Oh No! Spider Mites?

[Vegan4life]

I think these are spider mites...??? @bobrown14 @Nunyabiz anyone else? 5 weeks into 12/12, I think I caught it early? They are smaller than a pin point and I have only found a few so far. If so Has anyone used predator mites to eradicate (Phytoseiulus persimilis)?

 

[Nunyabiz]

5 weeks into 12/12 is like 3 weeks from harvest.
I don't know what the hell you could do that would make much difference with the short time left and having buds everywhere.
If you ordered predators by the time you got them they'd have a week to work on the mites.
Might be better to defoliate and maybe try washing them off immediately.

Fortunately I've never had mites so I can't speak from experience, maybe someone will chime in that has actually fought the Borg and won.
Maybe Picard or Janeway.

 

[nivek]

there is no 'winning' with mites.

the obvious soap solutions,, sierra produces some products

an iso alcohol spray one to one, or a bit less can be used right up till harvest, and no, it will not dissolve your trichomes

mix up the treatments, then a good bud wash at harvest and enjoy the few mites you will be smoking,, protein, indeed

cheers and karma sent

 

[Vegan4life]

5 weeks into 12/12 is like 3 weeks from harvest.
I don't know what the hell you could do that would make much difference with the short time left and having buds everywhere.
If you ordered predators by the time you got them they'd have a week to work on the mites.
Might be better to defoliate and maybe try washing them off immediately.

Fortunately I've never had mites so I can't speak from experience, maybe someone will chime in that has actually fought the Borg and won.
Maybe Picard or Janeway.

Thank you for replying. I was guessing around Jan 20th for harvest? I wonder if Ladybugs would work? I really don't want to spray anything on the buds. Although I read that rubbing alcohol diluted with water sprayed on them will kill them (maybe the buds too?).

Live Long & prosper
.

 

[Vegan4life]

there is no 'winning' with mites.

the obvious soap solutions,, sierra produces some products

an iso alcohol spray one to one, or a bit less can be used right up till harvest, and no, it will not dissolve your trichomes

mix up the treatments, then a good bud wash at harvest and enjoy the few mites you will be smoking,, protein, indeed

cheers and karma sent

The Sierra Natural sns 217 mitacide is mostly rosemary oil , I may go for a drive in search of some rosemary plants and make some rosemary garlic tea and add some iso before spraying on plants.

 

[Southerncough]

there is no 'winning' with mites.

the obvious soap solutions,, sierra produces some products

an iso alcohol spray one to one, or a bit less can be used right up till harvest, and no, it will not dissolve your trichomes

mix up the treatments, then a good bud wash at harvest and enjoy the few mites you will be smoking,, protein, indeed

cheers and karma sent

I think @The Happy One would disagree about that alcohol bit after discarding over 10 lbs of flower!
Water pressure, Ladybugs and praying mantis will help slow them down of you're avoiding soaps and sprays. Also some people vacuum them off. Otherwise its just slow them down until harvest

 

[Weaselcracker]

Almost anything will kill mites if you spray it on them, including a firm blast of water. You can keep them under control by spraying mild insecticides like botanical soap/water. It will kill the ones it contacts, but the eggs will keep hatching out and they will coming back. In my experience lady bugs don’t work, but they may eat a few.
If you’re just trying to keep the numbers down till harvest, which I think is probably your best option, then you can get more serious about eradicating them later.

 

[Vegan4life]

So I found some rosemary plants, I cut enough to fill a 2 quart sauce pot, I covered with RO water and simmered for a half hour. I let it steep for around 20 hours. Today I defoliated lower fan leaves and sprayed plants with 50/50 mixture of rosemary tea and RO water. I only saw around a dozen mites today and no webbing, so hopefully I caught it early. I turned the lights off, I will turn them back on when the plants are all dry. Fingers crossed...

 

[Southerncough]

I'm very interested to hear how this goes....like you said, some of the (expensive) organic options are like 2% herbal extracts/oils + 98% water!

 

[nivek]

i will be interested in hearing your results,, keep in mind that there is nothing, nearly, that has not been tried before

i battled mites for years,, mainly cuz i was growing in soil, and the soil/peat moss is where the mites were coming from

so i kept reinfesting my grow room on a regular basis

i tried everything under the sun to eradicate them,, and i never did till i stopped growing in soil,,

i tested everything too,, in differing strengths and frequencies of application

and to anyone who thinks near anything will kill spider mites,, well,, not in my house it don't

i soaked in this and that and sprayed with this and that and watched carefully,, only to see the little buggers get up and walk away, time after time

and usually they were giving me the finger as they walked away,, tho they call it giving the appendage,

i found it necessary, and because i did not want to go full on nuclear, i found a balance, a co-existence,, peaceful parley sorta, was my best solution,,

 

[Dankman_420]

After harvest focus on the area and the veg plants if you have any. If so I found that spraying in Veg with at least 2 if not 3 different sprays work best. They seem to get immune fast to just one type of spray.

I used a product called mighty wash, green cleaner, and safer soap. Every 3 days and rotate every spray. Good luck

 

[Dankman_420]

Also wash everything in the area with white vinegar and water solution. I do it monthly now. I believe it helps to be clean as possible. Don't remember if it was @bobrown14 or @Van Stank who told me about the wash solution

 

[nivek]

personally if a complete disinfection was my purpose then i would use nothing other than a bleach/water solution

 

[Dankman_420]

personally if a complete disinfection was my purpose then i would use nothing other than a bleach/water solution

I'm sure it would be very similar to the vinegar solution. They both clean things well. It's what we all used before the modern household cleaner's

I personally don't like spraying anything on flowers. I've never even used a foliar

 

[Dankman_420]

I've heard that this is a good product too. Also a sponsor

SNS-Natural Fertilizers, Pesticides, Weed Killer & Nutrients

Get Bigger Crops, Eliminate Pests, and Grow Healthier Plants With Natural and Safe Products Only From Sierra Natural Science - (877) 626-5505

sierranaturalscience.com

 

[Weaselcracker]

I think those two guys (Vanstank and Bobrown) have been using ladybugs- hopefully with more success than I did the times I tried.
That’s interesting Nivek that yours were so hard to kill. Seemed like any sort of dish soap/water spray killed mine dead. About the only thing I sprayed them with that didn’t kill them was anything containing pyrethrin. That’s about the strongest ‘bug bomb’ type stuff I could find locally. They loved pyrethrin and couldn’t get enough of it. Makes them high and their shells glossy and teeth shiny.
Mite-rid finally got rid of mine after a couple years. I wasted a couple lot of time eradicating them several times and then getting reinfested from my greenhouse - till I figured out the source and sprayed that too.
The active ingredient in Mite-rid is derived from neem. I think it’s a little different than plain neem, as it’s actually a systemic which lingers in the plant for weeks to kill anything that feeds on it. But I’m not sure- I didn’t research it any further after it worked to finally eradicate the bugs.
There are also predator mites but my understanding at the time I looked at them was that they’re more of a damage control thing and will never totally eradicate the spideys. I could be wrong about that though- hopefully.

 

[Weaselcracker]

I also bleached down my entire grow and everything in it several times- using it strong enough to make my eyes water. A couple times I followed that by completely repainting.

I also sprayed the plants at one point with a 10% bleach/water solution. Something I read somewhere and tried in desperation. It did kill the mites briefly and surprisingly it didn’t seem to hurt the plants at all.

But no point going to the effort of killing something over and over if it won’t stay dead.

 

[Vegan4life]

Yes I am definitely going to disinfect after grow. I did a little reading, some spider mites are much worse and harder to get rid of than others. Hopefully I got the pussy version... No offense

 

[nivek]

@Weaselcracker ,, shells glossy and teeth shiney,,

remember way back you sent me some sns 209,, i know the name cuz i have a pack still right in front of me

anyway,, i know the formula in this might be outdated,, but,, it did not work either,, tho i will admit it just mighta slowed em down just a tad

it is sposed to be 'systemic' as well,,

 

[nivek]

Yes I am definitely going to disinfect after grow. I did a little reading, some spider mites are much worse and harder to get rid of than others. Hopefully I got the pussy version... No offense

i have only ever heard tell of 'two spotted' mites on cannabis, but what do i know?

well, i know this,, we have a different species here in my yard,, a bigger red sucker,, actually leaves a red stain when one squishes it