The danger associated with pesticide use on your cannabis plants is effectively to your health. In fact, inhaling pesticides through smoking it is worse for the human body than ingesting it through food. This is why it is important to avoid using pesticides and use natural, permaculture techniques as an alternative. This article teaches you how.
Well, the cannabis industry is quickly becoming one of the most profitable industries in the world. It is the 21st century’s cash crop. As a result, growers are using whatever means necessary to ensure good crops for high earnings. This unfortunately means that things like pesticides end up in the final product that makes it to the consumer. This is unfortunate, given the truth about what growing cannabis stands for.
There are many reasons to avoid using pesticides on your cannabis plant, and they largely have to do with health. This is especially true if you are growing your plant for medical reasons. Weed should be kept as chemical-free as possible to ensure the safest and the most beneficial experience with it. There are alternatives to using pesticides that are just as effective and go by the principles of permaculture. That means that your plants stay safe in the process and the environment does not suffer as a result.
What happens if you use pesticides?
Chemical pesticides might be a very effective way to keep pests off your cannabis plant, but it could potentially mean poisoning your own body. In fact, up to 70 percent of the pesticides that are on the cannabis buds end up passing into the body of the person who smokes it. Given that most pesticides are chemicals, this means that chemicals dangerous to the human body are entering through the smoke, potentially causing health problems.
What we know about ingesting food containing pesticides should be enough for us to know that we should not be using it on weed. At the end of the day, weed is for human consumption just like food, and there is no reason to treat it any differently. We know that ingesting foods containing chemical pesticides can result in chronic illness in people who ingest a lot of it, as well as conditions like sterility and cancer.
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Chemist Jeffrey Raber, a cannabis researcher who works in medical cannabis testing, says that ingesting pesticides through smoke is even worse than ingesting them orally. He says that when the pesticides are ingested through inhaling, it is as toxic as if they are being injected straight into the bloodstream. This is because the filters that are available to the body when ingested through food are not available when the toxin is inhaled. The problem is further amplified if the product being inhaled is a cannabis concentrate, such as honey oil or dabs.
The problem might lay in how little scientists know about pesticide use and weed. There is hardly as much regulation on pesticide use with cannabis as there is with food or even tobacco. With an industry growing at the rate it is, it is important for there to be awareness about the effect of pesticide use on cannabis and the effect it has on the body. For growers out there, it is also important to know that there are effective alternative methods available to use to deal with pests.
How to deal with pests without the use of pesticides
With just a little bit of information about permaculture, you can create a pest-free cannabis garden without the use of pesticides. This is good knowledge to have for any garden you wish to grow in the future. And, despite popular belief, it is actually easier to control pests outdoors than it is indoors. Outdoor plants are much more resilient to pests, as they only have a small window of vulnerability. However, indoor plants stay quite vulnerable for quite a long time.
Using companion plants and natural predators
Companion plants and natural predators are two of the fundamental principles of permaculture. They allow you to use other plants and insects to keep away the insects that bother your cannabis plant. Smelly plants like geraniums and marigolds are good plants to grow next to your plants because their smell repels some insects that like to feast on your garden. Ladybugs are also incredibly good insects to have living around your cannabis plant. They eat larvae and other things living in the soil around your plant.
It is also encouraged that you put birds or bird feeders around your growing area. They are usually happy to look after any insects that want to hang around your cannabis plant or in the soil. But be careful to keep them away during the germination process, because birds are also known to enjoy eating cannabis seeds.
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Sterilize the soil and fertilizer
If you don’t sterilize your soil or fertilizer, you run the risk of having little larvae living in the soil. If this occurs, particularly in an indoor setup, when they grow and hatch you could have a serious problem on your hands. For indoor setups this is particularly crucial because there is nothing else around to look after them for you.
Using the urine of another animal
This is a method used by some animals to mark their territory, and you can use it too! There are some animals that like to come and eat your cannabis plants, such as deer. You can use the urine of another animal (one that it does not get along with) to keep them away. It is a feasible method and it works! For example, you can purchase the scent of bear urine, and this is a great way for keeping away those that bears prey on!
Organic repellents
You can create your own organic insect repellent for your plants that is effective and easy to make. You can use mixtures of cinnamon oil, coriander oil, and clove oil to repel the insects. The best thing about this method is that you can spray it directly onto the leaves of your plant without damaging it. Growers have reported this to be an effective method and have suggested it.
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Repellent force fields
There are chemical insect repellents that growers use around their gardens to repel insects without actually using them directly on their plants. These products involve spraying a chemical repellent in a circle around the area where the plants are. The insects that come into contact with it just die or leave the area immediately. They act something like a force field around the area where you have your cannabis plants growing. This is not the most heavily recommended method, as it still requires spraying chemicals into the atmosphere, which is damaging to the environment. However, as a last resort effort it’s effective, as no chemicals end up in your plant.
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Build a fence
Building a fence is a really simple method to keeping pests out of your cannabis garden. If the pest that you’re looking to control is a dog or a bigger animal, then all you really have to do is block off the area so that they can’t walk in.
You can use all or some of these methods to keep pests out of your cannabis garden without the use of harsh chemicals. This is better for you, the grower, and the environment. This effectively results in a better growing experience for you and a better experience for the user.
