily be, what you might say in a video game parlance, they might not be a hard counter to the pest, right, right? It won't be super effective against them. And so in a lot of cases, you'd have to have a huge amount for them to have a certain effect that you would find desirable, and during a time, or through a time that would be economically useful for you. So

when it comes to sprays, if someone says, this is a bio control spray, it's still tested and effective, but it's usually a microbe, right? A microscopic obviously, you're not spraying out insects out of this bottle. Usually you're dealing with what fungi, insecticidal fungi, things like that. Yeah, a

lot of the time, usually it's either and then certain definitions can be a little bit fuzzy here. So like, you have like products that are so called Bio rational products, which may be like the excretions or secretions or whatever of a biological organism, right, like a plant or bacteria or fungi or something like that. Or it might be those that extract and them, perhaps they've been killed through the process and just happened to be there, or maybe they're both there, or something like this. So those that can happen sometimes. And so what people call it bio control might be a little fuzzy there, but generally, I think the typical concept is that it's a microbe, usually, that's still living, and it's going to have some sort of like a usually pathogenic effect or antagonistic effect in general. So it might parasitize the target, it might produce compounds that will negatively affect the target, but it doesn't necessarily parasitize them, and those are probably the two biggest examples. So that's a good point,

which is you're saying it gets kind of fuzzy and more complicated when it's not just saying, like, okay, there's bacteria in this bottle, because the bacteria are producing some sort of compound, and like you said, through a process, they might accelerate that and concentrate that one compound. So we're going to get into some products. And I think I know what you're kind of already leaning towards there. Do you want to get into some specifics? Do you just want to dive right into specific strains of these types of bio controls. Let's do it. Yeah, sure. Bt, Bacillus thuringiensis. Talk to us about what BT is, how there's different species, and how we should be approaching these bottles that say BT.

Yeah. So Bacillus thuringiensis is a species of bacteria, and there are a bunch of different sort of strains or subspecies, however you'd like to call them, there are many out there. Actually, the many of them might be research isolates that are being looked at, or they just might happen to be samples from various parts of the world. But in commercial applications, there are a few. Two more common ones that people typically see, so like a big one would be BTi or Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis, which is commonly used against flies and particularly their larvae. So the bacteria get into the body of the larva and they start to produce various proteins, like cry proteins, for example, and those, essentially those and a bunch of other things that are produced by the bacteria break down the gastrointestinal tract of the insect and basically give it sepsis and anti and that's essentially what happens with these other subspecies too, like, for example, BTK, which is bastions, kirstaki, or, I don't really hear people say BT a very often, but there's a bt izabi, which is also both of these are both used against caterpillars, so the larvae of moths and butterflies. And this is important, because if you use the wrong subspecies, it might not be very effective. So it's really important that you pay attention to what the subspecies affects and whether you're using the right one. And also it's important to know how the organism is going to be useful. So usually they have to be ingested. In this case, they do because the bacteria doesn't really like travel into the plant. For the most part, it stays on the surface of the plant, so you are going to have to sustain a little bit of damage. And also, you usually are going to be more effective with these products the younger the larvae are, and this is particularly true for caterpillars, because if they're older, then their immune system is more developed and they're more likely to be able to fight it off. This doesn't always happen, but over the span of many generations, there have been species of like budworms, for example, that are resistant to some of the proteins and other things that are produced by bio controls. It's a misconception that's very common to say that you can't evolve a defense to being eaten or something like this. Certainly, it's going to be more difficult, but over the span of like, an insect's lifetime, multiple generations. Yeah, even bio controls can be avoided or sure impaired.

Well, we've learned to tolerate microbes over time, right? Maybe it's not going to be as fast as as like resisting a toxic chemical agent, but I could certainly see gaining resistance to bio controls that is fascinating. Now, what does this mean from a home grower perspective? Let's say they have to consume this bacteria or some sort of fungi that you've sprayed. What does that mean to us? To me, that means we probably don't want to be like washing this off, right, or applying it when we know it's going to rain later, because if I think I just need to apply it to them topically, I could spray and then wash it off with some doctor zymes. But you want it to stick around, right? You don't want to wash it off. You want it to hang around so they eat it, no

exactly, and so different environmental pressures can make it so that you will have to maybe reapply it at a quicker rate than you would in other cases. So if it's cloudy all the time, like UV, radiation is oftentimes going to significantly curtail the residence time of these bacteria or fungi that you might be applying topically. In the case of BT, for example, this is certainly true, and like you said about rain, that's also going to be an issue, or other products that you might apply that's going to disrupt the like surface, you know, phytoplane of the the foliage. I

did not think about that at all. I thought that I was spraying this on their backs, and that's all that needed to happen. Totally different shift in perspective when they have to consume it. Very interesting. Man, very interesting. So BTi, you said, for things like flies and BTK, for things like caterpillars and worms, right? That's right again, from a cannabis home grower perspective. Does that mean if we get something like thrips, which I know are very worm like, which bacillus are affecting them, the BTK, I don't

think that there's a bacillus that's going to be useful against them. Oh, wow, my knowledge. Yeah, certainly there are other products like Bouvet siana That might be effective against thrips, especially their quiescent stage, when they're sort of developing into their final adult form. I think that's probably when they would be most susceptible. Oh, okay,

well, I want to get into that, but let's, let's stay here. What is BTi and BTK useful, specifically for the big cannabis pests, the big

ones would be things like fungus gnat larvae would be affected by BTi, and things like budworms especially, would be effective or affected by BTK, right? There's also research that's supporting this. For a long time, because there are several species that affect other plants and then also affect cannabis. We do have data that can kind of back up these claims, which is, I think, very important for people to always be looking for, but we're at a point in cannabis pest research where there's research that is being done specifically with cannabis, and so these claims can be more confidently applied, you

know, one thing that we noticed during these classes, those budworms, man, those budworms are a major problem, you know. And we talked about it on this show, obviously. But going around and talking to growers, you want to, you want to do what you can and apply that BTi and BTK, often early and often, is what I would say. But yeah, do you have anything to finish up on BT before we move on to Bavaria Bassiana? Not so

much. Just to say that it's really important to recognize some of those environmental effects. I think those often are sort of not appreciated. And also, like you mentioned, I'm going to echo that statement, especially in LA and San Diego, we had a lot of people talking about bud worms being an issue, and it makes sense. The corn ear worm is an incredibly ferocious pest of many different crops, and it causes, like, billions of dollars in agricultural damage. So I think that it's really worth it to have a combined strategy. Maybe don't even rely totally on BT. Also have physical barriers and things like that in effect. But if you can't get that in time, then just be sure to apply, maybe weekly or something like that, a BT product around the time where you expect blood worms to be active. And if you're in California or the west coast, where it can sometimes be quite arid, um, you know, you might be a little bit more regular depending on other conditions. If it's hot and dry, there's a lot of sun out there, then I think those BT products might wane quicker. Yes,

that makes a lot of sense. You're not dealing with an oil, you know, something that's just going to stick around. You're dealing with a living organism. And I guess on that note, it's also important to talk about storing these products a little bit differently, right? They don't store like oil either, where these products should be kept in a cool, dry place, because of their sensitivity. Do you recommend

that? I definitely recommend that, absolutely. And one of the questions we got at the PESA Palooza was somebody who had stockpiled some was asking about, like, sort of expiry information, does it expire? And when does it expire? And is it like, partially effective, if it's a little bit past that date, right? And you know it's, it's hard to know really, like some medicines are like this, right? But I think it would be probably more efficient, just because something that's newer, and also formulations are changing sometimes too. So they might actually last longer as well, even in the best conditions, even longer.

So that's a really good point. And you know, I'll give you the breakdown right now, which is, these people are scared of getting their asses sued off. So that number is always going to be rounded down. This is the way I look at it. This is the way I look at food expiration Matthew, which is like, if they're telling me seven days, I know I'm good for eight, I just know I'm good for eight. So maybe I'm maybe I'm flying by the seat of my pants, but to me, I'm always thinking, well, if they have some studies on this, they're going to be as conservative as possible. So if it's only a little bit over the line, and especially if it's been stored, well, I'm proceeding with confidence, but you're right, where's that, where's that diminishing return? When does it become half as effective? When is it useless? There's really no way to tell, and probably a variety of factors affecting it. But don't waste those biologicals, you know, keep them stored well, so you don't torch that money by leaving them out in the sun. The foop baby code grow cast f2 that's a brand new code. Saves you 15% at the foop.com plus for the rest of August only. You get free shipping on all orders. That's right, free shipping throughout August and everyday. Low prices now in effect, that's right, lower prices on your foop nutrients. Go ahead and head over to the foop.com grab their certified organic liquid nutrients, their clone gel, their foliar mist, and more. You guys know that I love this foop clone gel. It's full of all the micro and macronutrients that your plant needs to get started, as well as some special goodies like aloe and willow bark and tons of bacteria and fungi to kick start your microbiology. I use foop clone gel in my cloning setup. I get 100% success rate virtually every time with my clones, plus you see that beautiful white bloom forming across your cloning mat. The foop mist has a broad spectrum. It's based on the nutrients itself, but it also has some extra foliar goodies in there, like peppermint oil and aloe. So you can get, again, all the micro and macronutrients your plants need, plus beneficial biology like fungi, bacteria, protozoa and more. Here, the foop is great in an organic setup. Add it to your soil, add it to your veggies, add it to your cannabis. I love getting those aquatic microbes involved in my garden with the foop. Bring out those amazing, unique flavors. Check out their nutrients, check out their sweetener, their amazing cloning gel, their foliar mist, use grow cast f2 that's the new code, grow cast f2 and you get free shipping on all orders for the rest of August, plus their everyday new low prices are in effect. Thank you to the foop for being such great supporters, and enjoy those organic nutrients, baby, be healthy. Go organic. Use the foop. The foop.com. Okay, so let's move on. Let's go to Bavaria. Bassiana. I know you're a big fan of this bio control. Tell us how it operates. Why you like it? Yeah, I

made several videos, and some of my most popular videos are on Bavaria, so I know that there's quite a few people who enjoy this fungus. It's gotten a lot of press. It's been one of the I'd probably say, is one of the most popular bio control products that are used. And when people ask me my favorite bio control, a lot of times people are thinking of like an insect or a mite or something like that, but I often refer to this fungus because it is a bio control, maybe not in the conventional way, of something that should release like an insect, but super effective. What it does, essentially is it's actually a soil fungus, so it's in the Cordyceps family, and a long time ago, long story short, it was able to jump from just existing on insects and other arthropods to living inside plants as an endo fight. And this is really great, especially in grasses, because an insect will feed on the tissue, and it'll get some of the fungus, and then that will be in its body, and it will micro size. So it'll it'll spread out, it'll infect the gut, and it will basically kill the insect from the inside out. You can also apply it in the commercial application like canidia or spores or other profit goals. And then those will do the reverse. They'll sort of colonize on the surface. They'll penetrate through the body of the insect, and then they'll spread out into its body. Wow. So it's really effective against insects that are very close together because they're so near each other, it's very easy for the fungus to kind of hop from one to the other, especially when it turns them into a big fluff ball full of spores that will quickly move across the area.

It's it's a horrifying scene, and if you think of the mycelial network, right? It's crazy to see it kind of in this form. And like you said, hitting a cluster of insects, they are completely consumed by this mycelial network, and they're coated in this fuzz. And what's left after a lot of the time are like husks of their dead bodies, right? Yeah.

And I think that one of the most interesting things about Bauer is that it's so useful, I guess, a wide variety of insects. Although I will caution people to say that that doesn't mean that it's going to be something you cannot worry about ever. I think that if you're a responsible grower, then you're somebody who's concerned about the environment as well, at least your local environment. And you know, you shouldn't apply anything willy nilly, but it's a generally recognized safe organism for a lot of insects and things like that. So many pests of cannabis will be affected by Bavaria. Let's

list those pests. I mean, is there anything that Bavaria really doesn't work on? My understanding is it's effective on things that a lot of other sprays aren't effective on. For instance, more hard bodied insects. You know, we deal with the soft bodied spider mites and thrips and things like this, but then you get into like beetles and stink bugs and these hard bodies. I always hear correct me if I'm wrong, but I always hear people recommending Bavaria bassana for those hard bodied insects. But you tell me what it works

on? Yeah, absolutely. And this research that comes out, like, if you were to look up Bouvier bastiana, like organisms, there's all kinds across agriculture, you've got, like, really hard bodied weevils. You've got things like that that are that are affected or being treated and experimented with. I know you're a big fan of coffee, and the coffee bore beetle is one such example. Huge problem, yeah. So definitely affects a lot of those hard scleritized insects, but it also affects a lot of soft bodied insects too. I cut my teeth on Bavaria use in ornamental horticulture against Wi Fi and so super effective against them. I have several pictures of them still on my database, of them just clogged up with the with fungi on the undersides of leaves, but aphids, mealy bugs. You might also be able to get some leaf minor larvae too, potentially in your leaves. Those are leaf. Minor flies. If you get those, you also might be able to get some leaf beetles like, I know that people have trouble with the corn rootworm or the cucumber beetles. Those are kind of a problem for some people. Also flea beetles, which are little, small, black beetles that some parts of North America and other parts of the world get, and they tear down all the leaves. So I'm a big fan of using them against beetles and things like that that are they're full of ours. So they eat leaves. And so if you spray it in the meantime, before they become or at the same time that they're there, they're kind of like clumsy, and they're not going to react very much a lot of the time. So I feel like they're an excellent choice if you're able to apply it and get enough infective material on them or in them. So

that's your secret

weapon against the against the beetles and the hard bodies. But works on everything, basically, right? I mean, is there anything this doesn't work on? It's going to work on all your major cannabis pests, right? Aphids, thrips, gnats, everything is going to die from this. A lot of times I would say that like because the physiology is somewhat different, I wouldn't expect it to be super effective against things like spider mites and russet mites. Though, there is research that shows that some russet mites, and I've personally seen bu very bassana strains that were effective against spider mites, because they became micro sized. And the inference is from, although I did get checked in some other cases, from Bavaria, so I know that it does happen, but it then it again, it becomes a question. This is a very important question in bio control. Always is. How well did it work? Yeah, how much can you extrapolate it worked in this scenario? Will it affect will it work the same in this scenario? And if you don't know how they work or what environments facilitate them, then you might not replicate that. Yeah, that's

a good point. It just shows how different our gardens are like we do know that. You learn that as a cannabis grower, you give your buddy a cut, and he runs it his way, and you're like, Wow, this came out so different. So they can't just be saying, Yeah, this works. They need to prove it across a variety of settings, a variety of gardens. Very good point. So the Bavaria Bassiana, one of the heavy hitters, one of the best ones, applies to the soil too, right? Let's talk about that for a second, which is that's one of the benefits of these bio controls, is they do very well in the soil and on the foliage both a lot of the time, right?

Absolutely. One of my favorite uses for is against rice fruit aphids, in particular, hitting them with a sort of a natural chemical agent like pyrethrin, and then hitting them again with buvaria, either at the same time or sequentially, works really well, and I think it's a highly effective one two punch

that makes a lot of sense, right? Hit him with that, that toxin that they can't stand derive naturally and dissipates quickly, and then apply the Bavaria, which should hang around a little bit

an interesting thing that I learned about buveria, because I study it a lot just my personal time. I like to read a lot of research on it, because I keep abreast of improvements. One thing about bouveria that's important to know is that even though it might be able to survive on things like agar and that kind of a thing, and you might be able to plate it and replicate it. You got to be careful about the sources that you get it from, because there is a lot that goes into keeping it virulent, keeping it incredibly, basically, keeping its teeth sharp if you culture it, and it doesn't have to use all of its bevy of, you know, Insect Killing compounds and things like that. Those are very energy intensive. And so, long story short, those can basically be bred away simply by not challenging the immune system of the fungus. And there's a lot of high tech research and various things that keep that sword sharp. And so you just got to be careful. Just be aware of that, and make sure that you're buying from a reputable source for Bavaria and other bio controls for that matter. Yeah,

that's a good point, right? Going with the more reputable brand that's been around a while, instead of maybe, like, first Amazon result, or like, what is it the Amazon's choice, wish Bavaria, this is a great price.

That's definitely not talcum powder. Yeah,

exactly. It's, you know, it's interesting. It comes in that bottle, yeah, that's, that is a that is a fair point with these bio controls, a little bit different than just buying, I don't know, some horticultural oil. Okay, so I want to talk about another product. You know, I'm a big fan of this product, but it's also one that I've like changed my opinion on over time. Like you're saying, is they do more testing on efficacy, and as they do more testing on health and Testing, testing on testing, I'm talking about spinosad. Spinosad is a product that I used to recommend a lot, and. Now I recommend, with some caveats, and it's made from, oh, I want to let you explain what is spinosad, and why is it a semi bio control

so Spinosad is from a sacaro Poly Spora. I think that's how it's pronounced. Or spinosens Or spinosin Are the compounds. There's several different kinds of spinoses that make up the products spinosad. And so it's a derivative of this bacteria. And what these compounds do is essentially they are like nervous system disruptors. I think they actually have multiple modes of action actually, so they affect like the the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, like some other sort of insecticidal agents will even and this sounds all very complicated, maybe, but there are natural compounds that do this all the time. For example, caffeine is one of those examples. And there are other such compounds that plants produce that have this effect on various insects, broadly. And I think it also interferes with some other nervous system, like hyper, exciting the nerves, so that they're always on, or the ion chains, things like that. So it's like a paralytic, essentially.

So it is what a compound from a bacterium, and it's two of them combined, like you said, right, spinison A and spinison B. And you apply this to foliage or soil, right? I believe it was actually discovered in soil, and it works on mostly Caterpillar type, worm like creatures, right? What does it work on? Yeah,

I think that that's that's really a common use is against like, for example, moth and butterfly larvae, especially so. But like we've learned, there are other insects that can be negatively affected, like, for example, honeybees and other solitary bees, which I'm a lot more worried about than than honeybees I am team solitary bee. That's way more important for local ecosystems than apiary bees, but those are important too, and certainly you don't want either of them to die, right? If they don't need to, right? So

the spinison being extremely toxic to bees, and the thing about the spinison Is it dissipates quickly, right? So I'm told, I'm told that if you use it after dusk, bees tend to go back to their hives after the sun goes down. They're they're like clockwork. So I've been told that if you use it after the sun goes down, and you're careful where you spray it, avoiding the plants that are most utilized by pollinators, that it's okay. But when I found that it was toxic to bees, I was like, okay, that's, that's another notch in the book. Doesn't really affect the tent grower, right? I recommend it for thrips, Matthew, it seems to work really well on thrips. Shout out to uh Barry, one of the members, because I've, I've, I've dealt with thrips in a variety of ways, right? There's more than one way to skin a cat, but he said, Try spin a sad on the thrips, it really tended to work on on the infestation that I dealt with, particularly so no problem for the indoor growers, but you got to watch out for the pollinators. Here's the other thing I heard about it, Matthew, I heard that it started showing up in concentrate testing. They used to test flour and it wouldn't show up, but once they started making concentrates in BHO, they started to find traces of spinosad in the BHO after concentration. Isn't that wild? Yeah,

I think I remember we were hearing about somebody, some people were talking about during the PESA as well. And also that is my understanding that it does degrade rather rapidly, so there are ways to responsibly use it in, like an outdoor setting or something like that. Yeah,

you got to be careful. And then, okay, so I want to, I want to kind of on that note of testing and smoking these, these bio control sprays. I know you're not a doctor, so nothing that we're about to say is medical advice. I just want to get your opinion on people using these sprays in flour. On one hand, people say, Well, it's a fun guy. You know what I mean? I I already spray my plants with compost teas, or there's fungi and microbes all around us all the time. So I'm going to use this in flour and then rinse it off, you know, a couple of weeks before harvest. Again. I know, from a health perspective, this is a little bit of a different approach. But do you recommend people do that? Or do you have an opinion on that? Yeah,

I think that because of what we do, for example, with the spinosad. So what I just said was that my understanding is that the spinosans and spinosad, they break down readily, but what could be happening is that people are applying it in an inappropriate fashion. So when you apply it, like, for example, constantly at the end of flower, or like right before, like, literally right at the time of harvest, then you're going to have, I think, more likelihood that you're going to concentrate it, if after harvesting, that's. Sort of thing, because people rush it sometimes too you don't always necessarily know the pedigree of what you're getting right? That's a good point. They might even apply it post harvest, you know? You don't, I don't. I don't know what people are doing necessarily to achieve that. But I wouldn't be surprised if that's one, one thing that could be happening that

is an interesting piece of the puzzle, because this is what I was told. This is a very safe product, natural bacteria, yada yada. I believe the origin is a rum distillery. Yeah, we got it pulled up here. Cambot has pulled up here. The origins of spinosad came from a pirate's best friend, a rum distillery. Apparently, in 1982 a scientist discovered the soil dwelling bacteria near a sugar distilling or a sugar processing plant for rum, and it was abandoned, and he found this in the soil. How cool is that? How many answers to our world's problems are just dwelling in our own soil or somewhere in nature? That's so interesting. But then again, you know, you say it's natural, it's safe, it's all these things, and slowly we start to learn, well, it's not safe for pollinators. Well, we're finding it showing up and testing like it's an constant evolution, learning about this stuff and kind of figuring out the correct recommendations. Very interesting. Another

point that people ask me about is like BT in the same way, because obviously, budworms are a problem during flower. They're not really a problem during not flower. So it's kind of like the only time you would apply it. Well, it's definitely like you would apply it in flower. I tend to not like to apply anything in flower, which is why my ultimate suggestion is to is to try to apply other methods of defense or avoidance? Yes, before you're going to spray anything in flower, that's my step one opinion about it. But if you're going to apply something like these, like these BT products, some people have asked me, you know, can I be affected? Or if I ingest it, will it affect me? The same way affects the insects? Well, we have a very different physiology to insects. And the other thing is that these products have to be tested very assiduously before they come to market, especially in California. Think I've talked about it before, entire departments and wings of Company production are devoted like just to the California market because they're so stringent about things like this. Of course, there's me just blindly follow something, right? But there's a definitely a reason to think that these products wouldn't be negative to your health versus other products. In fact, I might even be more concerned about some chemical products that have weird formulations that we don't really get the details about because they're a trade secret, or something like that, that can also exist in bio control, some of them too, perhaps, but something like that, that skepticism, that questioning, should always be upfront and it should be directed at the source of where we getting them from.

So listen, on that note of efficacy, what else can you tell us about applying these products? Just general tips on how to be effective with them and how we should approach the application of bio control sprays.

I think that so, like we said earlier, a really important thing to keep in mind is the rate that you applied them at the time of day and the time of season that you apply them at. You want to apply them. You can't just apply them like early on in Veg or something and expect the microbes to be sticking around, at least at the level that's going to be like a valid threat to the organisms you're trying to destroy. So like I said earlier, Bud worm moth, but worm larvae, they're really only going to be active or looking at your plants when you're flowering. So you got to apply at the right time. And you also got to know, hopefully you know, and hopefully not from experience, when the budworms are a problem, because at that point, you can save yourself a lot of resources and time if you only really apply it when you need to. And if you're crop scouting, you can look for examples of the pest, or maybe you find examples of the pest outside of your crop, but not inside your crop, because the physical barrier you're using is working well. So maybe you don't have to use the bio control product at all, or maybe you'll apply it outside of your crop and kind of get them that way, just to be extra special. Sure, I

love it. Man, use these bio controls early, use them often, use them correctly, most importantly, and enjoy the the fruits of their labor. You know, there's so many options out there. Now, Matthew, when I was coming up in the Grow game, there weren't a lot of options. And then there were all these other options that my teachers, my mentors told me, don't use these. You. Don't use pylon and Avermectin. And I was glad that I was told that, because if you just rewind the clock a couple of decades, I feel like your average cannabis grower, and I don't know, probably your average grower in general, was just using these harmful, toxic substances, right? Do you feel that that these types of products are really making a dent in those nasty chemical pesticides,

absolutely and data, business data, marketing data, economic data. Shows that there's a lot of biotech, just a lot of biotech growth in the last 10 years, really, on a on a larger scale, it's been growing quite a bit for many years, but the last 10, the last five years, there's been a huge uptick in the interest. Yeah, no kidding, right? And when I say bio, you know, I don't just mean like bio controls, like insects and mites and things, but yeah, like these products and other bio rational products, which I'm super excited about that I think for a long time I feel, I always, I found myself using the word discrete a lot when I'm talking and you've heard me in my lectures during the pests of Palooza, where I'll use this term about different effects that are maybe sub lethal. But if you in aggregate, use them, and you know what you're doing, you can, like, prime the plant's immune system. You can direct the plant's growth in a discrete way, but a sophisticated way. You can basically be the brain of the plant, knowing how the plant's immune system is going to respond. You can kind of give it a little or a big nudge in one direction or another, depending on what you're trying to avoid. If you know that a storm is going to come, like what's happening right now in Southern California, then you might want to turn on some of those brown related, or sort of over hydration related genes as an example. You know, I don't have it. I don't have a product or anything that that does. That would be cool. That would be cool, right?

Yeah, you get to act as the plant's brain. I like that the way that you phrase that, you know, applying chitin to stimulate the plant's immune system, as if there was a pest attack this. These are ways that you're acting as the brain of your plant or your your grow room, really. That's a good way to put it.

Yeah, right. You were kind of in this symbiotic relationship with the plant, and you have access to, like, I don't know, weather reporting and radar and 1000s of years of human cultivation history, and you can apply that in a way that a plant can't very directly, and you can both be better for it. So that's kind of how I like to look at it. So what's

been going on with Xeno what kind of content have you been digging into recently? And what do you have coming down the

pipe? Recently, I have been working very hard, although I'm very busy. Lately I've been as a passion project. I've been deep diving various groups of insects. I like to do this for a few reasons. A big reason is because I like to just be informed and knowing very detailed information about how these insects exist and how they interact with plants and also various natural enemies like bio controls. I think, well, it's definitely informed my decision about how I apply them in a professional setting, and I think it makes myself and clients a lot more successful by keeping up to date, right? Not a hard concept, but I think it's very, very difficult to do, because the research that comes out can be, well, it can be paywalled. It can be very dense and kind of hard to read into, although there's been a lot of good science communication effort making that more viable for people, which I'm very excited for. So I have a deep dive video on aphids, on scale insects, and also on the content morphs, or primarily the stink bugs. That'll be interesting. I'm working on the aphid video right now. I go into how they've come to be and we go into their biology and the symbiosis that they have with certain microbes and how they give them strengths, but also weaknesses that we can exploit. Those

stink bugs are a freaking problem, man. So I look forward to that video. Those are those are not fun. We had them bad in Illinois, and they're Hardy little things. You can hear them droning. I can hear their droning helicopter sound in my ears now. So godspeed on that content and on everything. Matthew, thank you so much for doing the classes with me. Man, these have been fantastic. I really look forward to February in Tampa, yeah,

yeah. I'm I'm super excited for it. Every single one has been more enjoyable than the next. And like you said earlier, I enjoy just interacting with the people, hearing their stories, and then I tell some of their stories because they're very insightful, and everyone's local needs and differences are a lot easier to parse. And I. Keeps me abreast of what they're dealing with, in addition to clients and things like that. So in that way, it's another symbiosis, right? And I think that is one that will strengthen us in general, especially as we record this information and make it available to people. So I really appreciate you facilitating that. Man, oh yeah, it's a

great combo. Man, I look forward to doing these. We'll do more dates you guys. They're just going to be just going to be more spread out. And we'll come to Virginia, we'll come to Illinois, we'll come to all the places we usually hit. So let us know. And we have a zoom offering too. So it's great stuff. Man, this is important information. There's so many different aspects of the cannabis grow game, and whether you want to spend a lifetime focusing on nutrients in the soil or making hash or studying pests and bugs. It's an infinitely deep field. So to pick your brain for a couple of hours in person, it's it's absolutely an honor, and we appreciate every time you come on the show. This was a great episode, man. Let's do another one really soon. And where can people find you and all of your content. Well,

thank you for having me Jordan. They can find me in a few places for professional inquiries. You can find me at zenthan all com. You can also give me a shout out or a message on YouTube, on my Sentinel YouTube channel, where I post a lot of which I'm going to post the videos I talked about about aphids and such. But I also have a really kick ass rest of my video that I really hope that people check out, and it goes over all their biology and that kind of stuff. And you can also check me out on Instagram at sync Angel, which is my personal Instagram, and I often post a lot of my musings and other really popular information there as well. So those three places are the biggest places you can find me. You can also find me on Patreon, which is patreon.com/sentinel This is a place where a lot of my followers are able to interact with me. If you want a hip pocket IPM specialist that you can just take out in your phone, ask a few questions and have like over 100 people come and help you out, then you should definitely check out my Discord, which you can get through my Patreon access for $1 a month at the very least. So it's a great place for people being able to come and talk about IPM and pest related or plant health related things. So I appreciate everyone who comes on one

more time. Thank you so much, Matthew. We appreciate you. We appreciate you listeners, and we'll see you next time. So take care everybody, and that's all for now. This is Matthew gates and Jordan River signing off saying, Be safe out there and grow smarter. That's our show. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you to the listeners of this show, and thank you to the members of our membership community at growcast podcast.com/membership if you liked this episode, check out membership. We got hundreds of hours of video content, plus 25% off on all our classes like Pesta palooza. We've also got two other classes coming up here in September, September 9. I am in Florida, Tampa, for the terpene class. The flavor farm, that's right, this terpene class is a tasting with flour and food, and it's an unlike any other cannabis event you've ever been to. That's September 9 in Tampa. And then the breeder class coming to Virginia, Richmond, September 16, Virginia Beach, September 17, the breeder workshop, find all our classes at grow cast podcast.com/classes, use code. Grow cast, save a few bucks or join up on membership, save 25% thank you to all of our students, all of our members, and each and every one of you listeners. I appreciate you more than you know. That's it for now. I want you to be extra safe out there. Hope you're having an amazing run, this run and next run and the run after that. Let us know if you need anything, and we'll see you next time, bye, bye.

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So I know that there's quite a few people who enjoy this fungus. It's gotten a lot of press and.