Ladybugs

[Guy Cavallero]

Presently I am about 20 days into my fight against mites. I have used a four-stage attack against the little bastards, including two pyrethrin sprays and smite which is a peppermint and rosemary extract based in oils. I have also mixed up multiple batches of 9 Parts water to 1 part alcohol. Those gets sprayed under heavy pressure. They get sprayed every day that my plants haven't been treated with an insecticidal soap or extract based attack.

My question is, ladybugs...... I'd like to throw in some of these little creatures to see if they still feast or if they have no reason to hang around..... If you know what I mean. That being said, I'm wondering if the attack that I am using against the mites will affect the ladybugs in any way? Obviously if they are in there, I have no reason to be spraying the plants anymore, so that portion of the attack would stop. I have not seen a Mite in there in days.

Any thoughts?

 

[Weaselcracker]

Presently I am about 20 days into my fight against mites. I have used a four-stage attack against the little bastards, including two pyrethrin sprays and smite which is a peppermint and rosemary extract based in oils. I have also mixed up multiple batches of 9 Parts water to 1 part alcohol. Those gets sprayed under heavy pressure. They get sprayed every day that my plants haven't been treated with an insecticidal soap or extract based attack.

My question is, ladybugs...... I'd like to throw in some of these little creatures to see if they still feast or if they have no reason to hang around..... If you know what I mean. That being said, I'm wondering if the attack that I am using against the mites will affect the ladybugs in any way? Obviously if they are in there, I have no reason to be spraying the plants anymore, so that portion of the attack would stop. I have not seen a Mite in there in days.

Any thoughts?

.
I tried ladybugs a couple times. First time I bought 500. Second batch was 2000. Within a few days they all flew into the lights, escaped, or somehow disappeared. Didn't ever see many on my plants, and I don't think they affected the mites at all.

I think maybe if you could contain a whole plant in some sort of container along with the ladybugs for a few weeks- maybe that would do it.

I don't know if the residue of your sprays would kill them, but I can't see it doing them much good.

Pyrethrin didn't work for me. They were clearly immune.
Basically almost any sort of spray kills the adult mites. Then more eggs hatch later...
In theory if you keep repeating it every few days you'll eventually kill them all. But there are usually a few that go dormant and pop up later. Or they are in your houseplants and greenhouse and you have a constant source of reinfestation

 

[Guy Cavallero]

Wow WC, I forgot to mention that I only accept good news on 420 LMAO. I guess I'm lucky that I noticed them early enough and been able to keep on top of them. I have been watching for them and spraying on a regular basis. I think Smite is very similar to the SNS 217 product that is available in the United States and I have been using it with great success along with the pyrethrins. My buddy's concern was that I may be knocking off the eggs with my alcohol sprays into my soil..... Any thoughts on that? I realized that they will definitely be hatching in intervals of 3 to 10 days, so I have been diligent with my timing of oils Etc.

 

[Blew Hiller]

Presently I am about 20 days into my fight against mites. I have used a four-stage attack against the little bastards, including two pyrethrin sprays and smite which is a peppermint and rosemary extract based in oils. I have also mixed up multiple batches of 9 Parts water to 1 part alcohol. Those gets sprayed under heavy pressure. They get sprayed every day that my plants haven't been treated with an insecticidal soap or extract based attack.

My question is, ladybugs...... I'd like to throw in some of these little creatures to see if they still feast or if they have no reason to hang around..... If you know what I mean. That being said, I'm wondering if the attack that I am using against the mites will affect the ladybugs in any way? Obviously if they are in there, I have no reason to be spraying the plants anymore, so that portion of the attack would stop. I have not seen a Mite in there in days.

Any thoughts?

I tried them and they all flew away....

 

[Weaselcracker]

Well there is good news in there, ya just have to dig a little .

I don't know about that question about the eggs. I figure they'll have to hatch regardless and it shouldn't matter where they are located. They do stick on to the plant pretty good so wouldn't wash off very easily.


In my case it was really the greenhouse infestation that was key to the problem. I actually did eradicate the mites from the grow several times, using various sprays, but then got reinfested from the greenhouse.
This is all in hindsight. The greenhouse showed no symptoms till it got unusually hot and sunny one time and I saw them swarming. Climate here is cool enough that they rarely got beyond extremely low levels.

As an example. One reinfestation occured in mid winter. Hadn't seen mites in the grow for months. Everything outside was frozen solid and had been for weeks. I used a pot from my greenhouse, and I remember thinking 'I should really wash this'. But it was pretty clean, just a few specks of dirt and some ice chunks on it. I couldn't imagine anything alive on there.
Within days after I used that pot I had mites again.

But aside from that greenhouse being a source, I really think I could have got rid of them earlier. Soap and water sprays, neem, bleach and water (yes), I think even a brisk plain water spray will kill them.
So yeah... good news. If you keep on top of them and don't have outside mite sources you should be good.

 

[Guy Cavallero]

I tried them and they all flew away....

You bought the wrong ones, they look really similar but those are homing ladybugs. You want the confused ones. The ones that hang around..... I think they're called teenage ladybugs LMAO.

 

[Guy Cavallero]

Well there is good news in there, ya just have to dig a little .

I don't know about that question about the eggs. I figure they'll have to hatch regardless and it shouldn't matter where they are located. They do stick on to the plant pretty good so wouldn't wash off very easily.


In my case it was really the greenhouse infestation that was key to the problem. I actually did eradicate the mites from the grow several times, using various sprays, but then got reinfested from the greenhouse.
This is all in hindsight. The greenhouse showed no symptoms till it got unusually hot and sunny one time and I saw them swarming. Climate here is cool enough that they rarely got beyond extremely low levels.

As an example. One reinfestation occured in mid winter. Hadn't seen mites in the grow for months. Everything outside was frozen solid and had been for weeks. I used a pot from my greenhouse, and I remember thinking 'I should really wash this'. But it was pretty clean, just a few specks of dirt and some ice chunks on it. I couldn't imagine anything alive on there.
Within days after I used that pot I had mites again.

But aside from that greenhouse being a source, I really think I could have got rid of them earlier. Soap and water sprays, neem, bleach and water (yes), I think even a brisk plain water spray will kill them.
So yeah... good news. If you keep on top of them and don't have outside mite sources you should be good.

Yeah, I'm not taking any chances. Anything that comes in and or out of The the grow room is getting bleached with a spray bottle and allowed to dry. Pretty sure my cloning tent was the source of the problem, just not exactly sure how they got in there?

If my ladybugs fly away, that's fine..... That means they had nothing to eat LOL.

 

[Dwight Monk]

Read somewhere it's not the Ladybugs that eat but the larvae that do, so if they think a food source available they will lay eggs and if not they will fly off to where they think is better. Whether anything to that or not hard to say, as one can find every single possible opinion on the Net (but maybe there is a majority one way or another). My Dad tried them and the Praying Mantis's back in the early 70's for his Roses, opened the box and never saw another one ever again not even any wild ones (stay away from this fools yard they told their friends ).

 

[Weaselcracker]

Well you should know that ladybugs are basically quite silly creatures. Ship em in a box with 2000 of their closest friends to Guy's ladybug concentration camp, cram them into a locked white room full of bright lights and machines and expect them to do you a favour and go crawl around on some weird-ass sticky plants to eat poison slathered spider things? They wouldn't do it even if they wanted to.
No. They just up and leave with their noses in the air. They're called ladybugs, not just girlbugs. Bitches have attitude...

 

[Guy Cavallero]

Untrustworthy little snobs..... Worth a try maybe though LMAO.

 

[Weaselcracker]

I don't know how many plants you have- but the way I can imagine it working is if the ladybugs were completely sealed in a bag or something with the plant for an extended period. Sounds tricky. Maybe more research will turn up some actual success stories. Personally I felt like I just killed a few thousand ladybugs for nothing.

 

[Guy Cavallero]

I've got about another 10 days of treating my spaces before I consider the bugs something of the past. It's another member on here that has made the ladybugs available to me, maybe in a padded envelope through the mail. I mean I don't think it could hurt........ I've got 25 plants. 12-13 in flower and the rest in either veg or my cloning tent.

Thanks for the input WC...