thats just the thing i've looked with a 2x magnafier and have seen nothing. i first thought spider mites but theres no webs. than i was told that all other insects would put holes threw the leaf not just change its colar but i've misted with half water and half rubbing alchohol wich is suppose to kill any insects. i've also wiped the upper and bottom sides of leaves with a mixture of 1/2-1/2 water and alchahol. its only gotten worse.
grower,
I don't think a 2x magnifier is enough. Better get yourself a 5 or 10x. Some of these little critters are extremely small. I just had thrips and those little bastards are tiny (about 1/32 of an inch). And they don't eat a hole thru the leaf but only cause a dis-colored spot. I was getting more of a silvery whitish spot than what it looks like you're getting.
It took me a day of looking to finally see these thrips. I was getting a lot of advice here on the forums to look on the bottom sides of the leaves but I finally found them on the
upper side of them. Lesson learned... you've got to look closely at
both sides of the leaf.
As for misting with a water/alcohol solution I just don't think that's a good idea (or is going to solve the problem). For one thing THC is soluble in alcohol and you just might be dissolving some of your trichromes and smearing them around.
I used Malathion 50 at a strength of 10ml / gallon to spray mine with. It's been a week and I haven't seen any more live ones. Of course I am kind of expecting them to show back up because it probably didn't kill any eggs they may have laid and I'll probably have to give them another treatment.
Not only are you probably going to have to treat your plants but also the whole area around where you have them. You might just have to "bug-bomb" or spray the whole basement. If you use an aresol bomb just be careful you don't have a pilot light on a water heater or furnace (or that automatically comes on) that will act as an ignition source. While you want to get rid of what ever is effecting your plants you don't want to blow the house up in the process.
Keep me posted.
Jack
PS: Just to be safe you don't want to use Malathion on them if you're with in 2 weeks of harvest. You have to give that stuff time to break down so it's not toxic to you.
