You’re welcome! Glad I could offer some helpful info.
Neem is a good preventative. I like using AzaMax. It’s the active ingredient in neem oil but much easier to mix and spray.
Rosemary oil also works great on spider mites. I actually prefer it to neem oil. One commercially available rosemary oil spray is called SNS 217 (iirc). I’ve also mixed my own with rosemary essential oil + liquid silica + a couple drops of dawn liquid dish soap. You can mix a ton of it for super cheap.
Hot shot no pest strips are by far the easiest, but I’ve read they shouldn’t be used with plants in the room (though I’ve done it with plants in veg with very good results and no visible stress to the plants. The no pest strips will 100% kill every spider mite, at least IME, but again, using them with plants in the room is controversial. Their active ingredient is Dichlorvos, which afaik has been used in pet flea collars for decades).
I havent done this for spider mites, but removing plant material from the soil and then just watering a little to keep microbes alive for 2 weeks has worked well for me the few times I’ve had aphids indoors. It does require you either take a break or cycle in new soil if pumping out is your goal.
It was worth it, everything i grow in the soil just booms. That soil conditioning is crucial, I put seeds right into the soil, water, and havent had any dampening off or root related disease issues in a while. I need to get a sample sequenced and test it with an inoculate, but the soil is now pretty disease suppressive
Yo!! Good looking out!! Im interested in looking into this more. I would caution about getting to complacent with a 1 and done spray in case there are any escapes, big principal of IPM management (which this spray would likely fall under) is constant vigilance. Also probably worth reinforcing what @JohnnyPotseed pointed out; you need to drench the plant (not spray which may not cover all tissue, like if the plant were small you are dipping it in liquid drenched).
Anyone know if you need worry about phytotoxicity with this spray?
I second this comment.
I have used them before and it killed spider mites and fungus gnats in my tent. Worked excellent.
Later I learned that it is very harmful to yourself and any animals if you have any.
Your better off burning the grow down before using that shit, unless your plants are in a different building then your living space.
I’ve used the safers end all shit as well, if you got a good infestation like you do, the plants are just gonna take a shit kicking from it.
You are right, you have to hit the bugs and eggs with the spray as it is a contact poison. The bugs and eggs deep inside buds, hidden in soil, and in the grow area will reinfest the plants.
I came back from a bad spider mite infestation once, but not during flowering…
Basically, bag the soil as best you can and put the plant in the tub, totally submerged underwater for an hour or so. It drowns everything, somehow including the eggs on the underside. It’s worked for me before, but like I said, not during flowering, I don’t k ow what that kind of moisture would do to the buds… Probably mould 🤷🤦
i have taken them outside and blasted them with the hose from underneath. you need to clean off the bottom of the leaves. that’s where they hang out. do it a few days in a row. then use some captain jacks dead bug brew mixed with neem oil.
When the run is done. Spray a diluted bleach solution all over the inside of the tent
Get rid of the soil.
Is the tent in a room with carpet ?
I’ve had spider mite and thrips only thing that got rid of them was stuff called killer mite. But I cut the room down cleaned everything first then sprayed that stuff all around let it dry in the dark. Light breaks down the insecticide. Then ozoned the hell out of the room for 2 days. But I grow in an insulated shed at the back of my house.
Hot Shot will get rid of them, guaranteed. But this falls under the “kill them and start over” advice because you don’t want to smoke that shit afterwards.
I got rid of spider mite using a wetting agent and H202,
it’s actually the wetting agent that’s the really important part, without it the hairs on spider mite create a protective bubble they don’t even get wet, check out surface tension.
Just a wetting agent works on adults but not on eggs you need H202 to take care of them.
Method, i dunked the whole plant upto the coco in a h202 solution.
That was spring or early summer and I’ve not seen them since.
From what I’ve read I was fortunate or thorough it appears they’re not always so easy dealt with?
There is plenty of good advice in this thread. I have dealt with spider mites a ton. Take panty hose and stretch them over the end of your vacuum and suck the all the webs off the plant. This will take many of the mites as well. It won’t get rid of them but doing this and then washing the buds at harvest might make you comfortable enough to smoke it. i have been told that mites spend tons of their energy to make those webs, so if you remove them every day you will be really messing them up. After harvest, I wash in h202 then two buckets of clean water and hang in front of a fan until the water surface water is gone and then dry regularly. If you have more than a week or two left of flower this might work for you. Longer than that, its going to be a long battle and you will likely lose. Know that Bubble bags will filter out the mites and leave you with web free hash so it won’t be a totall loss. Time to get on a good regiment of preventatives for next time.
I have an unpopular opinion on whats worth saving so feel free to PM me of you want more advice. But I will say the best advice is to stop growing and deep clean everything. But sometimes you just want to save as much herb as you can.
I forgot to mention, plants you harvest and then wash will still have some mites… fuckers are hard to kill. But since you have harvested and hung them upside down, they will want to leave the plant within 1-3 days. They may even make some new webs at the very bottom (now top cause up side down), vac these as well. All the mites will go to the top of the stem and even up the string or hanger you are using, spray the top of the stem and or hanger with alcohol or run a lit lighter over the area and all will die. Just don’t spray the alcohol on the buds. After 3-4 days hanging all the mites will have left the drying buds to find more shit to fuck up.
Doctor Zymes - Get 2 free sample bottles that make a gallon of spray for just $7 shipping.
EM-5: make it or buy it, build a soil has some, I get from local grow store. Can use on tools, surfaces and plants.
BotaniClean - I mostly use this cause I got a 5 gallon bucket of it cheap. But it seems to work good for cleaning surfaces and tools, not plants. I like that i can even use it on fabrics and carpet, you don’t have to wipe it off, and you don’t need PPE.
Wettable sulfur - to make a foliar spray. Don’t need build a soil brand, just easy to link to.
Alcohol - sometimes I use it full strength to clean. Or mix it with water and it will kill most soft bodied insects in seconds but it won’t hurt a healthy plant. Can even rinse it off after 30 seconds to prevent damage to plant and get dead bug bodies off. But it’s not necessary to rinse
If you recognize an infestation early enough you can beat them back to some extent, but there’s a reason folks refer to them as “the borg.”
The longer it goes on, the faster they proliferate. -like exponentially in a week. As others have said, once you see webbing, they’ve been living it up in your canopy for awhile.
It’s funny, I’ve read the males hatch first, grab the nearest egg, which is likely to be an unhatched female, and head for the highest point on the plant…. Crazy…nature finds a way….
They seem damn near impossible to completely get rid in the grow space without extreme measures…
I’ve got @JohnnyPotseeds post linked earlier on the “one and done” formula bookmarked.
I had several plants in the tent ready to harvest at the same time. I harvested what I could salvage and disposed of what was undesirable.
Surprisingly, several of the other plants didn’t have any signs of spidermites, so I didn’t lose much product.
I have plenty of product from my outdoor and previous grows. I also just received some seeds from “Serious Seeds.”
I have been spraying the plants and grow area every day with a mix of water/alcohol/dish soap. I am waiting for Hot Shots Poest strips to come. The grow room is secluded so I’m not worried about toxicity.
I don’t want to scare you and maybe you already read all the warnings… But these things are NASTY. I have almost resorted to them multiple times. Some people put them up in their tiny apartments that they live in full time and they don’t seem to die… but its very bad to be exposed to this stuff. One more thing form my research is that while these will work, the pests can become resistant to them creating a harder to get rid of pest. Like I said I haven’t used these but I read about them for DAYS trying to decide if i should use them. Hell they sell em the grocery store, how bad can they be… pretty bad i guess haha. Report back after you use them please!
Hey @Greenup you made a really important point there about resistance to chemical control.
Highlights the importance of using multiple control techniques. Its the same with weeds and microbes, it only takes one escape to end up with resistant populations. Lessons from farmers also show those resistance genes are great at moving into new populations.
If you place traps, use yellow or blue sticky paper also, that will help track populations in the future and let you catch an infestation when you can still manage it.
Absolutely sucks about the pests. Hope you can get them cleared out and get back to pumping soon.
You are going to have to hoover the the room every day from now on. In carpet I wish you the best of luck they are now every where buddy. Only way I see is ozone the hell out of the room once this run if touring to try and save it. Worse case you and them have to learn to co exist till you figure out how to kill them all. Be thank full you don’t have thrips. Maybe look at spinacide as a constant IPA for veg once once flower is over