spider mites

[growkind]

those little fuckers are small. i use a 5x magnifing glass.
i mixed up a batch of this solution and sprayed 2 of my moms and the stuff works. i then picked off a couple fan leaves and looked and nothin. i found one still alive, but it seems to do the trick. there seems to be little black spots in areas, are those the eggs? i will respray tomorrow, and follow up tomorrow

 

[wildheart]

Mites are with us... forever! But no worries...!

Mites are with us... forever! But no worries...!

Hi Growkind,

Not sure where you may be, but getting Avid in California has become a bit more of a challenge the last couple of years, but still the ultimate shit, if strong chemical products are something you are willing to work with.

I've heard an anecdotal story about how Avid was developed/improved and sounded interesting - supposedly they researched spider mite life and discovered that they generally sleep out the daytime underneath the leaf and during nightfall they come out to the top of the leaf and feed, supposedly by biting into the TOP of the leaf, during lights out. This leads to notion that one needn't worry about spraying underside of leaves which, lets all call a spade a spade - spraying the underside of leaves is a huge pain in the ass. One reason being that a sprayer has not really been developed, that I know about, that allows for an easy way to apply something to the BOTTOM of the leaf. I'm working on this and will be happy to sell them to you all soon!

Seriously, I think most of us who do this on ongoing basis realize that you have to become extremely adept at 'managing' spider mites because, other than through heavy chemical means, there can be really no way to 'eliminate' them for more than a few weeks or maybe months. But management is excellent, safer and more natural.

Floramite is simply soy oil if I'm not mistaken, and have heard great things about it but effective treatment can still be had for far less than $250/quart. Imagine a vineyard owner having to pay $250/quart to take care of his spider mite problems and you start to get an idea of how badly we get peeled by this industry (make the packaging in reggae colors, charge more!!! call it something very cooooool like 'Liquid Karma' and screw 'em even harder!!!! Yay!!!) not to say there aren't some great new products out there... personally I actually really like Liq. Kar.!

I used to 'bleach my room', I used to 'clean my buckets religiously with bleach after each grow' what a waste of time. Yes there may be mites hanging out on your walls but ask yourself, if you were a mite would you? If you were a mite, and were hungry, and you were somewhere in a room in which you could sense plants (smell, sight?) wouldn't you be making your way to the food? Sam Kinnison said it best in an excellent rant "GO TO WHERE THE FOOD IS!!!!!!!!!!!" It just makes sense.

It's amazing the amount of needless work I used to put myself through.

If you don't have access to Avid, or even if you do, I highly reccomend Einstein Oil, a fabulous product imho, and natural. With new stuff I transplant to medium, wait a few days to see things start up, and then hit them with Avid. 7 Days later, same thing, 5 days later I start a 5 day rotational spraying of Einstein Oil providing for excellent 'control'. I never have any tenting, webbing or other problems, even though, at harvest I can always find a few living breathing mites somewhere in my room but hey, given there under 'control' who cares!

Good Luck,


Wildheart

 

[growkind]

Thanks for the input wildheart, but i used the apple cider/baking soda mix and it works great, along with the Hot Shot pest strips and after just 1 day, and checking several plants, it seems im winning the battle. i hear you about scrubbing everything down can be tedious and time consuming, but wheres a mite to go if theres no food? what else can they live on, besides plants?
I went into my bloom room and removed all the lower foilage on my plants tonite and hund a couple pest strips in there also. i do believe i caught the problem early so hopefully it isnt a uphill battle

 

[Guest]

> 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.
>
> All the best

Again, thanks to whoever posted this originally. Rinse the plant off after a day with clean water.. and spray the other mix on there after a couple more days. Repeat process...​

 

[Rosy Cheeks]

Bartender outlined the most realistic approach to this problem, and I dare say that not even his most radical approach is foolproof.

A lot of growers here recommend no pest strips. They do that because it's easy, you just hang it in there and poof the problem seems to be solved.

Nevertheless, everything is not so rosy with the no pest strips. The insecticide vapors they distribute contain a chemical compound called Dichlorvos (or DDVP, generally mixed with other related compounds) that attack the central nervous system in humans in high doses, which is why if used in growrooms connected to living quarters with improper ventilation or if for instance the growroom extraction is recycled indoors, they can be a health hazard

It is believed that Dichlorvos causes cancer in people. A study in rats and mice reported that rats exposed to Dichlorvos had an increase in cancer of the pancreas and in leukemia, and female mice had an increase in stomach cancer after they were exposed to dichlorvos for 2 years.

The (American) Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has determined that Dichlorvos may reasonably be anticipated to be a carcinogen. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has determined that Dichlorvos is possibly carcinogenic to humans. The EPA has determined that Dichlorvos is a probable human carcinogen.

In northern Europe and some Asian countries, Dichlorvos is forbidden for use, not only because its probable carcinogen qualities, but also because its high toxicity to "good" insects such as honey bees.

So it seems evident that while some growers avoid spraying their buds with toxic products because they don't like to smoke it later, they apparently don't mind inhaling it. Seems to me the risks are the same, one way or another.

 

[bartender187]

^^^
Thank you for that into. I knew the active in ingredient in those strips had to be some pretty raw stuff.

 

[LemonCake]

hey guys, i want to do a little intro here.. i am from the old og days 99-04ish.. i had a few good post on og about this subject.. now i am not sure about what new treatments that are out there since i have been clean of mites since 04 but i will say this.. i tryed EVERYTHING...tobacco mixtures ...oils ...soaps..everything.. dipping the plants.. none of that will work to kill them off to the point that they will not come back.. i am hoping someone out there has come up with a better solution than Avid... its just nasty stuff.. but in the end.. its worth saving those select cuts...in my case my prize lemoncake cut ment allot to me..so in short.. to save your room .. i suggest avid.. if someone has come across a better solution i am allll ears.. the thing about mites that makes the rest of the products poor solutions is.. mites become immune to the soaps and the eggs dont all get suffacated by the oils... on top of that .. the breeding in the millions.....its an endless fight.. you need avid.. is like an atomic bomb for mites..
i hope i could help
best
LC

 

[macassa420]

I just started using Vapona brand No Pest Strips in my growroom and the mites have dissapeared.I also gave the growroom a good cleaning and sprayed once with a can of Dr. Doom mitecide.

 

[wildheart]

That's the beauty of the notion...

That's the beauty of the notion...

Hey Growkind,

... is that you don't care! What? All we ever care about is if those little fuckers are nibbling our babes, so who cares if their hanging out on our wallls?

Follow this notion further... if our plants are not getting eaten by them, then let them infest the room (!) - obviously I'm exagerating, but it offers perhaps a new perspective that can make life truly easier. We are surrounded by mites. They are everywhere. Start taking your left over Avid sprayer out and walk around the perimeter of your house... now you're starting to make a difference! But is that what we want to do? spread this chemical everywhere... Hmmm, no. FOOTBATHS!

Great idea, I think. Take a cat littler box or something similar and put about a 1/2 " of hot water in, then add about a cup of bleach and mix it up. Place this just infront of the door to your project. This is called a 'footbath' - use it as such upon every entry to your space and if you've been having problems with mites this step can cut down on those problems significantly over the course of a couple of months of continued use.

Growers have to understand that effective mite control is a mix of many approaches using a variety of products such as Avid, Einstein Oil, footbaths, sulpher sprays, Floramite, oil sprays, etc.

Good luck with it growkind,


Wildheart

 

[capthardbud]

good thread here, lots of info on what mites dont like. now here is what they like. Hot and Dry conditions, house plants that just sit and get dusty, and the great outdoors. So before you use poison it helps to weaken them by dropping temps and raising humidity. If you only clean the grow room it will get infested again from other plants in the house, they travel well on pets even a small breeze send them all over the house. The outside is full of them so take off your shoes and change cloths after outside gardening before you visit your growroom. They can sit outside under a rock all winter so its no problem for them to sit in the corner of your growroom and wait for conditions to get more to their liking. I new a guy he had an ultrasonic bug thingy didnt kill them but the corner cracks of the room were black with mites trying to hide. you will never get rid of all them bastards, keeping them to bare minimum will keep the girls happy. good luck

Hard

 

[Guest]

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=18473

I posted this link earlier in this thread and it seems no one has looked at it...seems the advice on poisons have taken presidence. That link provides a recipe of non toxic ingrediants that works like a friggun miricle. I have used it with 2 dfferant bouts of mites and had excellant results both times.

baking soda
lemon juice
apple cider vinegar
epsom salt
dishsoap.

That mixture not only kills the mites but it dissolves their bodys and eggs as well!


Seed

 

[twiztidbudsmoke]

guys I also have to say that baby praying mantis are the shit too and are proven to eat mites and mite eggs and truly are your weed plants best friend I grew these babies outside a few years ago and they had a family of mantis all over them constantly, they live on your plants and protect them! They even kept the grasshoppers away because these were at the end of a field where there was a fuckload of grasshoppers. these grew to a healthy 4.5 ft I felt bad it was just shwag seeds I had good chronic seeds but I was sure the mites would get them. its like $5 for 200 babies at my local nursery, cheap for such a helpful bug!


I lost my budshots to the loss of overgrow sadly this is only a cell phone pic when they were small

 

[growkind]

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=18473

I posted this link earlier in this thread and it seems no one has looked at it...seems the advice on poisons have taken presidence. That link provides a recipe of non toxic ingrediants that works like a friggun miricle. I have used it with 2 dfferant bouts of mites and had excellant results both times.

baking soda
lemon juice
apple cider vinegar
epsom salt
dishsoap.

That mixture not only kills the mites but it dissolves their bodys and eggs as well!


Seed

I did use the mix. i mixed a batch up and it does work, thatks for the thread. my moms look like they went thru a hurricane, and there are some burn spots. they might be stunted also, but are already showing signs of coming back strong. also hung a no pest strip in both veg/bloom rooms. removed lower foilage on all my plants that are in bloom and check for mites every so often on misc. leaves and nothing, i did find one on one of my moms, but it didnt move. Can anyone tell me what the black dots are on the leaves? are those the eggs? if so, i gotta gear up for round 2

 

[bartender187]

^^
No the eggs are lil white things that laid on the under side of the leaf near the veins. Dont know what your black dots are.

 

[MTF-Sandman]

The black specs are probably thrip or mite turds.

 

[Guest]

The black specs are probably thrip or mite turds.

I wonder what the NPK of mite guano is?

 

[LemonCake]

be ready for a second wave.. from past exsperiance .. they dont just go away with a couple dips.. your mums may seem to be ok....and dipping is a very good thing to do to help kill the eggs and try and wash them off.. just keep a close eye.. everytime a new veg room is setup.. oils are always used in the area around it and in it before setting pots.. your soil can be infested as well (that is if you are useing soil).. they are smart little bugs.. i must give them credit.. but.. just make sure to keep a mr clean mind when your going in your room or box or whatever it is you may have.. the clean foot idea.. is a good one.. its used in everything i have .. anyhow.. i hope you get through this.. and i know your pain.. on OG long ago in 2000 there was a great mite thread going.. anyhow.. good luck!

 

[Rolldaddy]

Should neam oil, avid, or any other spray be applied with the lights on?

 

[PuReKnOwLeDgE]

Rolldaddy- This thread is 5 years old haha, a newer more relevant thread being bumped with this question would have been better. Answer to your question is no, never spray anything on your plants with the lights on. The droplets can magnify and burn your plants, the mist can hit your bulb and cause it to blow. Whatever you decide to use do your research, many products such as the ones you mentioned in the right amount can burn your plants by themselves. I myself prefer floramite to kill these bastards dead when prevention fails.

 

[Raw_Dog]

Floramite SC. haven't seen a spidermite since the day I bought the bottle, back in 09-10.