Episode 5 is all about the insects

- some beneficial, some inconsequential, and some harmful :( I filmed a cool short video of an ichneumon wasp grooming its long antennae and found my first caterpillar of the season.

---

Back Episodes

Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4

---

Screw you caterpillar I don't care if you ARE going to turn into a beautiful butterfly or moth. You can't munch up my marijuana!

---

Before we dive into the insectorama, a progress shot of my ladies - Blue City Diesel on the left, Girl Scout Cookies on the right.

I mentioned that I was going to train the Girl Scout Cookies over in the last episode; I actually did that almost directly after posting the last post :) You can't really tell in the pictures, but the actual "top" of the plant is now tied down all the way to the bottom right.

Tying a plant over has a similar effect to topping it; the plant growth hormone auxin, instead of concentrating in the top growing shoot, gets spread out throughout the plant encouraging lateral growth and multiple tops. You can tell how all the bottom branches are now becoming their own tops two weeks after I tied the plant down.

Girl Scout Cookies

---

Invasion of the Insect Hordes

I noticed some damage to leaves and stems and saw the tell-tale webbing that the caterpillars leave behind. It didn't take me long to find the culprits, and I dealt with them summarily.

Caterpillar damage - it may not look like much but that little brown spot in the center stood out to me like a sore thumb. If you look very closely you can also see the silk strands the caterpillars left behind on some of the leaves in this picture

This caterpillar had already webbed a leaf into a cylindrical cocoon before I crashed the party - this is directly after unrolling the leaf to reveal the occupant:

Check out this post I made last year closer to harvest time for a more in depth look at the caterpillar invaders including some great shots of caterpillars blending in with glistening trichomes: https://steemit.com/marijuana/@carlgnash/the-very-mellow-caterpillar-a-true-life-detective-story

---

An ichneumon wasp!

I have always been fascinated by ichneumon wasps. Ichneumon wasps are the largest family of the parisitica wasps (stingerless wasps). Females have an ovipositor and they lay eggs inside of (or near) the larvae of other insects (which are then devoured by the wasp larvae). I believe this is a black mud dauber or digger wasp, species name Apechthis compunctor, based just on the visual similarities to a wasp identified as such at this awesome wasp website.

This wasp decided to perch on the handrail right next to my plants while it groomed its long antennae and face. I shot a short video for you, this is slowed down to 33% normal speed. Unfortunately it isn't in perfect focus but you can still get a great idea of the wasp's beauty routine :)

---

Spiders!

I have featured a very large bold jumper spider in several previous episodes, but today I bring you some tiny little bold jumpers. I saw this one dragging an insect kill across a blue city diesel leaf. When I got closer to check it out, I realized this was fratricide! The victim was none other than another spider:

And here I found an even tinier bold jumper for ya - just a cute lil' feller:

Here another leaf suspiciously closed and curled caught my attention.

I peered inside expecting to catch another caterpillar red-handed. Or green-footed as it were.

But no! I was disturbing the lair of a different spider species. Not sure of the identification here. Obviously this one relies much less on its eyes for hunting and depth perception than the bold jumpers do - the eyes are just tiny dots really:

Dat abdomen...

In the mornings the webs the golden orb weavers spin between the cannabis tops catch the sun. I wasn't able to really capture the effect with my cell phone camera, but I like the way this one turned out as a composition of lights and darks with the glistening web as a unifying force:

---

Other random insect shots

---

Thankful to live in a legal state!

I am thankful to live in Oregon, a state which has finally legalized marijuana for recreational use. I can legally grow up to four plants (I have two beautiful girls). I hope to see the legalization movement continue to sweep across America regardless of the current political climate.

Cheers - Carl