Broad mites: ID and Organic Antidotes that work!

[RetroGrow]

Anyone know if this is broadmites? Been looking at 'em w/a a loupe, haven't been able to id anything though. Can make out some small white bits, but can't tell if they're eggs or not.

Yup. You got them. Cut off some affected leaves, and examine the undersides of leaves with a microscope. You will see eggs. Note: trichomes, which are everywhere, are not eggs. Eggs are found ONLY on the undersides of leaves. Often times, you will never see a mite. They are averse to light, and hide in the daytime/lights on. The eggs can't hide! That's how you ID them. Dose your plants with aspirin to stop the toxin damage, and set up a heat treatment, and you will see immediate recovery. The new growth will be fine. In your case, with significant damage showing, you can up the aspirin dosage from one 325 Mg. tablet to 2 or 3. Won't hurt them at all. Boosts the plants natural immune response, and it's also a growth hormone. Plants love it. Tons of evidence to support this which can be found by Googling.

 

[mtntrogger]

just reading through your post.. "home made cabs" are they made out of wood?!
i bet theres all sorts of pests in the wood
thing is i bet you, as its normal you used the same equipment for all plants.. so in the end if one plant had something.. would just be a matter of time the next one gets it..
i truly think if you get your room into the 140F zone for 2-3 hrs or even half a day if you can you will get 99% dead.. with the heat also comes the dryness... they dont like really dry.. 20% RH and 140F will make them run.. once you have killed most or all in the house ye, the hard thing will be to keep em out.
near to impossible i would think, so you gotta keep your gard up with IPM sure.. predetors and PFR should take care of this...
also im with 50 on this that hat water will kill them too.. i would use that to wipe everything down once the other steps have been carefully completed..
yeah use asprin from day one... or willow water for the roots and added beefit SA and weekly asprin dosages..
keep your head up man, take your time and get set up again properly..
you will have a nice harvest in no time

Thanks brother ! Fucking helpful post ! Felt better by the time I finished reading it. You are spot on , and yes my homemade veg cabs were made of 1x1's wrapped with panda plastic (and tons of duct tape !)I have tossed em and all pots. Gonna hit the rest of the equipment with heat , steam , bleach, peroxide , repeatedly then maybe bomb. Starting from seed (after sterilizing) in brand new tents. Should be sometime around march for another harvest. NOTE : I think these things really effect the way the bud cures. The flowers from this harvest of mited nugs didnt seem to cure...lost any decent aroma and the drier buds never sweated like normal

 

[mtntrogger]

Bro, you're going about this the wrong way. The solution has been spelled out for you. Heat treatment is simple and foolproof. Once you get the temps dialed in after a bit of trial and error, you are set. You can have a heat treatment at any time. Can be repeated to deal with new arrivals that come in from your yard or house. You have been getting some bad advice. 120 degrees F is all you need to know, for one hour. Once you have tried it, you will never be buying chems again. Broad/cyclamen mites are really small. Their bodies cannot dissipate heat. Once the temp gets up to the 115 area, they are toast. Their bodies swell and they explode. They are dead. On the plants and in the room, and on any equipment in the room. I have done this successfully many times, and so have others. I was plagued by these fuckers for 3 years, before even knowing what was happening. I went through all the chem applications, bug bombs, "no pest strips", miticides...you name it. When I tried the heat treatment the first time, all mites vanished...permanently. I had tried hot water dips first, and it fucked up the plants, so don't waste your time on that. Hot air does the trick. Once you try it, problem solved. Just do not have fans blowing hot air on the plants. That will do leaf damage. You can repeat treatment at any time, and no wasting money on miticides.
Also, pictures earlier of undersides of leaves are showing trichomes, NOT eggs. If you have BMs, you will have eggs on the undersides of leaves. Eggs can't hide. Mites can/do hide, and are often impossible to see, until they are dead. If you are not seeing eggs, you do not have BMs. Note that BMs aren't the only things that can mess up plants in that manner. RAs can do major damage, so make sure you are not dealing with root aphids.
If I ever get BMs again, I know how to deal with them. Read any paper on broad mites and you will see references to heat treatments. In commercial greenhouses, where they grow peppers and other fruits, they use heat treatments to control broad/cyclamen mites. They use hot water dips, which, as explained, does not work on Cannabis. But, hot air does. They absolutely cannot survive it. 120 F will NOT hurt plants. They love it!

Thank retro , man I really appreciate you jumping in here. I have read and re read like every post youve made,on this and the other threads. all the way back to when you discovered you had em. I DID do 1 heat treatment during the flower cycle that got up to 122. Tried it a couple of times after , but wasnt able to get above 112. Sorry for being reluctant, I have read so many peeps saying heat treatments didnt do shit for them, but it obviously has worked for you. I am gonna give it another go as well as a lap or 2 with a steam wand. Thanks again boss!

 

[RetroGrow]

I just don't believe this works.......

Believe what you want. The simple fact is: It most certainly DOES work. If you can follow simple instructions, that is. If it did not work, I wouldn't be posting that it did. Not to mention that I have dozens of messages from people who successfully saved their crop by using it, including some well known growers & breeders. It works 100%. I can go to any person's grow and wipe out the BM infestation in one day. I have already done this in other's rooms. There is a business that specializes in killing pests with heat:
www.pestheat.com
Every living creature has a temperature at which it cannot survive. Luckily for us, broad and cyclamen mites are extremely heat sensitive. There is a reason commercial greenhouse have been using heat treatments for many decades. It's the most efficient means of killing them, without having to deal with nasty/expensive chems.
"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink".
The title of the thread is "organic antidotes that work". It doesn't get any more organic than heat. On the other hand, neonicotinide poisons are not organic. If you get them in flower, you cannot use poisons, although some still do. Completely unnecessary.

 

[blueberrydrumz]

yo retro..
your advice and contribution has allways been helpfull since i have joined ic..
i have to intervene on your post bout hot water dips though.. they do work, and work very well.. i have treated around 50 plants that way till now, sure 3-4 died, but it was just to late for them... 120F complete dunks for 5 min killed root aphids and fungus gnats etc..
healthy roots started appearing 3-4 days later - works really well..
good as a second step after heat treatment to really be sure!!
bless

 

[blueberrydrumz]

Believe what you want...
"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink".

haha retro.. go get em son

 

[mtntrogger]

mad love and respect for all the good peeps on here ! time for a bong !

 

[milkyjoe]

You notice how soil temp never got adressed.

You can lead a horse to bullshit to

 

[mtntrogger]

You notice how soil temp never got adressed.

You can lead a horse to bullshit to

Correct , has not been adressed thoroughly, Thankfully at the moment I dont have any soil. No need to call bullshit... be part of the solution instead of part of the problem . If we see a pic actually showing a room with a temp of 120 or over clearly displayed, Then a scope shot of several infected leaves , before and after it could indisputably be said that this works. Some one with a current infestation on live plants should try this experiment for us (with photo documentation) . IF (PIA) I can find some eggs or live mites on any of my gear with the scope , I will gladly post the results. Either prove it or disprove it right ?

 

[milkyjoe]

Please do

 

[redlaser]

ive not had broad or russets yet that Im aware of, but I've tried the hot air treatments as well as the warm water dips and had eventual successes with plant survival in both. With hot air room size and plant height need to be ideal to get the correct range of temps. Two to three foot plants are ideal because each foot of height loses a degree or two as you go up or down. The smaller the room the less heat you have to generate. I used it on bonsai mums (mum mom's) and had losses when temps reached 122. I try to get to 116-117 at soil surface and on a two foot plant the top will reach about 120. 115 is listed as killing from what I read. UC Davis's website lists 110 degrees at 30 minutes for water treatments for broad mites. I've tried to do this about a dozen times with 3-4 inch cuttings and finally get 75% to turn out/survive. I am just doing it on the stove, so regulating temps could be refined. The cuttings float so I lay a pencil on top of them so they stay within the top half inch of water. I've found that cannabis cannot handle 112 degree water, and probably upper 111 as well. the trick is maintaining/ monitoring the temp for thirty minutes.

 

[SooperSmurph]

So, on the subject of the seemingly toughest mites in the world, when I was fighting the devils I turned to super high doses of Azamax after reading a study conducted in Brazil on chili peppers, they need huge doses of Azadirachtin to reach a negative population growth rate, around 2-3x the recommended dosage of Azamax, which will make your plants ABSOLUTELY MISERABLE but will eventually get rid of your broad mites, then the plants can recover without the smothering neem concentrate and broad mite toxins. Aspirin too, of course.

 

[mtntrogger]

ive not had broad or russets yet that Im aware of, but I've tried the hot air treatments as well as the warm water dips and had eventual successes with plant survival in both. With hot air room size and plant height need to be ideal to get the correct range of temps. Two to three foot plants are ideal because each foot of height loses a degree or two as you go up or down. The smaller the room the less heat you have to generate. I used it on bonsai mums (mum mom's) and had losses when temps reached 122. I try to get to 116-117 at soil surface and on a two foot plant the top will reach about 120. 115 is listed as killing from what I read. UC Davis's website lists 110 degrees at 30 minutes for water treatments for broad mites. I've tried to do this about a dozen times with 3-4 inch cuttings and finally get 75% to turn out/survive. I am just doing it on the stove, so regulating temps could be refined. The cuttings float so I lay a pencil on top of them so they stay within the top half inch of water. I've found that cannabis cannot handle 112 degree water, and probably upper 111 as well. the trick is maintaining/ monitoring the temp for thirty minutes.

Thanks red, so would you say that my idea of using a hand held steam wand will not work since I won't be holding it in one spot for 30 minutes continuously ? I was under the impression that heat the temperature of steam would kill the adults and eggs within a second or two ?

 

[mtntrogger]

So, on the subject of the seemingly toughest mites in the world, when I was fighting the devils I turned to super high doses of Azamax after reading a study conducted in Brazil on chili peppers, they need huge doses of Azadirachtin to reach a negative population growth rate, around 2-3x the recommended dosage of Azamax, which will make your plants ABSOLUTELY MISERABLE but will eventually get rid of your broad mites, then the plants can recover without the smothering neem concentrate and broad mite toxins. Aspirin too, of course.[/QUOTE
Thanks for the info smurph, I am taking all advice and approaches seriously and with great appreciation . I Will try this if it comes to it in the future. Taking notes of everything people have said worked for them

 

[Intimea]

... Taking notes of everything people have said worked for them

Look at this

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=246324

 

[blueberrydrumz]

milky, its common sence that heating a room to 120 or even 140 will take some time no? depending on how you heat your room, but by the time you reach 120 and keep it at that for 30 min the soil will also have that tempreture.. maybe you can deduct 5-10F..
but to be sure, i said do complete dunks at 120F and then you are 100% certain that the soil reaches that temp too..
anyway it works, its a proven horticultural method so pls take your negativity elsewhere
all the best

 

[milkyjoe]

Maybe depends on the mass of the soil. One yard beds aren't heating up 40 degrees anytime soon

 

[redlaser]

Thanks red, so would you say that my idea of using a hand held steam wand will not work since I won't be holding it in one spot for 30 minutes continuously ? I was under the impression that heat the temperature of steam would kill the adults and eggs within a second or two ?

Hot steam is more effective than hot air, it doesn't need to be applied as long. I believe it's used for bedbugs extensively. Don't have any steam experience though.


@blueberrydrumz, can you go into your hot water dip procedure a bit more as far as thermometers used and survival rates? I wasn't able to find any literature that listed cannabis as a candidate for warm water treatment. Cannabis is very sensitive to warm water, can't imagine going over 111-112 degrees with survival but I'm open to new ideas.

 

[blueberrydrumz]

google first page.. couple of links,

outtake of one of the ones:
http://ucanr.edu/sites/UCNFAnews/Regional_Report_San_Diego_and_Riverside_Counties/Spring_2013__Hot_Water_Treatments_to_Control_Pests/

Spring 2013: Hot Water Treatments to Control Pests
Regional Report San Diego and Riverside Counties by James A. Bethke

Although I only know one local grower that uses hot water to control major pests prior to shipping their product, Hawaii frequently uses the technique. You may be aware that cut flowers and foliage from Hawaii are dipped in hot water baths, but did you know that potted nursery stock can also be disinfested by hot water treatments? This has been achieved in commercial nurseries by retrofitting the cargo area of trailers into large shower stalls where the hot water treatments are applied. Dr. Arnold Hara, professor of entomology in the Department of Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, helped develop effective hot water bath and hot water shower treatments against pests of quarantine significance on cut flowers and foliage, propagative material and potted plants. He has demonstrated that selected insects, invertebrates and vertebrates (Coqui frog) can be controlled with hot water and not harm plant material. Dr. Hara and his colleagues believe that quarantine hot water treatments can be adjusted to any specific risk level, including zero tolerance. The information below summarizes some of their work, but more details — including temperature and duration required to kill specific pest species, and photos of the bath and shower systems used in Hawaii — can be found in Dr. Hara’s presentation at the 2011 American Society of Horticultural Science (ASHS) meeting posted on his website at:
http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/haraa/ASHSSystemsApproach092711Hara_rev (NXPowerLite pptx).pdf

this is nothing substantial, but just saying it is beeing used as bug treatment
where it says: "Theyre in Hot Water now"
https://books.google.es/books?id=UeDHKeYd0KcC&pg=PA170&lpg=PA170&dq=hot+water+plant+treatment+bugs&source=bl&ots=gzUYbyCafb&sig=bAdFONyRvblXVXV8KzLNLOAE4-U&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0CDkQ6AEwBDgKahUKEwiu8Obn7djIAhVIbhQKHZpsDJA#v=onepage&q=hot%20water%20plant%20treatment%20bugs&f=false

 

[redlaser]

@blueberrydrumz, can you go into your hot water dip procedure a bit more as far as thermometers used and survival rates? I wasn't able to find any literature that listed cannabis as a candidate for warm water treatment. Cannabis is very sensitive to warm water, can't imagine going over 111-112 degrees with survival but I'm open to new ideas.

Yes, I'm aware of warm water treatments for many other plants, my question was concerning cannabis and your experience with that. From personal experience cannabis is unable to survive water temps of 112 degrees or more, so advising others that it's do-able to go to 120 degrees is unfounded unless you've successfully done it, unless Im missing something here.