Scouting is the routine, structured inspection of a crop to find pests, disease and other problems before they spread. It includes looking at leaf tops and undersides, growing tips, stems, buds, the medium surface and roots, plus reading sticky traps. The aim is early detection, correct identification and written counts that feed action thresholds.
In practice
A practical indoor routine: once a week, walk the whole room in the same pattern, check a set number of plants per row plus any that look off, and turn over leaves from low, mid and top canopy. Use a 10-20x hand lens for spider mites and thrips and a 40-60x scope on tips for broad and russet mites. Watch hot spots: near intakes, doors, lights and the walls. Pull a plant from its pot now and then to check roots. Record what you saw, where and how many. Flag plants with tape so you can recheck them. Scouting is cheap; missing a mite outbreak in week three of flower is not.
Don't confuse with
- Sticky trap counts: one part of scouting, limited to flying adults.
- Diagnosis: working out the cause once a problem is found.
Top shelf is the highest price tier of flower in a shop, used as slang for any premium-looking cannabis; it reflects pricing and appearance, not verified quality.The zone of dividing cells at the very tip of a shoot (or root) that produces new leaves, nodes and stem; removing it is what topping does.A coloured card coated in non-drying glue that catches flying insects, used mainly to monitor pest trends: yellow for gnats, whiteflies and aphids, blue for thrips.The pest or disease level, set in advance, at which a grower takes a specific control action because waiting longer would cost more than acting.Tetranychus urticae, the commonest cannabis mite indoors: a 0.5 mm sap-feeder that stipples leaves pale and spins webbing, breeding fastest in hot, dry rooms.Slender insects about 1-2 mm long, chiefly western flower thrips (Frankliniella occidentalis), that rasp leaf surfaces, leaving silvery streaks dotted with black frass.Aculops cannabicola, a microscopic eriophyid mite specific to cannabis that causes upward leaf curl, bronzing and dull, greasy-looking trichomes.Integrated pest management: preventing and controlling pests by combining monitoring, prevention, cultural, biological and, as a last resort, chemical tools against set action thresholds.Holding incoming plants, clones or seeds apart from the main grow, under observation and sometimes treatment, until they are shown to be free of pests and disease.
