Florida Hemp, Pokeberry & Integrated Pest Management

Awesome bug eaten native plant Phytolacca americana, Poke, is one of our BEST pest control lure plants. Pest bugs love poke’s tender leaves & birds live poke’s berries. Plant a poke & crops are safe. #IPM #Floridahemp #850hemp #arendellhillnursery #freshfromflorida https://t.co/NQziil9RS1

Organic Hemp Cultivation and Pest Control, Documenting Weather Patterns

 Some of the most important variables the organic hemp farmer can record and analyze are weather patterns impacting the growing area.

Weather patterns are often predictive of pest outbreaks.  Droughts, floods, excess heat or cold, humidity levels, solar radiation, geomagnetism and barometric pressure fluctuations can trigger pest population explosions and also initiate certain pest activities.

Temperature changes, such as prolonged heat waves may cause insects to become much more active.  Insects are cold-blooded (poikilotherms) organisms, meaning their body temperatures fluctuate with outside temperature variations and heat is not generated internally through biological processes.  Prolonged heat waves can fuel insect activity due to increased body temperatures.

Some have estimated that for each two degrees Fahrenheit rise in temperatures over normal ranges, pest insects may inflict ten to twenty percent more damage as their metabolism and body temperatures increase.  These observations suggest climate change could have serious impacts on hemp organic integrated pest management as well as for other agriculture product pest management systems.

Droughts too may trigger prolonged insect feeding activities as bugs search for water sources within plant buds, stems and leaves.  During droughts, hemp and cannabis pest insects may be driven to eat plant matter in search of moisture.  Regular precipitation measurements may provide the hemp farmer with patterns that help predict pest activity.

Organic Hemp Pest Control, Ambient Weather wifi enabled rain gauge

Climate and weather patterns can also be helpful in determining which beneficial insects, or pest predators are most productive in an organic pest control role under certain climate conditions.  Abnormal weather patterns such as drought, extreme temperatures, winds and humidity levels may actually work against beneficial insects and favor hemp pests.

There are many low cost, reliable weather stations available today that monitor, record and summarize growing area weather variables.  Ambient Weather, La Crosse Technology and Davis Instruments are a few of more popular retail available weather instruments.

Organic Hemp Cultivation, IPM methods, Ambient Weather Station

I use an Ambient Weather ultrasonic unit that measures temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, barometric pressure, sunrise and sunset hours and other important ecosystem geophysical variables.  The Ambient Weather station was inexpensive, easy to set up and summarizes weather trends over time.

Most of the small personal weather stations also provide the capabilities to connect to the internet, allowing for participation in crowd sourced weather data sites.

Weather and climate data are an important but small part of a hemp cultivation site's ecosystem variable population.   

Our agrarian ancestors understood the importance of understanding weather patterns.  Their food growing efforts depended on weather systems knowledge.  They watched and listened to the clouds, birds, animals and other tell-tale signs of impending climatic events.

Organic Hemp Pest Control, Ambient Weather data display

Today, the hemp farmer must also be able to comprehend meteorological impacts on crops.  A daily log of cultivation site weather data provides so much important information.

A thorough understanding of geophysical weather variables driving much of the hemp farm's growing parameters will support successful organic cultivation efforts.

The successful hemp cultivator will use all available organic-based integrated pest management tools.  Weather recording systems are a critical part of any organic IPM program on hemp farms.

Organic Hemp Farming, Pest Control and Annual Ecosystem Matrix Data

 Last post we discussed the importance of codifying the hemp cultivation area's biological and geophysical characteristics into a chart or graph.  We call this site summary the ecosystem matrix.

Four season data provides the most accurate ecosystem matrix data to the hemp grower for pest control efforts.

Smaller sites may possess a single ecosystem matrix while large sites, spread across acres of land may involve many different existing ecosystem types.

There are many variables interacting with each other in a functioning ecosystem.  The whole of these variables comprises the ecosystem matrix.  Documenting hemp farm ecosystem matrix biological and geophysical variables in a summary table or graph can provide the grower with valuable tools for best growing results and pest control.

Importantly, many of these variables act differently according to seasonal variations.  Recording the growing site's variables during one month may provide valuable growing information for that month but may be irrelevant for different months or other seasons.

The ideal ecosystem matrix analysis will contain site data from one or more complete annual growing cycles, including data from spring, summer, fall and winter.

With respect to hemp plant pest control, the knowledge of when certain pests appear and when they inflict their respective damage is a vital part of the organic integrated pest management program.

It is a given that there are quite a number of pest insects that can harm hemp crops.  Importantly, these pests not only appear at different times of the year, during different seasons but they also have their own set of biotic and abiotic ecosystem variable requirements for growth and survival.

A few of the seasonal variables that should be noted when developing an organic pest control program include; day length (photoperiod), wind speed and directions, rainfall amounts, leaf litter amounts, air quality, temperature, bloom types, mushroom growth, relative humidity, barometric pressure and others.

The goal for the hemp grower should be to avoid surprise with respect to pest organism emergence.  By collecting hemp growing area ecosystem matrix observations and measurements throughout the year, predictive patterns will begin to emerge with respect to fly, caterpillar, fungus and insect population growth.

All pests have specific requirements for successful growth.  When the ecosystem is favorable to their needs, pests will flourish.

The ability to recognize patterns in seasonal occurrences affords the hemp farmer warning that certain pests may be expected, and then also the opportunity to manage variables in order to prevent pest outbreaks.

Though it requires time and effort, an on-going, annual ecosystem variable analysis effort is truly the backbone of any organic integrated pest management program.  The hemp farmer must understand what they are dealing with and when they will be facing specific pests.  It can't be overstated enough, the hemp farmer must intimately know their growing site ecosystem(s) through all the seasons.

The benefits of ecosystem matrix tools for organic pest control are many, not the least of which is a healthy agricultural product free of toxic sprays and powders.  Organic integrated pest management focused hemp growing operations will always produce the very best hemp products.