Louisville79
Member
I need advice on how to proceed now that the damage is done and new healthy growth is forming.I have (hopefully)just eradicated a mite infestation.I accepted 12 nice plants from a fellow grower(big mistake)6 Northern Lights and 6 mystery strain. they were about 10 inches tall and very healthy when I got them I transplanted them and put them in my 5 x 5 x8 grow room with an air-cooled 600 watt metal halide bulb and charcoal air filter,good intake and exhaust systems great humidity levels, good air circulation,always very clean.I made it through my last 3 grows fine, with no issues whatsoever!And now about 2 to 3 weeks after receiving and transplanting the 12 ladies got into 1and 1/2 gallon pots I started noticing some yellowing leaves and signs of distress on more than half of the 12!At first I thought it was heat stress or nute deficiency,but I have always used the same nutes and test my ph and also my room was only 78 degrees?About 5 days later I noticed little white specks all over the tops of my leaves and three days later after that I started noticing major signs of distress,at least three of them were on the verge of death.I was able to identify what was a minimal mite infestation.I didn't have any webbing yet,but they were definitely sucking all the moisture and nutes out of my leaves and causing a good amount of distress.About 6 or 7 of my 12 were affected 3 almost dead.I transferred all 12 of my ladies into my shower and gave them a good hosing off with the shower head, I picked up some organocide and treated the under side and top side of all of them including the soil while in the shower I then disinfected my entire room treated the entire room with rubbing alcohol and then disinfected it again along with all materials used in the room.at this point I killed all the visible egg and I believe most of the mites!I then sprayed again three days later with organocide. it is now a week at this point after first spraying and I started noticing damage done to all the leaves that I sprayed. I guess i sprayed to close together,or the moisture combined with the light caused burning.4 days after that I repeated the shower process only this time using a 35% rubbing alcohol mixture on all foilage and immediately rinsing it off after spraying.I then released 300 ladybugs into my grow tent and haven't seen a single mite since.the ladybugs are definitely doing their job because they have been crawling all over the pots stems and leaves for over a week now and I am seeing lots of new healthy growth. I would like any advice whatsoever and also would like to know what I should do with all the damaged leaves. is leaving the yellowing and dying leaves on my plant causing more damage then if I were to just cut them all off? allowing only the new growth? I am 6 days into flowering now but I am very concerned because although there is new growth none of the damage is getting any better,there doesn't seem to be any new damage only healthy new growth. should I just cut off all the damaged leaves and leave only the new growth?or should I leave all the damaged leaves on there until they fall off by themselves, it is just such an eyesore end I feel that the plant is using more of its energy trying to fix unfixable damage,and I'd rather that energy B focused on the new growth and flowers instead of trying to fix the old damaged the leaves.