Broad Mite Confirmation?

[Occiput]

Hi,

I've been seeing what I thought was a calcium deficiency on my plant, consisting of orange spots and "bronzing" of some leaves, but after reading that the bronzing can be a symptom of broad mites, I took a look at some of the damaged leaves and I think I found some. Whatever the issue is has most heavily affected older leaves, and I haven't seen any of the typical bubbly or distorted looking damage on any leaves. I know broad mites usually target new growth, but all the new growth looks perfect. I just flipped to flower two days ago, so I'd like to get this in order within the next few weeks if broad mites are indeed the problem, as I understand that they particularly like buds.

Here are a few examples of damage:

And a few grainy shots of the suspected mites:

It would be nice to use some predatory mites to control these if you guys think it's possible, especially since it seems like a minor infestation, but I would use chemicals if need be since flowers aren't forming yet.

What do you guys think? Broad mites?

 

[blondie]

I’ll take a stab here until someone else comes along. The bugs look a bit like aphids to me but hard to say with certainty. I also think you are over
Nuted. Your leaf tips are dead and some of your images the leaf edges are starting to get crispy.

 

[ojd]

Defo not broadmites , some other pest.
But I don't belive that has caused the rust spots, thats something else

 

[Creeperpark]

Spider mites Friend. You can see the magnified chew spots on the top of the leaves. If you are in veg you may want to spray your plants down with something. When I had them, I used cold-pressed neem oil with a drop of dishsoap in warm RO water. Spray on the top and bottom of the leaves well leaving a film on the leaves. There are different cycles of growth with mites, so you will need to treat every 3 days and repeat for up to 12 days to kill the freshly hatched eggs. Don't use neem when close to flowering

 

[Occiput]

I’ll take a stab here until someone else comes along. The bugs look a bit like aphids to me but hard to say with certainty. I also think you are over
Nuted. Your leaf tips are dead and some of your images the leaf edges are starting to get crispy.

They are super tiny, barely visible to the eye. Are there aphids that are that small? I was a little heavy on nutes for a while, then screwed up my watering timer, so there has definitely been some nuts burn. I’m going to keep an eye on my runoff EC to make sure everything is ok.

Defo not broadmites , some other pest.
But I don't belive that has caused the rust spots, thats something else

Thanks, good to know, I’ll look for other causes of spots like that.

Spider mites Friend. You can see the magnified chew spots on the top of the leaves. If you are in veg you may want to spray your plants down with something. When I had them, I used cold-pressed neem oil with a drop of dishsoap in warm RO water. Spray on the top and bottom of the leaves well leaving a film on the leaves. There are different cycles of growth with mites, so you will need to treat every 3 days and repeat for up to 12 days to kill the freshly hatched eggs. Don't use neem when close to flowering

Do spider mites not always leave webs? There haven’t been any on this plant. I’ve also seen spider mites on other people’s plants before, and I could see them crawling around and being pretty active. These things are almost too small to see and don’t seem to move much. There also aren’t many, I had to look for a while to find these. Does that sound right? Unfortunately I’m about a week into flowering, so I’m not too into the idea of spraying anything. Have you used any predatory mites before?

 

[CannaRed]

They are super tiny, barely visible to the eye. Are there aphids that are that small? I was a little heavy on nutes for a while, then screwed up my watering timer, so there has definitely been some nuts burn. I’m going to keep an eye on my runoff EC to make sure everything is ok.

Thanks, good to know, I’ll look for other causes of spots like that.

Do spider mites not always leave webs? There haven’t been any on this plant. I’ve also seen spider mites on other people’s plants before, and I could see them crawling around and being pretty active. These things are almost too small to see and don’t seem to move much. There also aren’t many, I had to look for a while to find these. Does that sound right? Unfortunately I’m about a week into flowering, so I’m not too into the idea of spraying anything. Have you used any predatory mites before?

They don't start webbing until there's a bigger infestation. If you start to see webbing then you've already missed the first signs of attack.
If I'm already in flower I'll spray Doctor Zymes, it's just enzymes and citric acid. If I was just 1 week I to flower and the buds aren't forming yet, I'll spray something like spinosad, pyrethrin, azamax, venerate, or grandevo.

 

[Occiput]

They don't start webbing until there's a bigger infestation. If you start to see webbing then you've already missed the first signs of attack.
If I'm already in flower I'll spray Doctor Zymes, it's just enzymes and citric acid. If I was just 1 week I to flower and the buds aren't forming yet, I'll spray something like spinosad, pyrethrin, azamax, venerate, or grandevo.

Cool, thanks for the info. The only spider mite infestations I’ve seen have been pretty advanced with webs and heavy speckling on the leaves. I’ll check out the sprays you mentioned.

 

[Occiput]

Just wanted to give a quick update on this situation, I've used "nuke 'em" three times a day at standard strength on three separate days now. About a week ago I noticed this type of damage:

on a few leaves all clustered together in one area. I took a close look at them and didn't see anything suspicious, other than the damage itself. Other than that, I haven't seen any more indication of mites. No eggs, and I haven't seen anything crawling around on the leaves. I've looked by eye and with a 10x loupe. The eggs I found before were visible to the naked eye.

I think I'm going to spray on one more day, and then release some predatory mites just in case. Other than just monitoring for more damage, are there any suggestions as to how to tell if the mites have been eradicated?