Spider mites - What now?

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's safe to use on produce up to 4 days or so before harvest....but that's eating it, not smoking it. i doubt it would hurt you, it's derived from a bacteria that grows in soil, and is supposedly non toxic to humans in less than massive amounts...up to you if you want to smoke it or not...

which ever way you go, clean your room out after harvest, clean everything with bleach water, twice....before you start up again. then i would still do a good preventative spray when your next plants get about 6 inches high or so. i like to alternate pyrethrin and spinosad. spray spinosad twice, two days apart, then spray pyrethrin once, two days after that, then repeat at least once, twice if you're paranoid, three times if you wear a tinfoil hat

as to the spinosad, I found this:

“There is no level of spinosad that has been shown to be safe in cannabis that is smoked,” says David Farrer, Ph.D., a public health toxicologist with OHA. “Our action levels serve as a pre-market screen, but should not be considered ‘safe levels.’ ”

Article link: https://www.wweek.com/news/2016/10/21/oregon-health-authority-finds-high-pesticide-levels-in-batches-of-dr-jack-and-marion-berry-cannabis/

So I suppose spinosad isn't proven to be safe when smoked, doesn't mean it's proven to be bad either. Not sure I would wanna use it

I guess the government tests products for smokability because they can be used on tobacco. I found this:

"Pesticides Commonly Used on Tobacco Have Potential Short-and Long-Term
Adverse Health Effects:

According to federally sponsored surveys, during the 1990s tobacco
producers in the United States commonly used 37 of the pesticides
approved by EPA for such use.[Footnote 6] As shown in table 1, most of
the pesticides used on tobacco were insecticides and herbicides, which
control insect and plant pests; others were fungicides, which combat
fungal diseases, or plant growth regulators; and a few had more than
one use.[Footnote 7]

Table 1: Pesticides Commonly Used on Domestic Tobacco, 1990-
98:

Primary use(s): Insecticide; Pesticide: Acephate, aldicarb, Bacillus
thuringiensis, carbaryl, carbofuran, chlorpyrifos, diazinon,
disulfoton, endosulfan, ethoprop, fenamiphos, fonofos, imidacloprid,
malathion, methidathion, methomyl, spinosad, trichlorfon."

Link: https://www.gao.gov/atext/d03485.txt

In short it's probably not awesome to be smoking something that kills bugs. lol

Renfro said:

as to the spinosad, I found this:

“There is no level of spinosad that has been shown to be safe in cannabis that is smoked,” says David Farrer, Ph.D., a public health toxicologist with OHA. “Our action levels serve as a pre-market screen, but should not be considered ‘safe levels.’ ”

Article link: https://www.wweek.com/news/2016/10/21/oregon-health-authority-finds-high-pesticide-levels-in-batches-of-dr-jack-and-marion-berry-cannabis/

So I suppose spinosad isn't proven to be safe when smoked, doesn't mean it's proven to be bad either. Not sure I would wanna use it

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lol

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?

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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When the infestation is bad you will usually see webs. You definitely have something bad happening, can you post some close ups of the bottom of some damaged leaves?

You can hold a piece of white paper under leaves and tap on them. If you see dots moving around on the paper you got some sorta bug.

could be thrips, not mites.

if you saw something moving around on your leaves, you got something you want to get rid of

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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You dont need webs to have spider mites.

if you had mites, you still have mites, they didnt leave. Spraying with just plain water will kill the adults, do it every three days for a couple of weeks them once a week till chop. Shake off excess water so you dont get bud rot.

I wouldnt use the sulfer thing myself.

rkymtnman said:

could be thrips, not mites.

if you saw something moving around on your leaves, you got something you want to get rid of

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was gounna say the same thing. Pics look like thrip damage but I thought I seen some egg sack on the back of the leaf pic idk.

If the problem is spider mites at this stage of flowering and you don't want to spray you can use lower temperatures to control them. They don't like lower temps, so if you can keep your temps down @ ~ 60f (but not below 55 f otherwise you can have nutrient uptake issues) you can keep them under control and keep them from breeding. I myself have had to do this in the past and it did help at the expense of yield but at least I didn't have webs all over my buds.

If the problem is thrips I wouldn't even do anything except maybe place garlic clove at the base of your plant.

rkymtnman said:

could be thrips, not mites.

if you saw something moving around on your leaves, you got something you want to get rid of

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Agreed, the part he said about the green bugs hints at that possibility. Spinosad is good for thrips too.

Thanks again for your replies.
The more I look at the leaves I think I may have thrips, they looked more like grubs and were very slow. What is starting to convince me is the leaves looked like the trails were slightly shiny

Can you say "PureCrop1".........it's the best thing I've found to use during flowering, all the way up to finish.

The only issue I see with the P. 5EC is it only kills 1 type of spider mite. And until you definitely identify what kind you have, it could be a total waste of time and money.

Yeah I just looked it up and it's the red spider mite. Chances are he has two spotted spider mites as they are most common but an accurate identification would be the way to go indeed. Good looking out @SSHZ

fartoblue said:

Just found this.

Sulfur is one of the oldest pesticides still in use today. It is used as a miticide and also as a fungicide. Sulfur is toxic to mites but less so to insects.

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Good luck with it please come back and tell us if it works, you won't taste the sulfur but I Bud wash at Harvest when I burn it

if you can seal the grow space reasonably well use a pound of dry ice and a bucket of hot water. dump the dry ice in the bucket of water and shut the grow space up for a couple hours, leaving circulation fans on. every non soil dwelling insect will die.
do that once a week for 3 weeks to ensure you break the cycle. leaves no residue on the buds because it's just co2 gas.

TheGreatSouthern said:

if you can seal the grow space reasonably well use a pound of dry ice and a bucket of hot water. dump the dry ice in the bucket of water and shut the grow space up for a couple hours, leaving circulation fans on. every non soil dwelling insect will die.
do that once a week for 3 weeks to ensure you break the cycle. leaves no residue on the buds because it's just co2 gas.

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That seems like an easy fix mate, my room is easily sealed. I'm in RDWC and can get dry ice of ebay for £24.00 next day delivery. I also have some trim in the freezer.

I've never heard of this before.

What size room will this treat? I can only buy dry ice in 10kg blocks so could put a few pots in there.