Phychotron
Member
Was battling some spider mites recently and went to get some sort of organic/late flower spray to slow them down before they took over entirely. 2 plants were webbing over on the to colas and there were eggs showing on plants across the room.
Basically I was looking at the sprays and they were saying the best stuff is the natural oils that kill directly with contact/consumption, not as a poison acting on the nervous system. I saw a lot of emulsions of essential oils like rosemary, peppermint, citronella, etc and one called Orange Guard, basically an emulsion of 5.9% Limonene in water. I happened to have all those in my cupboard for making salves and decided to make my own mixture up.
Limonene is a terpene that is found naturally in a lot of strains of Cannabis, but not all (The Grapegod I tested was 0%) which is why I was the most interested in it. I originally got it as a potential bong cleaner, but realized it might have potential flavoring lower grade bud somehow, but never really explored it. I've also learned about LHO--Limonene Hash Oil using buds that are frozen with liquid nitrogen.
So to emulsify the Limonene in water I used a little bit of vegetable wax emulsifier and a bit of potassium silicate. Sprayed the plants down pretty good and the majority of the mites were gone, with only one visible web on the cola that was in the very back where we couldn't spray it entirely.
Most of the plants took it very well, with a little bit of burning on a few spots but not anything very serious. The plants got harvested about a week later and seem to smoke fine. I forgot to wash them later that day, and we did spray at lights on because my partner didn't want to spray before he went to work when the lights turned out.
At that time I also sprayed down about 40 month old clones with the same spray, then dipped in a Neem oil bath and most of them took it fine. Maybe three or four had some die-back on the leaf, but most took it really well. The next week I hit them again with less emulsifier but forgot to rinse them afterward. About half are showing some sort of burn/die back since then.
What I was wondering is if anyone else has used Limonene effectively, or know a good plant-friendly emulsifier.
Basically I was looking at the sprays and they were saying the best stuff is the natural oils that kill directly with contact/consumption, not as a poison acting on the nervous system. I saw a lot of emulsions of essential oils like rosemary, peppermint, citronella, etc and one called Orange Guard, basically an emulsion of 5.9% Limonene in water. I happened to have all those in my cupboard for making salves and decided to make my own mixture up.
Limonene is a terpene that is found naturally in a lot of strains of Cannabis, but not all (The Grapegod I tested was 0%) which is why I was the most interested in it. I originally got it as a potential bong cleaner, but realized it might have potential flavoring lower grade bud somehow, but never really explored it. I've also learned about LHO--Limonene Hash Oil using buds that are frozen with liquid nitrogen.
So to emulsify the Limonene in water I used a little bit of vegetable wax emulsifier and a bit of potassium silicate. Sprayed the plants down pretty good and the majority of the mites were gone, with only one visible web on the cola that was in the very back where we couldn't spray it entirely.
Most of the plants took it very well, with a little bit of burning on a few spots but not anything very serious. The plants got harvested about a week later and seem to smoke fine. I forgot to wash them later that day, and we did spray at lights on because my partner didn't want to spray before he went to work when the lights turned out.
At that time I also sprayed down about 40 month old clones with the same spray, then dipped in a Neem oil bath and most of them took it fine. Maybe three or four had some die-back on the leaf, but most took it really well. The next week I hit them again with less emulsifier but forgot to rinse them afterward. About half are showing some sort of burn/die back since then.
What I was wondering is if anyone else has used Limonene effectively, or know a good plant-friendly emulsifier.
