Help!help!help! Spider mites are trying to take over!

OKAY SO I HAVE 3 BEAUTIFUL PURPLE STRAIN PLANTS THAT ARE 3 WEEKS INTO FLOWERING. I NOTICED 1 PLANT ABOUT 3 WEEKS INTO VEG HAD SPIDER MITES:wall: SO SPED TO THE LOCAL HYDRO STORE AND BOUGHT 100% NEEM BY DYNAGRO. STARTED APPLICATING IT AS IT SAID. eVERYTHING WAS FINE UNTIL RECENTLY I STARTED NOTICING THAT THEY HAVE GOTTEN WORSE. I NEED THESE LITTLE FUKERS TO GO AWAY.PLEASE SOME TELL ME WHAT I SHOULD DO? +REP FOR YOUR ANSWERS.
 

ak99

Member
i to have mites and they just won't go away i hate these damn things!its like get the fuck out of my garden. i have heard of some fogger but i'n not sure you can use it during flower.i would try some predators they eat the mites and won't hurt the plants then they die off there about seventy five dollars.
 

Blaze12

Member
I hate spider mites and they love the purple strains. Your best bet is preventing them before they get in there. I treat all my plants with Neem Oil even if they do not have any signs of bugs.

My mixture is Hot Water, Neem Oil, SM-90 (or MM2000) a few drops of liquid dish soap to get it all mixed up.

I treat them about once every two weeks but taper off about three weeks into flower. When I treat them I spray every single leaf, every nook and cranny, every stem on every plant.

Ladybugs are a predator of mites so you may want to look at home depot or any garden supply house for ladybugs.

There is always Pyrethrum Bombs but that should be a last resort

Good luck in your Battle...
 

stokesly

Active Member
I am a noob and am on my 2nd grow... 3 og kush, 2 prpl trainwreck, 1 ss haze. I had mites in veg, knocked them back, then got them when I switched to flower. I am now on week 7. They did not seem too bad about 1 week ago, but I started really looking and saw webs. Took a paint brush and got the webs off. Last grow I had mites web up the inside of the biggest cola and kill the goddammed thing. Its like they get together and figure out where the biggest bud is and all decide "hey, lets go fuck that thing up". Needless to say I am figuring out this thing on my own. I started with the organics and thought I would be patient. When these plants come out I am going to hang them to get the mites to climb up to the string (which I will cover with Neem and Don't Bug Me). Then I am going to bleach the room, bomb the thing w/ pryth, put a no pest strip in for 3 days, then bomb again.
Does this seem to be a good plan?
The guy at the hydro store told me that mites were just a fact of life in Humboldt. The climate is just too good for them. I found a post online (not here) by a guy from Humboldt saying the mites here were like super mites because of all the resistances they built up. What the hell? Anyone have advice for mites that are the spawn of the devil?
 

cell1988

Well-Known Member
you could use avid, but its not worth the 1000 dollars unless you have a huge crop!! i use Aza-max. it is made from a tree's sap, and is super effective against spider mites. its about $80, but it makes like 50 gallons.. you mix it with water (follow amounts on directions) wear a mask and gloves, even though it isnt supposed to be toxic to mamals, its just better. and after you got it mixed and shaken up well, you just spray every leaf and then dump some into the soil(about the same amount as you water it everyday). this killed all my spider mites and i had thousands.. the plant absorbs the insecticide so you dont want to treat the plant 6 weeks before harvest. you do this treatment once, and then again 2 weeks later. its pretty cheap, works 10000000000X better than that cheap aerosol crap, alcohol/water, and soap.. good luck !!!
 

stokesly

Active Member
thanks... tried to spot spray the leaves a few weeks ago w/ rubbing alcohol & water. Not such a good idea. I got some on the buds and stopped very shortly after. I think the og kush doesn't have that much smell (only one I sprayed on), but some of the buds on that plant smell like dirty feet when you stick your nose up to them. I gave a gentle squeeze to one of the buds to see if the inside was mushy. It is still hard as a rock. I will see what happens in a week when I cut them.

I will go w/ aza-max. I have the new girls vegging now. They are going in as soon as the others come out and I can clean the room. They will be treated well.

BTW. Ladybugs suck. I also read that they do not do anything unless put in at veg. When they get in a 12/12 they do not go after the mites. I just ended up with a lot of ladybug crispys on the tops of my bulbs.
 

stokesly

Active Member
BTW I have a closet grow - probably 3x4x8 w/ a 400W HPS and sometimes another 400W but I worry about the wiring in this house so I only run the 2 at the same time when I am home. Gets friggin hot in there and it is dry. It must be mite paradise in there.

Oh, and with the description I have given (light webbing on top buds) should I cut now, or keep brushing them off and wait the week. I smoke for anxiety/insomnia. When I smoke some strains, and early harvest I can get panic attacks. Sometimes pretty bad. I don't care about smoking some mites, I just don't want the insides to be webbed up.
 

hazed4days

Member
SHIT, i got them fucking mites too, im debating on getting some aza-max stuff, or neem oil.



im 6 weeks into flower and i only plan on flowering for 3 more weeks.

my grow is a 2x9ft room with 1200watts infected in the thousands!
 

stokesly

Active Member
lady bugs and they are cheap
I got ladybugs and all they did was kick it on the plants (mostly on the floor though) and do god knows what. I don't think they ate anything. Their are still well over 100 alive in the closet and I have even more mites.
 

moedownonit

Well-Known Member
hey guys just to clear a few things up....ive delt with these things a time now and if your in flower there is not alot you can do except hand remove the webbing and mites everyday with a soft brush and remove the leaves that are most infected. It sux i know..ive had purple kush turn into brown shwag in a matter of days because of these little basterds. Ladybugs eat aphids not mites. YOu can buy predator mites but i dont know the effectiveness of them. There is one product ive read about on the forums here called Floramite. You can try to ebay a small amount being it is expensive. Soak you plants in veg with this stuff and maybe once more after the eggs hatch and its goodbye mites
 

stokesly

Active Member
thanks... just hard to accept that I am pretty much screwed and can't do anything about it. I hope I get something out of this run at least.
 

stokesly

Active Member
I just stumbled upon a freakin sweet way to knock them back a bit when the are webbing. I picked up one of my clean paint brushes (designed for acrylic - about 1/4" in width). I started to carefully remove webs, and of course the brush got sticky from the leaves on the buds. A little into it I found that the mites were sticking to the brush. I started to grind the brush into my palm after each stroke and also fluffing the brush by rolling the bristles in between my fingers. My palm and fingers ended up green from squishing those little bastards. I slowly rotated the plants and could easily see the mites from a side view and some of the deeper webbing from the front. After the brush was sticky all I had to do was lightly hit a mite with it to get it to stick to the brush. I could also turn the leaves over and get eggs off of the bottoms of the leaves. Even if the eggs and mites were not completely squished they were encased in a martix of sticky wonder.
I used the brush to wipe up and down on the leaves coming out of the buds to be as gentle as I could on the bud itself. For the ones that I could see from a side view that were on the hairs I just had to gently push the end of the brush on the hairs themselves (like taking a shot in pool) and push out.
I sacrificed a $6 brush. You can get one at that price or lower at Michaels or any art supply store. Just make sure that they are somewhat soft. Probably want to go for a watercolor/acrylic brush. Watercolor brushes may be better since they are softer, but I think they would just knock the hairs down instead of kinda brushing them up. I guess I will know in a couple of days if my attempts are doing that much.
I imagine if you are just trying to clean the leaves in the early stages you could sacrifice a bud to get the brush sticky to take the eggs off.
Sorry, props to moedownonit. you suggested the brush earlier. Guess my memory isn't what it should be.
 

jrp677

Active Member
I had a bad infestation of spider mites on my first grow. I tried it all, neem oil, Ed Rosenthal's Zero Tolerance, Preditor Mites, Hot Shots Pest Strips, Azamax, Pyretherin Bombs. Neem oil, Preditor Mites, and ZT only killed off SOME of the mites but they came back with a vengence. I had great luck with Hot Shots Pest strips (they emit a vapor which killed ALL of the bugs in my cabinet, buy it at Lowes or HD) I also took the plants out of the cabinet and bombed the hell out of it with Pyrithrins, worked great. I would not use either (Hot SHots or Pyrethins on flowering plants). I use Azamax, which is awesome on both flowering and vegging plants. Azamax can be watered in or sprayed onto the leaves. Once Azamax is introduced into the plant any bug that takes a bite is killed from the inside out. It destroys the bug's digestive and reproductive systems eventually eliminating all bugs and there offspring. I feel your pain, I had to trash an entire plant 1 week before harvest due to spider mites, Good luck. :peace: OUT!
 

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