mite recepy question

gaiusmarius · Jun 2, 2010

a few years ago i read on a orchid site that eucalyptus oil, neem oil, light mineral oil and some hand dish washing liquid made a really really good mite spray. she claimed to be down to 2 treatments a year on her mother plants.

anyway been wanting to try this ever since. recently i got the ingredients, alas i found no directions on dosage. the only thing that had instructions for use was the neem oil from the local grow and head shop.

so i added the same amounts of eucalyptus and mineral oil as neem, which was recommended at 3ml per lt. i added 1 drop of soap.

first seedling i dipped in there as a test after vigorous stirring, looked pretty fucked up the next day, it got all dark and all the leaves were curled down sideways, clearly an overdose.

well today i tried again with half dose of mineral and eucalyptus oil and the same amount of neem per lt as recommended. i have yet to see any negative results on the seedling i dipped in this mix, but it's only been an hour or 2.

basically what i'm wondering is if anyone has any ideas about what caused the first plant to react so badly, was it the eucalyptus oil at 3ml per lt, or was it the mineral oil at 3ml per lt?

any chemists out there who can suggest the required dosage for eucalyptus oil and the light mineral oil?

DIGITALHIPPY · Jun 3, 2010

lol...
skip THE CRAP.
get forbid.
floromite, or avid.
anything less is a waste of time/money.

gaiusmarius · Jun 3, 2010

i totally understand where you are coming from. i have been a long time use of various quite hefty sprays, vertimec is one and some stuff called apolo. in years past these products would do the job superbly. i.e. you could spray one time or dunk new clones once, and you had peace from mites. but some how this is no longer the case, the mites have gotten resistant to those products. i even used some "dichlorvos"spray (German name) recently, easy to use for sure, but only lasts about 1 week, even if you repeat treatment.

not sure i've seen forbid or avid in the shops around here. some products are not allowed here in Switz. but if this new stuff doesn't help i'll try get some online, specially the avid seems to get mentioned a lot as a reliable weapon against mites.

but man, wouldn't it be cool if such harmless ingredients as mentioned above actually did the job? i guess it would be a bit too good to be true, got to try it though, now that i have it all.

but damn i need some ideas for dosage, the second experiment with 1.5ml of eucalyptus and light mineral oil per lt and the 3 ml neem was still too strong. the seedling isn't as messed up as the first, but it still took a heavier toll on it than i want.

~Shhh~ · Jun 6, 2010

Yes would be nice to have an alternative as you say GM... how's those tests coming along?
Are those some more sdxcj seedlings I see?

Hold Your Fire · Jun 6, 2010

DIGITALHIPPY said:
lol...
skip THE CRAP.
get forbid.
floromite, or avid.
anything less is a waste of time/money.

So how did you use your Avid? I have my plants in 20 oz. solo cups. Treated with Avid once, they went away, but now they're back. 2 weeks later?!?! They're in veg for a few more weeks, they need a transplant, so is a second Avid treatment, after transplanting, a good idea. I've got Avid, Floramite, and Azamax.
I'm thinking with these 3 things they should be history.

gaiusmarius · Jun 6, 2010

no those are my outdoor seedlings. been hesitating to do another test as each one has cost me a plant so far lol. well the second test didn't quite kill the plant, but it whacked it out of sync. so i was hoping to get some info/feedback on what substance in above mix is the one causing the trouble? maybe the mineral oil is only meant to be used like the soap, i.e. a drop instead of 1.5ml per lt. on the other hand it could be the eucalyptus that's too strong, this stuff is apparently something they hate the smell of. i guess my next test will be 3ml neem, 1ml eucalyptus oil, 1ml mineral oil and a drop of soap per lt.

would be so nice to have a biologist tell me more about those ingredients and how to combine them.

have hatched another batch of that outdoor strain, so i guess i can sacrifice 1 or 2 more if i have to.

10k · Jun 6, 2010

I'd skip that mineral oil altogether gaiusmarius, being a petrochemical product it may be phytotoxic

gaiusmarius · Jun 6, 2010

10k said:
I'd skip that mineral oil altogether gaiusmarius, being a petrochemical product it may be phytotoxic

thanks 10k, will give it a go without the mineral oil.

lilnick · Jun 6, 2010

avid is amazing

gaiusmarius · Jun 6, 2010

ok i just did another test, decided to use the survivor from test 2. added 1.5 ml per lt of eucalyptus oil, only gave 0.2ml per lt of mineral oil, 3ml per lt neem oil and a drop of dish soap (approx 0.2ml per lt)

seedling is drying off, will update status tomorrow. wold be cool if that dose finally works, in so far as keeping the plants healthy despite being sprayed or dunked in this recepy.

from what i understood, the mineral oil acts as a sticker and extender of the other ingredients, why i added 0.2ml per lt. felt it was such a small amount that it shouldn't be deadly this time. not being too sure though, specially after 10k's advise i decided not to risk a new plant and just re dunk the survivor from test 2. lol, i should be able to tell if this dunking sets her back or not.

twiztidbudsmoke · Jun 6, 2010

Ive never used eucalyptus oil, i couldnt tell you dosage but let me say gaiusmarius I have been impressed by pictures of your resins for many years and I would be very saddened to hear you used something like avid/floramite. Please stick with it and scrub your room with bleach use elbow grease, neem, organocide

DIGITALHIPPY · Jun 6, 2010

gaiusmarius said:
i totally understand where you are coming from. i have been a long time use of various quite hefty sprays, vertimec is one and some stuff called apolo. in years past these products would do the job superbly. i.e. you could spray one time or dunk new clones once, and you had peace from mites. but some how this is no longer the case, the mites have gotten resistant to those products. i even used some "dichlorvos"spray (German name) recently, easy to use for sure, but only lasts about 1 week, even if you repeat treatment.

not sure i've seen forbid or avid in the shops around here. some products are not allowed here in Switz. but if this new stuff doesn't help i'll try get some online, specially the avid seems to get mentioned a lot as a reliable weapon against mites.

but man, wouldn't it be cool if such harmless ingredients as mentioned above actually did the job? i guess it would be a bit too good to be true, got to try it though, now that i have it all.

but damn i need some ideas for dosage, the second experiment with 1.5ml of eucalyptus and light mineral oil per lt and the 3 ml neem was still too strong. the seedling isn't as messed up as the first, but it still took a heavier toll on it than i want.

hermless is the key word....harmless to you , harmless to the plant, and more importantrly, harmless to the mites....... this is basic logic here.

Hold Your Fire said:
So how did you use your Avid? I have my plants in 20 oz. solo cups. Treated with Avid once, they went away, but now they're back. 2 weeks later?!?! They're in veg for a few more weeks, they need a transplant, so is a second Avid treatment, after transplanting, a good idea. I've got Avid, Floramite, and Azamax.
I'm thinking with these 3 things they should be history.

as a plant drench and foliar. small clones get flipped upsideown and submerged into a jar of forbid water. 1.25ml/L forbid 2ml/l avid/floromite.

gaiusmarius said:
ok i just did another test, decided to use the survivor from test 2. added 1.5 ml per lt of eucalyptus oil, only gave 0.2ml per lt of mineral oil, 3ml per lt neem oil and a drop of dish soap (approx 0.2ml per lt)

seedling is drying off, will update status tomorrow. wold be cool if that dose finally works, in so far as keeping the plants healthy despite being sprayed or dunked in this recepy.

from what i understood, the mineral oil acts as a sticker and extender of the other ingredients, why i added 0.2ml per lt. felt it was such a small amount that it shouldn't be deadly this time. not being too sure though, specially after 10k's advise i decided not to risk a new plant and just re dunk the survivor from test 2. lol, i should be able to tell if this dunking sets her back or not.

id still go with the avid/floromite/forbid sounds like some problems over there....

gaiusmarius · Jun 7, 2010

at this point i can say that 1.5ml per lt eucalyptus oil is probably too much and still causing plants to suffer after a dunk.

tonight i will try 3ml neem, 0.8ml eucalyptus, 0.2ml mineral oil and 0.2 of soap per lt. i imagine they will survive that.

for the moment this is a nice learning experience. as for the ingredients being harmless, yes harmless to humans, but it still seem to kill the seedlings lol. so just maybe the right dose will help. in the end the seedlings are only going out doors anyway. once my re vegging project has succeeded, or failed, i can still use the nuclear option if my experiments haven't met with success by that time. for now let the battle continue along conventional lines, the spider mites infantry against my eucalyptus scented neem riders

the idea of using the natural hate that mites have for eucalyptus against them sounds so cool. while the dunking in neem alone should at least kill all the living and hatched mites.

anyway another thing i wanted to try get some feedback on was what ph do people make their sprays at? do you bother about the ph when you spray some thing?

:wave:

DIGITALHIPPY · Jun 8, 2010

good luck man.
a heavyer dose of neem might drown the mites while being less detromental then eucalyptus...to add constructive help...

gaiusmarius · Jun 8, 2010

roflmao drown the mites...

i read about avid and it says that shit stays in the plant basically for ever? is that correct info?

twiztidbudsmoke · Jun 8, 2010

yes very bad stuff avid stay away from it! can cause nerve damage to you, and possibly make you sterile! Ive read it stays in 6wks or more!

gaiusmarius · Jun 9, 2010

plant survived the last dosage, but it was still effected to badly for a standard spray or dunk procedure. i have been correcting the ph on the mixture too and always dunking the plant away from the hps and letting it fully dry before putting it back under the light.

anyway at this point i know that as DigitalHippy said, the eucalyptus is still too highly concentrated. i guess the next logical step is to try it with 0.5ml per lt eucalyptus or even 0.4ml while keeping the rest of the ingredients the same, i.e. neem at 3 ml per lt, soap and oil at 0.2ml per lt.

btw those jiffy pots are darn useful for popping 10 out of 10 seedlings, did it 2x in a row now using those jiffy pots to sprout them, no glass water or napkin, just 2ml deep and a good soak and 2 days later your beans are sprouted, just as good as rock wool, but much nicer to use.

will post pics tomorrow of the plant i treated with the last mixture, deffinetly looking better then any of the earlier experiments, but they are all dead, so that doesn't say all that much really :laughing:

gaiusmarius · Jun 9, 2010

twiztidbudsmoke said:
yes very bad stuff avid stay away from it! can cause nerve damage to you, and possibly make you sterile! Ive read it stays in 6wks or more!

will it make my dick fall off too possibly? lol

so it's in there for only 6 weeks? that wouldn't be too bad for mother plants i guess. but i will keep this neem experiment going for now.

just in case anyone is interested this is why i'm going to such lengths

some lady on a orchid forum said:
anti mite recepy

This may not be important but it may be the answer to a very large problem
> in tc labs. It stems from an observation I have made during many years of
> growing ( and tissue culturing ) orchids. Red spider mite and five spotted
> mites are significant pests in any greenhouse with long-term resident plants
> such as orchids, bonsia, etc. The crops are not rotated out -so once a mite
> population becomes established it is very very hard to control.
> We have found a majic bullet for controlling insect/mite populations in our
> collections.It is a mixture of light mineral oil (pharmacy), Neem oil,
> detergent(dish washing variety), and oil of eucalyptus(pharmacy). The
> mineral oil is a sticker and extender of the other constituents. The Neem
> oil is a broad-spectrum insecticide. The detergent is an emulsifier for the
> various oils and the oil of eucalyptus is a powerful miticide. Two important
> points about this mixture are; it is edible (non-toxic) and it has an
> extremely long residual effect. It seems that mites have a particular hatred
> of oil of eucalyptus. Two applications per year have cleared the entire
> greenhouse of these pests 100%, with no hazardous chemical use. Using
> synthetic products with serious potential for harm (personal and
> environmental) produced a losing battle in the same conditions (cygon,
> aramid, etc). Let me know if you would like the proportions.
> The reason that I am mentioning this is to suggest that a similar mix
> including oil of eucalyptus may be useful in the flask room. It may only be
> necessary to leave some trays of evaporating oil near the flasks to drive
> mites out of the area- or to combine that with an initial spray. I have not
> done any experiments with including it in the growing medium but that is
> another option that you might look at. I can tell you that mites go the
> other way when oil of eucalyptus is around.
>

the prospect of 2 treatments a year for mums and peace after that is just too tempting.

:wave:

gaiusmarius · Jun 9, 2010

just to show folks what kind of damage the mixture has been doing to the seedlings, i'm posting a few more pics.....

first off one of the reasons i even have to worry about mites on freshla hatched seedlings. this is one of 5 plants i wanted to re veg, but they all had a bad case of mites and the first 2 didn't survive the first chemical mite spray i gave them. while 2 more have recently taken a turn for the worse after i switched to a hps 250 instead of a 200 watt cfl. anyway this one is the most rare of these, so if she makes it i will be happy, the other phenos will be easy to replace from seed.

next up we have the first survivor, that i killed by trying it on a weaker mix, pic before second dunk lol. then come the most recent survivor. as you can see she still didn't enjoy the dunking at all.

then we have the rest of them and the new batch waiting to join their 3 sisters in the great out doors.

will update with the end dosage which i feel i'm very close to working out now.

i imagine 3ml neem, 0.4ml eucalyptus oil, 0.2 ml mineral oil and 0.2 ml of soap per liter will turn out to be the one that doesn't have any negative effects on the plants. still have to test this theory though, then it will be time to test the effectiveness if any, roflmao.

peace

Scrogerman · Jun 14, 2010

Hey Dude, ill find the link to the thread but you may or may not have seen it. theres a simple DIY mixture ive seen here somewhere, involving mixing Bicarbonate of Soda & Vinegar, either apple Cider Vinegar or SulPhite Free Vinegar, as long as it contains no sulphites it fine in the mix, They were using a couple of other basic ingredients in the mix like Apple peels & a spreader(Soap) but they were saying that the Borg Imploded & the Eggs exploded after just one use. You had to wash off (spritz) with clean water or young shoots etc would burn but the stuff sounded soo fookin effective i have to give it a whirl. I may have a premature Borg infestation & for the first time i really hope i have so i can try out this DIY simple home recipe, like i said the main two ingredients were Bicarbonate of Soda & Vinegar, Diluted of course. Now i gotta go find the link man, i'll be back with thatsoon with a bit of luck. if anyone else has heard of this simple mix feel free to chime in and advise!

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