You have to be persistent. If you can drench/dunk the plant in the garden soap twice a week for two week to kill every mite and egg that hatches, you can get rid of them. Problem is making sure you hit them every 3-4 days. I know it works, but time is the issue, especially if you have many or bigger plants.
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I can say ipm from Athena is my go to if Dr zyme is not winning the spider mites.
But I also soak any plant top bottom plus the pot gets sprayed
@Seamonkey84 is right. People’s biggest problem is persistence. They see some progress and think things are good, then stop or get lazy about it.
If you can take them outside, or do it in inside away from other plants and spray them with the hose. That will eliminate 50 to 75 percent right away. After that it is a whole lot easier to fight them.
It takes weeks to get rid of them, there is not quick fix other than throwing the plants away, sterlizing everything and starting over.
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I was very persistent with soap it was killing them on contact I kept applying up until harvest it was effective at controlling them but extensive use dried the leaves somewhat and gave some taste to the bud that was not unpleasant but I didn’t like the idea of smoking even organic soap residue. The problem with that is that there will always be a mite lurking somewhere close to the plants waiting to recolonize after the plants dry out and the soap loses all effectiveness. Spinosad did nothing to them even at higher doses. h2o2 and alcohol damaged the leaves without killing them. Most surprising was drowning, how they survive after i drowned the plant for hours is beyond my comprehension. The only method that really got rid of them was a systemic pesticide with persistence. When the plants become toxic to the mites for long enough time, with no other food sources, and in hot weather, the mites will die out.
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Without chemicals it’s almost impossible to clear them out if bloom, too many crevices to hide. In veg, I give my bonsai moms and clones a bath, I dunk the whole plant into a bucket of garden soap solution and then I spray the surface of the media and outside of the container. Do it twice a week for two weeks and there won’t be adult to lay more eggs. As for soap being hard on the plants, rinse the soap off in between, or I mix the soap a bit weaker and let them soak in it for a bit longer. The plants that I harvest get rinsed before drying.
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With the drowning you have to make sure to wash the eggs off as well.
Wash your buds with Dr. Zymes. It cleans everything off and leaves nothing behind.
I used 1 ounce of Dr. Zymes to 31 ounces of water. Used a fine mist small hand pump sprayer.
Sprayed every day, then every other day for a few weeks, and got rid of them. No damage to the leaves.
Now I just spray every few weeks for prevention.
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just after i removed them from the water and they dried i could see the adult mites simply moving around. I was experimenting with water alone drowning as i know already that soap does kill them. Agricultural organic potassium soap.
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I used the soap extensively and it worked for controlling but the problem was that the mites reappeared eventually. I hope that i will never have to use chemicals again. Early detection is most important
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Predator mites are another way to get rid of them. Had a friend use them. She did 2 applications 2 weeks apart. Got rid of them for her.
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How long were they under water? I go with 30 min.
Don’t sweat it, you can go years without reapplication if you’re careful about bringing in outside clones and plants. It is so much easier to simply eliminate the pest problem first, and afterwards try to be better about prevention going forward.
Glad you got it taken care of. Many people on here will get upset if you even mention using pesticides, but they are effective. They do what they are supposed to.
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much longer than 30 mins. more like 2 hours
Well I tried for years to stay away from pesticides but then I did what I had to do in my circumstances. I personally do not have access to stuff like avid or top brands designed for cannabis mites, and I have to go with over the shelf products and what is available for me. I also cannot buy predator insects since these also are not available where I am. If I was able to try those alternatives i would have so… Thanks
You can order predator mites online. You have to do what is best for your situation and what you have available, or can afford.
I do not give anyone crap about how they handle their problems with pests. I try to offer solutions I know work if they want to try. It is all about hearing different opions and seeing what is best for you.
Hopefully you can, or did, overcome the problem.
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Well I’m watching the small clones I’m going to grow out. Tent gets put back up tomorrow and will up pot to 5 gal bags. Will order more predators tomorrow or wait till Monday including the ones for gnats since I seem to have a few. And no signs of spider mites fingers crossed. As I have said the predators for fungus gnats worked really well on grow and my moms. They had been doing their thing for about a year on the moms and not a single gnat seen until all soil involved were tossed. If I go another few weeks without spider mites I’m going to consider them gone but will still use Azamax occasionally on new cuts and moms per label directions.
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ok! How did you process compare to this:
I take off the fan leaves and submerge it for 30min then take the stick and wash it off under the vegetable sprayer. I finished off mite colonies living on the following plants:
king tut, sugar black rose, big bud, meat breath, bobs, harlequin
I’m still growing meat breath and big bud. The big bud has been mite free since 2017 and the meat breath entered a while later, infested with mites, aphids and thrips. I’m just interested in how it could fail, so I can improve the advice.
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