Spidermites!!

Hey guys,

I went to water my girls today and found my sativa completely infested at the top with mites. I dont know how I missed it before, because it had to be going on for a while for this to have gotten this bad.

I am in my 8th week of flower and my main cola bud is heavy and fat.

I looked at the top, where it is fatest, and there was a huge WEB over the entire top that went about 3 inches down, covering the entire top portion of the plant. There were thousands of mites that I could even see without my scope.

I got a tissue and took the web off and sprayed the shit out of the top, and entire plant, with fox farm dont bug me. I took a quick look under the scope at the plant and couldnt see any mites, but i am sure they are hiding.

my question is, has anyone had that happen that late in flower? am i screwed? i think i got it, but need to keep an eye on it. I dont want to be smoking mites and i dont want them to get into my other bud when i am curing.

any advice?

If running CO2, during dark cycle crank CO2 to 5000ppm for an hour. WARNING: MAKE SURE THIS IS ONLY DONE IN A SEALED ROOM, and that the area around the sealed room is VENTILATED appropriately. You will kill yourself if you walk into a 5000ppm room.

Remember that if you have mites, eggs are 3 day cycle, so if you're spraying, you need to spray top and bottom of leaves again in 3 days.

Also, spray some longer-lasting anti bug spray around the base of your pots (the spider mites are on the walls, ceiling and floor typically), so once you kill them, it's harder for them to re-infest.

thanks, I HATE these things. I hope they dont ruin my harvest

Use neem oil homey it will suffocate the bastards

It won't ruin the harvest or make them unsmokable. The damage they do is irreversable though, so late in flower is the best time to get infested. The most important thing now is to get rid of subsequent infections. I have used azatrol with mild success, and also put a hot shot no pest strip in there. I have heard both good and bad about no pest strips, so do your own research before you decide to put it in with your plants.

guy incognito said:

It won't ruin the harvest or make them unsmokable. The damage they do is irreversable though, so late in flower is the best time to get infested. The most important thing now is to get rid of subsequent infections. I have used azatrol with mild success, and also put a hot shot no pest strip in there. I have heard both good and bad about no pest strips, so do your own research before you decide to put it in with your plants.

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I've found that pest strips are good for finding out what is lurking in the garden as opposed to actually doing any real damage to the pred.

week 8 huh? Bad news friend, your gonna smoke a mite or two. But as long as your aggressive you can salvage a harvest.

Be careful not to spray TOO often, and try to spray early in the day so your plants have time to dry. You don't want it too humid, but spider mites flourish in DRY HOT places. That said, try getting your temp down to around 70 for a while and let the humidity get to at least 50% but not above 60%.

Currently I have ROOT APHIDS and let me tell you they suck. The reason I mention that is I picked up a product called AZATROL which is also supposed to be useful against mites. Basically you use plain water and azatrol and your plant absorbs it and it interferes with various insects life cycles.

I would advise researching this further, but it IS organic and it is supposed to be useful against mites too. It might take a while though because your plant has to soak it up then the mites feed on the plant.

You should obviously avoid spraying the colas but if you can get some neem oil this worked well for me, but it really only keeps them at bay.

You best hope is to just keep them in check til it's time to cut.

Good luck!

Take Down garden "spray" has been the most effective agent I've used when it comes to dipping the entire plant in minus the root zone in fighting spider mites although, Mite Rid has been a very effective anti-mite foliar spray in keeping down their numbers in such a way as to keep them at a reasonable level as to not affect the overall harvest volume or quality. The only way to get rid of them entirely is to have a stall in crop rotation or a about a week or so of nothing for them to feed on. As far as root aphids I started a thread on that a long time ago and the only thing that actually stamped them out ENTIRELY was Ortho Max Bug B Gone from Home Depot. It is systemic and will stay in the plant's system for up to 6 weeks so if you are already into bloom/flowering you will be inhaling those pesticides come harvest time. If you'd like dosage requirements I'm happy to give them, but you'll have to pm me because I don't want everyone dosing their harvest with this crap and unknowing people inhaling it as a result.

I had a mite infestation,,
neem oil, at roughly 5ml to a litre of warm water with a drop of liquid dishsoap,(that helps break up the oil and helps it penatrate the soil.)
I use it 4 times with about 3-4 days apart,small amount of spray,just enough to cover plant and small amount as soil drench. Neem works not as a killer but as somthing that interutps the life cycle. so you HAVE to do it atleast 3 times to make sure you get them all. little bastards. I found it was just as we went into flower, when you harvest the plants and if you use drying lines smear tangle foot or put a pest strp at the end of drying lines. as this will catch them as they leave drying buds to find new plants. thats one way to stop you from smoking some of them.
hope that helps//
In my view neem and tabacco/nicotine spray are the best killers and preventative ways to stop mites.they HAVE to be done at least 3 times to have an effect though. ALSO DO NOT CONTINUIE TO USE ONLY ONE(use one then another)AS MITES CAN BUILD UP AN IMUNITY. Id say use one 4-5 times then switch to insure they arent becoming immune.Dont make 'super mites' as then we are all fucked.
they are also both organic. they are both systemic though so will stay in the plant for up to 3 weeks and may impart a nasty taste to the plant when smoke so if you can try not to use neem in the last 2 weeks. as free99 says raisng the humidty above 50% and having a constant breeze should help to create a hostile enviroment for the mites. thats a way to get them with out spray. also if you can lower the twmp to about 10-15 degree C at night it will kill them with cold!!! make sure it dosnt get to around 5 or less as that bad for the plant. I try raise humdity as mites hate that and its the easiest for me to control.
take it easy

8 weeks. Kinda late.
At this point i would just use water, rinse the plants off in the shower.
Its amazing how much it slows em down, but thell be back.......