Spider-mites VS Ladybugs!

Alright, so a few days ago I saw a couple spider mites on one of the plants that didn't start out here. I was told they had gone through an infestation before, but there were no new signs for weeks... Anywho, I ordered some ladybugs, and they got here yesterday - I know, predatory mites are better, etc...

Anyway, here's the damage:


It's nearly all just this one plant (for now)... but things got MUCH worse in the few days before the ladybugs got here. I was violently ill, so the dehumidifier filled and stopped running, humidity spiked... probably something to do with their rapid growth... Most of the leaves on that plant are now wilting.

Anyway, turned the dehumidifier to ON (so it just keep running) and there're about 1500 ladybugs on a mission... or napping in a pile:


Most of my plants are about two weeks from harvest, though this and another were given to me so... not quite sure.

Anyway, is there anything else I can do this late into flower that will make a difference in the time left?

I would have used No Pest strips first then the lady bugs. IMO, they were your best bet, if you used them now you'd kill the lady bugs.

Good luck, mites are no joke, you have to keep at them until every single last one is completely dead or they just come back just as fast

bajafox said:

I would have used No Pest strips first then the lady bugs. IMO, they were your best bet, if you used them now you'd kill the lady bugs.

Good luck, mites are no joke, you have to keep at them until every single last one is completely dead or they just come back just as fast

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Those strips seem more like a preventative measure rather than an answer once there's already a problem - either way, I totally forgot those existed while I was looking for an answer before. :/

Aye Im fighting the dreaded little bastards,(had um before and then back again,,neem and tabbacco for me but your to far gone))),was maybe going to go with lady bugs ,,but found alot of info to show that they wont get every last mite(infact no one said that ladybugs on its own would work)...and are very prone to HID lights,,some where it said plan for at least 97% of the ladybugs to commit harry-carry(excuse me spelling). So always let them out just after lights out,,wow 1500 ladybugs is a good army,,
Tempreture is a good way to slow down the mites, below 60F,,if you can get it to about 10 above freezing for the night it will knock out some of the mites,,
,but that first pic shows that its a full blown infestation,,Id chop and gutt the room and then disinfect and neem and disinfect again.

If you harvest annd dry They will try to migrate from the drying buds down the drying lines(if you dry like that) so tangle foot smeared onto the drying lines would stop them. But honest I think when(if) you smoke that it will crackly and pop!!!

But the more I look at them pic's I think you have to strip the grow room and disinfect,,GUTTED for you,honest..and as the above poster says once you got mites its very hard to get rid of,,take it easy..

If you use the No Pest strips while all of your ventilation is off you will kill anything that is moving. IMO, they work great for preventative and killing them well into flowering. I had been using sprays and other crap until I finally started using these strips, it stopped them dead in their tracks. Now I'm just trying to get rid of whatever hatchlings the adults left, I believe they hatch every 5 days or so. Just gotta keep at them until you don't see then anymore

Good luck, mites killed nearly half my harvest from my last cycle, it was an expensive lesson

i tried lady bugs once... they didnt eat spider mites. malathion will kill them. and the insecticide becomes inert after a few weeks making it safe to consume. its what they use on commercial crops that we all eat every day. its been used since 1940-1950. Lots of testing, and i've found its the the best thing to kill any pests. but i usually use it during my veg time... i dont spray it on flowers. but spider mites eat THC, and they suck the life outta your leaves & calyx's so. and they multiply like crazy. so after your harvest. bleach and bomb with malathion before you grow in your space again or the eggs they layed previously will hatch and breed. and you'll battle them forever. i was all for organics until i got a mega infestation of spider mites i fucking hate those little bugs.

bunnyface said:

But the more I look at them pic's I think you have to strip the grow room and disinfect,,GUTTED for you,honest..and as the above poster says once you got mites its very hard to get rid of,,take it easy..

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I may have just decided to be defensive, refusing to accept what you say, but that is the ONLY bud with webs, and it's pretty small... Here's a picture with a lighter for scale.

I know how you're feeling, so much hard work and now this but you should take the advice and pull her. She is only going to make things worse for you. I had to kill 2 plants 3 weeks from finishing due to mites, it sucks and it's a shitty feeling but if you don't get rid of them now they will affect all of your future crops which means less yield.

It's better to cut your losses now and start planning for your next cycle

At the very least pull the most infected plant and throw some No Pest strips in there wile your lights are off and shut down your ventilation. Do this for a few hours a day for the next few weeks. The NPS are about $7 at Home Depot, I would use one for every 4x4 of space you have

Yeah, so I've removed the two potted plants, I think I'm going to cut them down. I have a small backyard, but it doesn't receive a whole lot of light... and I'd rather not have anything outside - I live in a fairly well populated area.

Additionally, I've just discovered that my windows are being redone in the next two weeks... so I have a lot of decisions to make (totally legal grow, probably just going to type up an NDA - there should only be one person doing the job, and I've hung out with him and stuff before...).

NOTE: Tobacco is often used as a pesticide, though there are still people who think cigarette smoke can carry the Mosaic Virus (not a chance, IMO). What if one just hotboxed a room with tobacco smoke? I mean... the active poisons will still be there, right? Just a thought... it might make your buds smell like tobacco, but if it's for personal use, and you smoke tobacco either on it's own or in spliffs, you might not mind... just thinking out loud.

You can always use the plants to make cannabutter, that's what I did with the 2 I had to kill early. The brownies came out great

Only downside to a bunch of cigarette smoke is the smell.... Stick with the non scent No Pest Strips, IMO. Just use them correctly and do not inhale it for too long (more than a half hour I believe,) plus you don't want your kids or pets around it. It's completely harmless as long as you ventilate the fumes out of your grow room before going in but it WILL kill the mites and anything else crawling around in there.

I veg tent will be down for the next 6 hour or so and I just put my NPS in there while everything is off. I noticed a few on one of my clones but as far as how it was a few weeks ago it's night and day. Only thing I'm dealing with now are the one's that are left hatching and still trying to breed. I'm hoping to add another NPS to my flower tent soon just in case...

Color me stupid - I was far too busy freaking out to notice that those plants also needed water. I initially decided I would wait, then not water if I was going to chop, but I decided to water them (mostly to relax myself). I sat there and examined everything much closer with my 40x magnifier, and a lot of the new damage was just old damage I neglected to remove all of (I pulled up pics of the day they arrived too). While I was doing this, just about all the leaves perked back up... so perhaps it's not actually that bad, but I'm probably not going to put these back in with the others, whatever I end up doing in the end.

EDIT: The tobacco thing was just a general idea, I wasn't thinking about combinations, and certainly not doing it all the time (though, I did smoke in the room outside of the tent before, but stopped once flowers started to form).