Alas my luck has run out. Other than a bump into gnats in my first year of growing, I’ve avoided pests in my garden for years and years! However my lucky streak has run out. I’ve spotted many very small white bugs on my plants pots today. I had not noticed these before today. They are in both my flower, and veg tent.
So far they only appeared to be walking around on the pot, probably in the soil too. The plants haven’t been having issues either. I haven’t spotted any (yet) on the stocks, or leaves, or buds for that sake.
I need help identifying these guys, or at least some opinions? They look like spider mites? If so I’m super sad!! I actually worked in a commercial grow with a huge mite problem in 2019 during this time I avoided bringing mites home the entire time! I’ve received seeds from many people lately, but have not received any new plants into my garden. I work outdoors right now, and wonder is it that easy to bring something in with you when working in wooded areas?
I decided to wipe around the outside of all the pots with a Lysol wipe, as well as the top rim of the pot. Any thoughts on that?
I have a safer soap “kill all” or something like that. It looks like its mainly neem oil… Not sure what my options are. I want to try to stomp them out quick, else i may treat the plants that are in veg, take cuts and start everything over if all else fails.
Anyway I want to thank all that chime in. Looking forward to seeing what everyone has to say.
Definitely not aphids move way to fast looks like it could be beneficials but then I’v never seen soil beneficial mites outside of their organic roaming areas If ya could trap one with a drop of water like on a pencil eraser and get a close up with a loup or something similar it would be better as for now it’s a shot in the dark
Do you see any on the plant itself? If they’re eating the plant they’ll be on stems, stalk, or under the leaves laying eggs. They look like tiny leafhoppers or something. They move pretty fast. You might take them outside if you can and spray the plants good with a hose. Often, that’s all it takes to get them off the plant.
Thanks everyone for the replies so far. @darkillusion@thenasty1@toastyjakes@Tinytuttle@GMan@Who@anon4675195 I just woke up, and read your posts. I tried to capture some closer references to hopefully help. They are very fast, very small and honestly it is VERY difficult to take any sort of focused photo. I hope that these videos are suffice.
So far I’ve yet to see them on the plants themselves, have not noticed any damage, etc. I just was surprised to see nothing one day and a bunch of these suckers the next. I can’t imagine I just didn’t notice.
I’d love to hear that these are harmless, but at the same time… I want them gone lol!
Thanks for everyone chiming in! Hopefully these videos help identify them further.
Yeah so a lot of people at this point are claiming they are harmless, or even beneficial. With that said, would you just leave them alone entirely?
As long as they don’t get too large in numbers, or affect the cleanliness of the rest of my home I guess I don’t care… and leaving them alone for the most part would be easier than trying to take them out. I definitely would prefer not to have them though, especially in future grows. I think I’ll be baking my coco going forward.
You know, the pots that seem to have a higher presence of the mites (exploring the outside of the pot and rim) are pots that tend to dry out more in between watering due to being smaller containers and more mature root structures. Generally though most of my plants stay on the wetter side as I water everday in my medium (coco)
If you’re growing in coco I suppose you’re not going organic, so what are they eating? Decomposed coco? Roots? Wouldn’t like to have those hungry bugs around, but that’s me …
if you didnt bring them in your garden…get sum lady bugs, those are mites, they do all kinds of things, lower harvest, because they like to eat down by the roots, want some good pest, get sum worms and let them loose, mites are part of the spider mite family and no good for cannabis but thats just my 2 cents it is not in my garden
@George I feel the same way lol. I decided to go to war with them as I’d rather not have them around at all.
@blendmedmedman I decided to take them out since I don’t want them around.
So I’ve been spraying with Safer brand insect soap for the last 4 days or so and the numbers are super low now only maybe 2 or so on each pot. My intention is to keep this going until I see none and then some.
Decomposed coco? Roots? 
Wouldn’t like to have those hungry bugs around, but that’s me … 