The Simplest Way To Fight Pests & Pathogens In Your Grow

Everyone struggles with pests and pathogens in their grow at some point.

Like all new growers, I have had my fair share of unexpected issues:

1. My first grow got PM on Day 53 of Flower (had to learn how to deal with it).
2. A friend of mine was plant-sitting who wasn’t familiar with the grow and overwatered based on my instructions, causing pythium (had to learn how to sterilize the root zone)
3. We moved into a new house, and whatever was leftover from before included fungus gnats (had to learn how to deal with flying pests)

But what changed for me was the realization that while nothing is unfixable, but it’s easier to prevent than it is to fix a problem.

Ok, some things (a very small amount of things) are unfixable. But most grow issues can be fixed (or avoided entirely.

And as soon as that clicked, I started to understand that keeping pests and pathogens at bay wasn’t that hard — I was just doing it backwards.

Here’s what I should have done instead:

The simplest way to fight problems in your grow is to avoid them altogether by practicing preventative IPM.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure as my co-author Zac Ricciardi likes to say. It’s easier to prevent a problem than it is to cure one.

By practicing clean habits, minimizing contamination, using preventative SOPs, and taking extra precautions when introducing foreign plants or new people into your grow areas, you can avoid 90%+ of grow problems before they happen.

Clean growing environments and happy, healthy plants are your best defense against costly pests and pathogens.