Are these mites or something else?

Bugs can be managed. If you see mites or PM on your plants, do not pass GO, go straight to SPRAYER and mix up a batch of spray. Spray, spray and spray again. Then spray again! And then again! The sugar/H2O2/refined neem spray works great, and your plants will love it. Refined neem is harmless to most beneficial insects and bees as well, and pretty harmless to humans. Though they warn you about contact with neem here in the US, in India it is used for all kinds of skin problems and bugs, and in soaps and lotions.

For really bad mites on ealry non-flowering plants, I use Avid. Avid is abamectin, a naturally occurring miticide that was originally discovered in soil bacteria. Why Avid is not organic and Neem with aza is, I do not know. Abamectin can be gotten pretty cheap on Ebay and it only takes 1/4 tsp per gallon to mix. I use a sticker/spreader with it for better wetting action. Anyway, as long as you are 45 days or more from harvest, Avid is “safe.” I know several growers on NorCal and on other forums that have used Avid and after 45 days harvested and sent their buds into a lab that test for it, and they came back clean with 0% abamectin. According to Cornell University. Abamectin has a half life of about 2 days on leaves under any kind of light, and less in UV light. The advantage of abamectin is that it is translaminar, and so it moves through the leaf that it is sprayed on, so you do not have to get every inch of leaf with it. However, it does not kill eggs. The spreader/sticker will kill the eggs though, as well as about 80% of the mites that it comes into contact with. Oil and soap sprays are about 80-90% effective against mites, so you need to spray them multiple times. Mites will build up resistance to abamectin, so you need to rotate their diet after spraying one to two times in succession to knock down a bad infestation. Depending on the mite species and the time of year (heat factor) you want to spray in intervals of the particular mite life cycle. For example, the two spotted spider mite (probably the most common) has a 5 to 20 day life cycle at an optimal or peak at 80 deg. F, and the eggs hatch in about 3 days after being laid. So you want to spray 2 to 3 times at about 5 to 7 day intervals to catch the adults, larvae and various stages before they lay more eggs and cycle again. Early spraying is critical, as mites can and do multiply lighting fast and do a lot of damage.

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