Cannabis Cultivation and Science Podcast · Tad Hussey

Episode 141: Isopods, Pyrethrins, REIs, and More with Suzanne Wainwright Evans

·43 min·2 clips

Pyrethrins and pyrethroids all have REIs, and Suzanne says indoor growers often overlook that.

1. Cannabis Cultivation and Science Podcast Episode 141 focuses on isopods, pyrethrins, REIs, and pest management for cannabis growers. 2. Tad Hussey of KISS Organics hosts Suzanne Wainwright Evans, an ornamental entomologist known as the Bug Lady, and he points listeners to bugladyconsulting.com. 3. The episode asks how living-soil growers should think about roly-polies, pyrethrins, and pesticide labels without losing the benefits of integrated pest management. 4. Tad describes his indoor garden, heavy organic matter, raised beds, and the comments he saw suggesting squash, pumpkin, beer traps, sticky tape, or Pyganic 5.0. 5. Suzanne says roly-polies are isopods rather than insects and notes names like woodlouse, roly-poly, and armadillidae. 6. She says many of the problem species are not native to North America and may have arrived through soil movement, imports, or growers dumping crop media. 7. Suzanne says heavy mulching is a common denominator in problem cases because mulch creates a decomposing habitat with a lot of food. 8. Tad adds that roly-polies can mineralize organic matter, shred dead plant material, and help microbes access carbon in a healthy ecosystem. 9. Suzanne agrees that they can be beneficial in the right numbers, but says indoor systems lack predators, wind, rain, and other ecological checks. 10. She says that in practice growers often end up vacuuming them out, and she warns that sticky collars and tanglefoot can trap beneficials as well as pests. 11. Suzanne says pyrethrins affect insect sodium channels and make insects twitch before they die. 12. She explains that synthetic pyrethroids such as bifenthrin are used in nurseries and structural pest management because they repel insects and keep pests like fire ants and weevils away. 13. She says resistance to the pyrethrin and pyrethroid group developed quickly because they were used across homeowner, turf, nursery, and greenhouse settings. 14. Suzanne notes that resistance can arrive from outside a grower's own facility, using Bemisia whitefly from Spain as an example. 15. She says pyrethrins are non-selective and can wipe out beneficial insects just as easily as pests. 16. She says indoor conditions may let pyrethrins persist longer than outdoor row crops, and Tad notes a leaf-tissue test that still detected low pyrethrin levels three weeks after spraying. 17. Suzanne says REIs matter because they tell employees how long to stay out of a treated area, and she notes that a product can have a 48-hour REI even when marketed as 'as safe as soap.' 18. Tad and Suzanne contrast that kind of label reading with the pesticide licensing, PPE, and respirator fit-testing used in commercial greenhouses. 19. Suzanne says growers who want this episode will be cannabis cultivators dealing with indoor pests, IPM decisions, and pesticide labels. 20. She says listeners who want a casual discussion with no label reading or pesticide detail may skip it.

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