Never, in thirty six years, lost a gram to mites.
Russet Mites came to Michigan bigtime two years ago, we had no infestations.
Why, I dunno. I know Dr. Bronners Peppermint soap, molasses and LABS are my buddies weekly sprays. We use Borax on soil surface before grow. Our cover crop is grass, mowed and weedeated like a golf course. We start our holes huge and have DTE and Silica trucked in to add to soil mix. We add bat guano and worm castings to top soil & teas. We foliar spray with LABS everyday. We spray and puff, brush, bonide plant sulfur powder. Thats about it other than religious use of FOOP for last three years. I dunno, but it is a fact.
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Lots of experience and some good advice in this thread.
Hereās my thoughts:
Mites happen.
You donāt always see evidence of them before they get dug in. Some varieties (eg Broad mites) are NOT visible with the naked eye. Get a jewelers loupe or handheld microscope and look for evidence if you see discoloration, speckling, webbing, etcā¦
Have a plan. Use it
Mites come in on many vectors and eventually theyāll find their way into most non-commercial grow-spaces. Have an IPM plan, be disciplined and use it.
Get rid of the dead stuff
Part of that plan is keeping the environment clear of dead leaves and other clutter. Keep the space clean. It starts here. Prune dead leaves and move em out.
Soil vs Hydro
Mites favor soil based grows. Hydro peeps have fewer problems. Soil sterilization before starting can certainly help and is worth considering. Microbes can be re-added afterwards.
Keep the fur babies out of the grow room
No pets in the grow room. I love my fur babies, but they are Uber for pests. No pets in the grow room.
Good watering practices
Keep your plants properly watered. Mites love distressed plants. Mmmmmm goodā¦ā¦ particularly plants that are under watered, wilting and dry. Donāt overwater, but donāt stretch the watering periods too much either.
Misting/spraying with water
Spider mites like dry environments. (Eg: <40% rh) Perhaps not ironically their predators often favor higher humidity levels (>60%). I mist and spray water (especially the undersides) regularly up to about 2-weeks before harvest. It helps. If youāve already gotten the borg and are actively fighting the scourge, do this to slow them down and wash them away. Itās not toxic and while it wonāt stop them, it will help.
Other measures
Use BT. It wonāt kill mites, but who needs fungus gnats larvae gnawing at your roots while mites have their way with your leaves, stems and buds. Use DE. Make it harder for them to migrate from one place to another.
Predator mites
Predator mites and ladybugs can help, but theyāre not going to solve the problem by themselves. Again, predator mites need higher humidity levels and secondary food sources. Some varieties donāt eat the bad-mite eggs and some varieties eat each other. Do your homework and be prepared to āre-seedā the predators often.
Ladybugs
Ladybugs are fun, but honestly this isnāt the way either. Iāve read it takes ~300 ladybugs to clear a single rosebush, so donāt believe a handful are going to make a significant difference. It takes a lot. Contrary to popular belief, the ones you buy online or from the garden center are not usually āfarm raisedā. Instead lots of suppliers get these bugs from naturally occurring clusters in the wild that happen in higher altitude when seasons change. Think masses of millions of bugs. The populations tend to be older, past mating prime, and as much as 20% are infected with a parasitic wasp. They usually fly away within 24-hours of being freed outdoors and inside, the artificial light confuses and disorients them, causing most to cluster and become inactive. One must keep water and a secondary food source available for them as well. I do love seeing them go to work though. If you can keep them healthy, they eat like crazy, especially the little ladybug nymphs. It takes 2-4 weeks after release for them to exit mating diapause, so donāt expect hungry nymphs anytime soon though.
Pesticides
Others have pointed out the different pesticides that can be used once infected, some organic, others no so much. Opinions vary here and strong emotions can sometimes result, so Iāll avoid getting too deeply into that topic. However IMO one should at least spray in veg before promoting to flower with at least two different products at least 3-days apart. I use Neem and Agromagenās GrowSafe.
Compromised grow space
Once the grow space is compromised Iāve found it is nearly impossible w/o strong pesticides or extreme measures to completely eliminate the scourge if one keeps a continuous grow going. They always show up somewhere around week 3 of flowering. Iāve had success shutting down the space, cleaning/disinfecting everything, heating the space to about 120-degrees (space heaters & halogen work lights) for 4-5 hours and leaving a hot-shot no-pest strip in the enclosed space for about a week.
So far, this worked. I havenāt seen them in that space since then.
All that said, GOOD LUCK!
.
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I had them from a contaminated clone, after that infestation I cleaned my entire closet and painted the whole thing with white paint. Hung some no pest strips, havenāt seen one since. I did have a visitor.
she was checking for bad bugs being a good helper.
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Iād like to share what I do for IPM and how I can intentionally infest my grow rooms during stress testing with mites, aphids, and thrips and immediately neutralize the problem before the next cycle goes in clean.
Now, Iāve been telling people this long enough to know some of you simply wonāt believe me that I intentionally infest my grow roomsā¦ so please just save it if thatās your opinion. Iām tired of hearing people try to tell me Iām a liar.
What I do is take veg plants and place them in the forest for a week. Iāve got some spots that over the years, at the right time of year, I can guaranteed get mites, aphids and thrips of varying types on my plants. Then the veg plant thatās infected gets put in with the other plants going into stress testing and after a few weeks of the environment setting adjusted for insect breedingā¦ the population will explode and Iāll have the entire crop affected. Works great and shows me which cultivars are naturally resistant and which ones arenāt. Very helpful info to pass on to growers in my opinion and worth the nightmares I went through learning how to handle all of this properly.
So to ācleanā all my plants and grow rooms I use Azamax and Dr. Zymes, switching back and forth between the two as needed. Azamax is used mostly for preflower and the first 2 weeks of flowering. Dr Zymes can be used all the way through harvest, even to wash the buds in the end before theyāre hung up to dry. Empty rooms get bleach and water only, to sanitize them.
If I spray Dr. Zymes every 3 days, at lights off, with a proper underside and topside coating (dripping wet), and then I spray Azamax once a week (after several zymes applications) to prevent further feeding on the leavesā¦ it wipes out anything and everything within 2 weeks max.
Dr Zymes kills on contact like acid, eating the bugs alive. It also kills their eggs the same way, but it must contact to work. Using it every 3 days interrupts the breeding cycle of pests and using it for a full 2 weeks should kill everything in the room except your plants. Azamax gets used more as a preventative foliar spray, but I noticed that using it in conjunction with the zymes it made wiping out pest colonies 100% effective where in the past using only Dr zymes meant I had to constantly use it. Now I use it only after my stress test runs, and once a week during the summer months for IPM. Winter months get cold enough that I donāt have to IPM unless PM may be a problem (Dr. Zymes kills PM too).
If Dr. Zymes is too expensive for youā¦ you can make your own at home Iāve heard. 
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Man!
I was outās likes and had to set a timer for 20 min to come back to like your post!
I thought I was extreme at stress testingā¦ but you got me beatā¦ 
I leave my extra clones outside and see what Mother nature can do to them.
Have learned a ton and mother nature is still schooling me.
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Thatās great for you and I understand what and why, but I canāt deal with bugs especially mites. Iād rather not have them at all, then fight with them to save my harvest. Im not growing bud to find out which strain is insect and mold resistant. Im growing to enjoy good smoke without insect parts in it. I probably already smoked some bugs from outdoor grows but not on purpose.
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Iām only doing this for my breeding projects before releasing and selling the seeds to the public. Itās the bare minimum I feel every breeder should do; stress test and provide all of the grow info possible before selling them your product.
My stress test grows get sampled to check for potency and taste (to see how they compare with a good grow) but after small samples all of the stress test harvest gets thrown away.
Iād never do anything like this for shits and giggles. That would be insanity. 
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Seamonkeys is right about the soap. Iāve battled mites twice and you have to hit them every three days until, forever! Well at least 15 days total. Hard spraying under the leaves is my . And sometimes with a bit of soap. And when you spray with soap scrub the mainstem with a tooth brush. Mites are one of the hardest problems to deal with.
Those are dichlorvos. People wonāt use commercial acaricides but for some reason people are cool with organophosphates like dichlorvos? You coulda skipped the teardown, heat treatment, and just used Avid my dudeā¦if youāre gonna use āstrong pesticidesā anyway lol.
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@vernal I use it while the space is empty and unoccupied. But Iām not disagreeing with ya. -Just prefer no to.
Chainsaw the room down
I like to stress my plants. I have two strains I canāt hermie. My two best strains
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Wow, thatās radical. It also seems to show the effectiveness of the Azamax and Zymes. I know what Iām using next time. @misterbee is the one who told me about Dr. Zymes but I havenāt tried it yet. Iām trying Lost Coast Plant Therapy, but not sure about it. It worked for aphids after a few days but seemed to want to burn the plants even days later, under lights. So, next time I try Dr.Zymes.
I can understand it if your reputation and livelihood was on the line. Most wouldnāt take the time. is your grow op in a separate building? just curious.
Pretty cool, though. First time Iāve heard of that. I believe what you say, because who would come on a weed forum and say that if it wasnāt true. Every day is a new chance to learn.
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I tell everyone I can about Dr. Zymes. Its absolutely amazing in my eyes. PM dissolves and goes away for good with it. Washing buds at the end of harvest before hanging is another way to ensure you arenāt smoking anything funky. Plus it almost never burns my plants or has a negative impact in any way. I just make sure to spray at lights off. And the pests donāt seem to get used to it or become immune in any way. I use it on my garden, roses and lawn as well. One spring time spray does miracles for pest control throughout the summer.
I have 3 separate buildings for growing, breeding, testing, etcā¦ they are all separate and not connected. I built the largest grow room myself from the ground upā¦ literally grading the groun to build it on, doing all the electrical and engineering the irrigation system, etcā¦ Its fully automated with double hepa filtration on the intake and outtakeā¦ I sleep well now. 
People tend to have their brain broken when I say I infest my test rooms on purposeā¦ I imagine if youāve dealt with pests forever and usually lose the battle you would think what I do is insane and probably totally bullshit. But itās not difficult for me, on both ends. Very little effort is needed to be able to tell my growers what pests to watch out for. Some people are only worried about mites, or just thrips, etcā¦ so if I have a cultivar that naturally avoids one of them, thatās what they should grow instead of my other cultivar thatās prone to what they get attacked by most. Just saves lost time and effort for everyone including me. The less I have to replace as part of my āSatisfaction Guaranteeā, the less money I lose. The happier my growers are, the more they tell their friends who tell their friends and so on.
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Thatās pretty amazing, for sure, but I love the logic, and I suppose your grower friends, too. I sure donāt see claims about any resistance any more. Lots of breeders used to tell you it seemed like. At least fungus wise.
Cool about the buildings. Iām a builder, and was a surveyor too. Iām sort of retired, though. Still do jobs on occasion.
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I couldāve used your expertise and experience building itā¦ I used YouTube as I had zero experience in any of the things I did before doing it. Came out well though even if it destroyed me physically, mentally and financiallyā¦ lol
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Ah, hell. Man, thatās the way to do it these days. I used to go online before every job (I worked alone) and relearn or catch up on current tips or shortcuts, and newer materials. You can get instructions for anything anymore. You do have to sift through the good advice and bad. I think there are YouTubes for anything nowadays.
Thatās cool that you figured it out yourself. I used to. And, yeah, itās hard on the body and wallet.
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Iād be curious to hear how to make up Dr Zymes at home. I heard it was mostly citric acid, but contained something else too?
You are a madman. But, it is inspirational for any pest-addled grower to know it can be done.
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Iām to the point where I just dunk the whole plant in a bucket of dr zymes. I wrap the pot in a plastic bag so the dirt doesnāt spill out. If the plant is too big to be fully submerged then I use a cup to ladle it on the part thatās not submerged until Iām sure the whole plant is saturated.
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Best part about it is you can let that plant sit upside down in that bucket for 25 min to a half hour pull it out flip it back right side up and all them little fuckers will be dead unless you bring them back in
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