Spider mites - What now?

Can't you get predators any more ? 20 odd years ago I had mites and I bought predators from Holland. A pot of sawdust that contained predator eggs / larvae . Invisible to the naked eye. I hung lots of yoghourt pots on branches , poured in a small amount of the sawdust into each, and within a day you could see small black predator insects marching up the leaves. They ate all the mites and their eggs, and then each other.
 
IvcusLongDankus said:
If you want to do it naturally then you could just go with some ladybugs. Ladybugs are generalist predators. They love aphids more tho. Predatory mites is something you also wanna look at
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Its something I will definitely look at for my future grows, but as I am nearly 5 weeks in for this one I want them nuked.
 
fartoblue said:
Just been and picked some more leaves and I am starting to doubt myself , there are no webs whatsoever and now I can't find any mites. They were there on the earlier leaves I picked just as lights came on. Would there be webs if it was spider mite?
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depends on how far the infestation has progressed...if it's just beginning, then they probably haven't gotten to the point they need to "commute"..of course, it might not be spider mites....i was just looking at those pics again...that actually looks more like thrip damage to me, than mite damage...but you would probably see thrips, little green fly looking bugs, have a wicked looking tail, looks like a sorpion stinger....makes no difference really, one is as bad as the other, and the steps to get rid of them are the same....just odd looking damage for mites...
 
No sprays
fartoblue said:
Never had spider mites before so once again my inexperience has caught up with me. Noticed white marks on leaves a few weeks ago but thought nothing of it. Seems to be affecting some plants more than others on really badly. Had a look through a jeweler's loupe and can see small greenish insects, not visible with the naked eye. Its my first try RDWC so just thought it was PH or something.

How bad is this?

So what now? will be 5 weeks into flower on Saturday. Just want them nuked as quickly as possible, all advice appreciated.
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at this point of flower I’d say use dawn dish soap and water. Tablespoon to a gallon of water and mix well. Use a sponge or soft cloth to wipe the fan leaves and as many smaller leaves you can get without getting the buds soapy. Practice on a leaf without a bud below it that the soapy water could end up dripping on. Dip sponge or cloth in soapy water and squeeze it out so there’s just enough to get the leaves a little sudsy but not drip off them or the sponge. Once you get that it’s a breeze. Do this twice a week. I also have mites at day 46. I’ve knocked down most of the population last two weeks.
 
fartoblue said:
If my camera will zoom in enough I will try and get a photo of the culprit tonight.
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i bought one of those USB microscopes for pretty cheap on ebay. it's zoomable and you can also take a snapshot of what you are looking at. makes checking trichomes super easy too.

have you started to think about how you got pests in your room? i got mine from clones i bought at a dispensary, should have quarantined them in hindsight.
 
danjac82 said:
No sprays

at this point of flower I’d say use dawn dish soap and water. Tablespoon to a gallon of water and mix well. Use a sponge or soft cloth to wipe the fan leaves and as many smaller leaves you can get without getting the buds soapy. Practice on a leaf without a bud below it that the soapy water could end up dripping on. Dip sponge or cloth in soapy water and squeeze it out so there’s just enough to get the leaves a little sudsy but not drip off them or the sponge. Once you get that it’s a breeze. Do this twice a week. I also have mites at day 46. I’ve knocked down most of the population last two weeks.
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it's not what you're spraying at this point, it's that you're spraying....anything that gets sprayed will get on your buds...do you want to smoke bud with a few mites in it? or do you want to smoke buds with fewer mites in it, but that now also has neem oil, or dish soap, or hot pepper sauce, or pesticide residue?....
i'm really not trying to be an asshole, but you're just kind of wasting your time. mites have legs, if you don't cover the entire plant with spray, they'll go to the parts that aren't covered, and stay there till whatever you use loses effectiveness....you're just forcing them off of your leaves into your buds...
 
Roger A. Shrubber said:
it's not what you're spraying at this point, it's that you're spraying....anything that gets sprayed will get on your buds...do you want to smoke bud with a few mites in it? or do you want to smoke buds with fewer mites in it, but that now also has neem oil, or dish soap, or hot pepper sauce, or pesticide residue?....
i'm really not trying to be an asshole, but you're just kind of wasting your time. mites have legs, if you don't cover the entire plant with spray, they'll go to the parts that aren't covered, and stay there till whatever you use loses effectiveness....you're just forcing them off of your leaves into your buds...
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I agree that no sprays should touch the buds for the same reason you mentioned so I’m on board with that. That’s why I do what I do with the soap. It doesn’t get on the buds and yea I’ll end up smoking a few mites. No issue here. What I’ve noticed through trial and error is that plants hit twice a week with dawn water stay healthier and don’t get as much leaf damage as a plant wiped with just water. If I leave a plant untreated with anything has significant more leaf loss , eventual webbing and yield can suffer. I wipe the entire leaf surface bottom and top. The dawn gets them and they’re really not running anywhere. Small sugar leaf don’t take on more damage. They’re not leaving to the buds (maybe a few)..they’re dying
 
danjac82 said:
I agree that no sprays should touch the buds for the same reason you mentioned so I’m on board with that. That’s why I do what I do with the soap. It doesn’t get on the buds and yea I’ll end up smoking a few mites. No issue here. What I’ve noticed through trial and error is that plants hit twice a week with dawn water stay healthier and don’t get as much leaf damage as a plant wiped with just water. If I leave a plant untreated with anything has significant more leaf loss , eventual webbing and yield can suffer. I wipe the entire leaf surface bottom and top. The dawn gets them and they’re really not running anywhere. Small sugar leaf don’t take on more damage. They’re not leaving to the buds (maybe a few)..they’re dying
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if it's working for you, keep it up.
 
Lol, if you really want to go to town on it and go the extra mile, dip a tiny paint brush into the dawn water and run it along the veins on underside of leaves. Really get it in there. Lol. I’ve done it when time is aplenty
 
rkymtnman said:
that's safe for buds too? i thought that was one of them that was OK to use in bloom
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It is safe to use in bloom.

It is made from a bacteria that is harmless to humans.

Its actually interesting. The bacteria can only be found on an island where a rum distillery was.

I've used it on everything from cannabis to veggie garden. If usimg it outside use it late or early. It is toxic to bees for 30 min after application.

I actually documented using it in one of my grow threads. Two foilar applications and mixed it with my water twice for systemic.

Ive used it a number of years now with no ill affects.
 
Ah yes, the classic little mother fuckers commonly referred to as Spider Mites... Being that you're 5 weeks into bloom, I wouldn't spray anything on your buds. And has already been stated; you need to DOUSE the entire plant with it being that they'll take refuge under leaves to hide. The best way I've seen people do this is to literally dip the entire plant in a neem oil solution. Another possibility would be to use a sulfur bomb but I don't know if that will affect the end result or leave residual sulfur in your product. Another solution, if you're running CO2, is to suffocate them by cranking it up and completely sealing your tent and turning off your fans. I've run into similar problems before and I tried predatory mites, ladybugs, every type of bug that supposedly eats them and nothing solved it. I got so desperate as to use a vacuum to suck them off of the buds. The best advice I can give is to ride it out, get a vacuum, and at the end of this grow bleach EVERYTHING. Spider mites are one of those problems which happen to most everyone, it's shitty, but its a learning experience.

- BD
 
fartoblue said:
What size room will this treat? I can only buy dry ice in 10kg blocks so could put a few pots in there.
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I couldn't say exactly what size room you could treat, as I don't know what the minimum concentration of co2 in the general body of air would work. On the few occasions I have had to do it I've aimed for 100% co2. So you would find out how much co2 gas weighs per m3, multiply by the internal volume of your grow room, buy that much dry ice and use that amount for each treatment.
Not many people seem to do it, and I don't know why because I've used it twice in two different and heavily infested grow spaces and it worked 100% effectively, spider mites never came back and no adverse effects on plants whatsoever. Using poison often times doesn't kill everything and the mites that survive develop a resistance.
I did speak to one guy who used this method and he reckons 30% concentration works fine just as long as the grow space is good and hot, like 30 degrees C hot.
 
Had a mate of mine over who has been growing for a while and he reckoned it is thrips and not as bad as I first thought so I may just ride it out for this grow.

Either way I've picked up some great information from this thread. Thanks so much for all of your input.
 
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