If you are growing in soil and not using Benificial Nematodes, you are doing it wrong.
I have used nematodes before but these dudes are on the leaves, not in the soil
Nematodes attack below and above the soil
These dudes are fast so its hard to get a pic. Phytoseiulus persimilis. Got these from arbico 18 hours after placing the order.
I have used them before so maybe thatâs why the spidermite attack was slower. Now they have a little help.
i am really high and watched valhalla and am now picturing a viking war with that armour wearing mite and the new fire red predator mite. its all happening under your nose and you cant see it!
I need some of the you are smoking @204medismoke!
Phytoseiulus persimilis are very effective predators at controlling two spotted spider mites but one problem you may run into is they always migrate as vertically as they are able to ascend, and are quite fast and obsessive about this. Iâm sure you noticed this behavior after opening the bottle as well as after release. I believe the insectaries capitalize on this with their strategies to harvest them for resale, or so I was told at least by someone in the industry a few years ago. Iâd imagine if youâre in flower they might get stuck when they encounter trichomes but have no experience here to speak definitively. Interested to hear how it works out for sure, hopefully it does the job!
Do please keep us updated on how the predatory mites work for you.
So far Iâm still only seeing the bad kind of mites. Not very many, 1-2 on a leaf. The clover had quite a bit more so Iâm just going to have to keep fighting all the time. I hope the predators help but it has yet to be seen. I put them right on top of the cover crop and also hung a few of these up on some branches so they could meet them at the front lines, so to speak lol:
What is the clover for?
From mountain organics website, which is who I learned to grow from:
Cover crops provide incredible benefits:
- Roots provide aeration, better water penetration.
- Roots provide increase soil life activity with constant interactions between bacteria/fungi and the roots of cover crops.
- When cover crops die back it becomes mulch and then decomposes back into the soil further adding humus and increasing soil life activity.
Nitrogen Fixing and clover
Clover is one of the best nitrogen fixing plants available. Clovers have the ability to obtain nitrogen from the atmosphere and âfixâ it in nodules on its roots; this is called nitrogen fixation. The amount of nitrogen fixed varies depending on species, stand density, fertility, weather, and the extent to which the clover has been defoliated. However, numerous studies have shown that crimson clover, ladino or white clover, and red clover with its substantial amount of nitrogen fixation represents significant savings compared with purchasing nitrogen.
More Info HERE!
From a practical point of view, the clover are in competition with your main plant. Clover has no nutritional value until itâs been killed. Prior to that itâs a ânet lossâ of nitrogen. Further, it will fix NO nitrogen if the soil has nitrogen to begin with.
That said, why not get rid of the clover to get rid of the mites?
Pull some of your clover out and look for any nitrogen nodules. If you are getting some, then use scissors and cut at soil lineâŚsome of the cloverâŚit will come back via roots.wash rinse repeat. But if you have no nodulesâŚget rid of the clover, itâs not doing anything but harboring mites and competing with your main plant.
If I cut the clover now theyâll just go straight to the cannabis plants. Also, they arenât really competing with anything. This is 180 gallons of soil. As for cutting it, I chop and drop regularly.
Are your clover making nitrogen nodules? They wonât in fertile soil. You will get some organic matter and soil structure from it but without the nodules growing rye grass is the same.
There is no symbiotic relationship between clover and weed, so clover is definitely using the resources in that pot. Granted 180 gallons is huge enough to mitigate that Yank a couple and see what they are holding for nodes.
I cut them and then leave them as mulch so whatever they mined from the soil is sitting on top, ready to be eaten by my worms and other critters and then taken up by the plant eventually. Itâs a beautiful thing.
I donât think they are hurting for any nutrition
I never knew clover wouldnât fix nitrogen in fertile soil, very interesting. In all fairness, nitrogen fixation wasnât in the list of benefits snizzy posted.
I ditched the clover in my beds because it kept attracting thrips. I like how clover naturally dies off as the canopy overshadows it. It will often flower as well, which is nice to look at. If you use it in place of another nitrogen source (seed meal for example) when amending, it works out the same.
I went with dichondra, which has its own set of benefots and problems. The dichondra grows more like a grass and came back after I harvested. It is more aggressive than clover and choked out a couple seedings. It also overgrowns my Blumats and their drippers. I think it would be better suited for an outdoor bed than an indoor one.