Just wondering who has had mites and won the battle?
I have a lite infestation of spotted mites on my late flowering buds 1-2 weeks from harvest, I have applied 3 treatments of a product called GreenCleaner with an once of 91% ISO mixed in with the GC.
It seems to have worked so far, but I still think I am seeing eggs , how long until they hatch and is the weed still going to be ok for my own use? The GreenCleaner is an all natural product and can be used right up until harvest.
My buddy told me I should wash all the weed in a 4 step wash process, what say ye?
As always Thks ahead of time
Stiggy
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Oh yeah, I was looking at the GreenCleaner product and it’s pretty much just horticultural soap with alcohol and citric acid as the miticide.
By using this recipe @Tinytuttle put up you have a blank slate that can be geared towards different pests with different essential oils. Rosemary is another one has been proven to kill mites and their eggs.
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Eggs hatch every 3 days or so. If it’s a bad infestation I’d say treat daily for 1-2 weeks, but if it’s just a small infestation just follow up every third day with a treatment. Most treatment options do nothing to the eggs so it’s all about repeated treatment and breaking up the life cycle. I’m looking up GreenCleaner as I’m unfamiliar with it, but I see no active ingredients that should cause concern. Soybean oil is the big one here, as it is a natural miticide. The other ingredients are either surfactants or drying agents (or both in the case of Sodium Lauryl Sulfate) Their claims that this product kills eggs are entirely based around the drying agents, which I have found to be inconsistent in my experience. Its very hard to kill eggs it requires waiting for them to hatch before they’re vulnerable to attack.
As for washing go for it. I was always afraid to do it but gave it a try on my outdoor bud this year and will ALWAYS be doing it to my outdoor bud from now on. 4 step is likely a little overkill but it won’t hurt. I use 2 buckets, one with baking soda, one with water, the first dunk takes out a lot of the nasty you’d be shocked to see what ends up in that first bucket.
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I’ve never managed to fully rid myself of spider mites past veg. Only thing that seems to truly get rid of them is chemical pesticide yeh some citrus stuff might help deter them but like the cider vinegar stuff but they have a 3 day cycle so one day you spray and think ahh I don’t see any you follow it up with a third day spray then your like oh I haven’t seen damage for a bit now and can’t see any so they must be gone! Wooohooo! Then give it a week they’ll be all over again. They’re microscopic so without a scope you’ve really no way of clearing them fully especially in flower when you can’t just half your leaf mass.
My advice stop spraying as you’re in flower natural or not it will affect taste of your products end result so wouldn’t do that. What I would do is get some fans on your plants so you don’t give them a chance to settle in and lower temps to around 23C if ya can. The cold slows their eggs down. I currently have spider mites in my grow I squash them every couple days by doing leaf rubs disturbing them often and likely also killing eggs I do scope my plants and I find the odd one here and there but I’ve not got the full on infestation yet but they breed quicker than most PM so they can get out of hand quickly.
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I’m going to second what @TrevorLahey said about the wash. I’ve always been afraid to do it. One of my outdoor plants was still covered in aphids and I had to do something. It worked great and I don’t know why I waited so long. I used 2 buckets one with lemon juice and backing soda wash and a plain water rinse. I let them dry briefly on a rack in the sun and trimmed the big fans before going back to the drying room.
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Environment is definitely a weapon you can use to your advantage. High humidity and low temps will slow them down big time.
If the problem occurred in early-mid veg. I’d recommend taking the plant out of it’s pot, shaking off all the dirt from the roots, and bathing your entire plants in a soap bath, wiping and hosing em down afterwards. Into a new pot with new dirt.
I haven’t done this with cannabis, but I started doing this to all my houseplants when they arrive home and apart from a mild shock they come out squeaky clean and pest free, and I have the peace of mind knowing that if they do develop pests they didn’t come as hitchhikers.
I’m fine with spraying my plants, I’ve sprayed harsh chemicals on my plants during flower and right up until day before harvest and I personally have not noticed a difference in taste. I’m sure if there was any residue left behind a quick wash would fix that up no problem anyways.
With mites, they’ll often vacate after the weed is chopped and dried anyway, which you should keep in mind when picking an area to dry it. Some people throw their weed in a deep freezer for a few days to kill off any remaining bugs but ymmv with that.
Good luck!
Edit: Also wanted to add that there should be a tolerance for pests to a certain degree. That’s part of a balanced IPM. For example my last batch of Dark Sparks had developed a light infestation of mites during the last 3 weeks before harvest. I just plucked off the badly affected leaves, checked for eggs and nymphs in the obvious areas, but it never was like “OMG they’re everywhere” so I just let me plants finish and took care in trimming and hanging it so as to not spread them around my house.
Whether we want to admit it or not, all of us likely have at least a couple pests in our grows at any time its just the way it is.
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You can’t fix the plants about to be harvested, unless you’re indoors and can run sealed CO2. There will be mite bodies, eggs, and feces on your product, no way around it.
For the next round, treat with abamectin or spiromesifen. You can buy individual oz’s on Ebay so it isn’t like you have to buy a $200 bottle just for you.
“Natural” methods work poorly, if at all. I do not “control” pests, I eliminate them entirely.
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Unless you wash your buds.
And yeah I’m generally okay with most pesticides, it’s important to look at residual data for whatever you’re using and determine any contaminatio risks that might be involved in its use.
Abamectin (which is “natural” by the way) and spiromesifen both have low enough residuals that one could use them without much worry.
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OK Thanks Guys, I was scoping the leafs and buds last night no mites as of yet
But I did see a few tiny webs here and there but not many.
I may just go with it for another week and harvest, I will decide to wash at that point.
My outdoor plants have always looked a little dirty under the scope.
These started outdoors and I brought them in after veg, hence the mite problem.
Live and leave
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IPM mix past to me on a diff forum
fill 16oz sprayer w water near full then add them organic oils
1/4 tsp rosemary
1/4 tsp peppermint
1 tsp hippy soap
1/2 tsp neem
if its me i ride it out.
if they aint bad n u spray newayz u can smoke wo washin. aint none of that tocix when burnt.
if yer in veg n theys bad add wettable sulfur 2 tha mix. its poison if smoked tho.
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I am mite free after an infestation from cuts taken in.
They were beaten with Spinosad, and Neem, sprayed every 3 days for 2 months.
Not seen another in weeks…
Told these do not work…that is not true, many “methods” do not work, but Neem/Spinosad absolutely do.
I was lucky enough to win the war 4 or 5 weeks into flower, so my plants finished perfectly fine, doing the “trim” as I type this. I sprayed fresh water after every treatment, and here, trimming, I see zero eggs, nor any mites, nor anything on my plants…they finished just fine.
Good luck on whatever you do…ALL I DID was alternate the 2 sprays, soaked the plants completely, including their buckets and the floor…really really well, waited an hour or so, then sprayed them clean with fresh water from my good pressure sprayer. Getting to the underside of the plants leafs is the key…where the eggs lie.
4 tblspoons per gallon on the Monterey Garden Spray(spinosad) 2 per gallon on the Neem I believe it was.
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OK QUESTION PART 2
Do you think I damaged the potency of the trichomes by using 1 oz of ISO 70% in a gallon of water along with the greencleaner? The Greencleaner had a small amount of ISO in it but not an oz worth.
I beefed it up to kill the suckers
Now that I have had mites in my grow room and plan on shutting it down for the winter do I need to make sure I spray the room down to kill them for the spring, or do the mites have a short life cycle once the plants are removed?
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Answer question part 2 probably, exactly how much depends on how long and what strength.
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Syringing undersides of leaves can be an effective control of spider mites in flower.
Many household plant pests can be controlled, at least in part, by washing the plant periodically with a vigorous jet of water. This is particularly effective for spider mites and aphids, which are most readily dislodged.
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I’ve spent a lot of time controlling mites, for years. I heard about and tried this, I’ve been mite free for months. It worked great for me… https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N541P34/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Thanks Looks to be almost the same as the Greencleaner I used
I got mites at week 2 of flower once. Thought it was thrips so treated with spinosad. No luck. After week 3 it was only cold water and iso to keep them knocked back. Buds covered in webs so chopped 3 weeks early. Don’t know if was the spray or mite bodies but it was unsmokable and even concentrates groin an iso wash tasted like shit. After cutting them down i dropped nukes. Drowned the space in Floromite as well as the few seedlings that survived then a week later hit the space with oberon 4f. Don’t play games kill them with extreme prejudice
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I get spider mites every year around Christmas/New Year without fail. I have gotten rid of them with pure neem oil and oregano essential oil. You have to spray every leaf top and bottom. You have to have something to emulsify the neem oil, I use soap nuts or a drop of organic dish soap (in a pinch). I spray every day for the first three days. Then every third day for 10 days. The plant will look like shit but will rebound mite free in a few days.
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Lol if you ever get it that bad again as much as this sound like a dumb idea it does work it’s just a risk but when shits literally covered in webs what’s to lose right? My friend had a large space full of plants that he never checked until he began noticing webbing over his buds right. Well to save his crop I watched him with a hetty vacuum cleaner shoving colas into the hoovers tube/hose. Works a fucking charm no more webs don’t know about it ridding plants of mites but it got rid of the webbing and I tried it after he brought it down it really wasn’t any different now I’m not saying every bit would taste great but that shit surprised me. Firstly when I witnessed him putting fat colas into a fucking hoover but secondly when it did an ok job of it 
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