6th week off flowering, and I have spider mites!!!!

[Jman]

My plants are all in their 6th week of flowering, is it worth trying to get rid of them or will I damage buds. They are mainly concentrated on 1 WW, but there are bugs on the other three 2. Is there anything that I can use to just spray the whole plant down.

 

[laylow6988]

I seen a little bit of your grow and I would recommend getting some Neem oil and spray them right away, wait 3-4 days and spray again. Fill a bottle with a 5% bleach solution and spray and wipe down everything in the grow area. Hope that the population is gone, and just give them a lil spray bath of water every once in a while to rid the taste of Neem. Remember to shake off excess water especially while flowering to prevent mold or fungus. Higher humidity will slow them down along with lower temps.


I have used harvest friendly sprays, and they didn't do jack for me. The only thing that worked that is safe for me so far is Neem Oil. And to this day I have not had a mite indoors.

 

[Jman]

I checked tonite, and I tried something.......I have the ability to maintain high humidity with awesome air circulation. Would kickin the humidity up help. I know low humidity is desired during flowering. And it might affect potency. Is that a better method than spraying. I don't want to damage the buds. By the way the problem is not extremely bad. There are fewer than I thought. Some of my plants are 7 to 9 week harvest. They are almost done. I will check with a scope in a few days. I went through the two worst plants and applied this bug killer to the leaves only. I tried to spray with the bug killer and it looks like the pistils turned orange.

 

[laylow6988]

I checked tonite, and I tried something.......I have the ability to maintain high humidity with awesome air circulation. Would kickin the humidity up help. I know low humidity is desired during flowering. And it might affect potency. Is that a better method than spraying. I don't want to damage the buds. By the way the problem is not extremely bad. There are fewer than I thought. Some of my plants are 7 to 9 week harvest. They are almost done. I will check with a scope in a few days. I went through the two worst plants and applied this bug killer to the leaves only. I tried to spray with the bug killer and it looks like the pistils turned orange.

I hope the bug killer you used is safe for consumption or around harvest, for veggies… what kind did you use? I hope you didn’t lace your bud with poison.

It’s not the potency I would worry about when raising the humidity. High humidity levels in a grow room is a great atmosphere for fungus and mold to thrive. And these are far worse than bugs on your nugs.

One thing that I did to keep mites at bay was to use ISO Alcohol and water mixed 50%-50% and sprayed the plants and walls and floor. It was enough to keep them at bay. After a while I also went back in and sprayed with pure water, just to make sure that the alcohol does not eat my trichromes.

 

[zipflip]

i wanna jump in here a scooch . lol
LAYLOW<<<

use ISO Alcohol and water mixed 50%-50% and sprayed the plants and walls and floor

i am a qwizzo (iso oil) lover an make it alot and teh principal there applies that alcohol dissolves the trichomes(thc) wouldnt sprayin ya plants wit 50/50 iso/water knock out any trichs at all tho.
like sai im just thinkin the concept of the iso oil when i ask this is why? tahnks

 

[laylow6988]

i wanna jump in here a scooch . lol
LAYLOW<<<
i am a qwizzo (iso oil) lover an make it alot and teh principal there applies that alcohol dissolves the trichomes(thc) wouldnt sprayin ya plants wit 50/50 iso/water knock out any trichs at all tho.
like sai im just thinkin the concept of the iso oil when i ask this is why? tahnks

Zip, I'm glad you asked that. That is reason #1 that you don't use the full 70% solution. By time you mix it it's about 30% or so alcohol. I first asked Hick what his thoughts were and he directed me in that path. I now also take trimmings and extract oil using ISO. But back to the topic. I had like 4 huge plants growing in a chamber I built, which ended up with mites thriving. Close to harvest but not close enough. So I did this spray and I did not notice any deformities to the trichromes. And once I smoked it I didn't notice anything different about the Skunk1, in flavor or potency. I think that small amount of ISO is just enough to cover mites, and then the alcohol interacts with the mites skin. It breaths through the skin so damage from alcohol is deadly.

Note: I am sure there the alcohol has some ill effect one way or the other on the plant. When options are considered I would rather spray and kill the mites to keep the population down and risk slight damage to the plant... then to wait 2 weeks(that is long enough for a small population to turn into a mob of hungry mites). The sight of yellow spots on your nugs will constantly remind you that you are smoking mites, eggs, and their ****.

 

[Super Silver Haze]

good luck with getting ride of the mites. after i would spray with iso/h2o i would go leaf by leaf removing any bugs/larva. i did this daily until my bottle of alcohol was gone. it was a major pain but i got rid of them.

not sure if this would be beneficial but read the post by BombBudPuffa about using Asprin water to help the plant when its under stress. i wonder if it would do any good by spraying asprin water between any treatments?

 

[DirtySouth]

Hold up wait.Never use neem oil or anything else of that matter this late in flowering,read the ingred.,yummy.Do you really want to injest those?Didn't think so.Do not raise the humidity,that maySLOW the mites but I can assure you it will only SPEED UP the MOLD.
Use ingr. you would have no problem consumming,dooo.
Do you have a garden sprayer,good.Here's what you do.Take 1 blender full of water and add 1 teaspoon full of garlic powder,1 teaspoon full of cyanne peppers(powdered is best,hottest avail.)1 teaspoon full chilly pepper seeds.Mince exteremely well.Strain (cheese cloth)into garden spayer.Save the cheese cloth,remove debri.
Remove plants from direct light,and spray(under leaves first,then entire plant),then come back and spray again.This will kill em all dead,4 sure.repeat in 3 dayz and again in another 3.Look @ the leaves now,there all dead.
Way better to taste a-lil chilly than death poison.IMO

 

[DirtySouth]

Asprin did knock out my mildew problem!Altho mine was generic

 

[Exarmy]

mix a little hand soap with water, just so its soapy water. Spray your plants a day, let dry. or lady bugs, get them at you local nursery

 

[laylow6988]

Hold up wait.Never use neem oil or anything else of that matter this late in flowering,read the ingred.,yummy.Do you really want to injest those?Didn't think so.Do not raise the humidity,that maySLOW the mites but I can assure you it will only SPEED UP the MOLD.
Use ingr. you would have no problem consumming,dooo.
Do you have a garden sprayer,good.Here's what you do.Take 1 blender full of water and add 1 teaspoon full of garlic powder,1 teaspoon full of cyanne peppers(powdered is best,hottest avail.)1 teaspoon full chilly pepper seeds.Mince exteremely well.Strain (cheese cloth)into garden spayer.Save the cheese cloth,remove debri.
Remove plants from direct light,and spray(under leaves first,then entire plant),then come back and spray again.This will kill em all dead,4 sure.repeat in 3 dayz and again in another 3.Look @ the leaves now,there all dead.
Way better to taste a-lil chilly than death poison.IMO

Let me defend my statement of "Neem is safe" by giving you the list of ingredients in "Neem Oil".
#1, Neem oil extracted from a Neem plant.

That's it. Don't believe me yet?

 

[HippyInEngland]

I use neem oil, its brilliant stuff.

I do not use it on flowering plants, its an oil, it leaves an oil residue.

I use it when the plant is in vegetative growth.

eace:

 

[Jman]

Thats funn, cause I to used neem oil on them. They did not respond well rite away. They have since recovered, and the buds are producing new pistils. It browned all the existing pistols. But I will tell you what it was enough to keep the mites at bay. The plants are really getting heavy with bud. Check em out.

 

[newgreenthumb]

The neem oil is great but if you are remotely worried about damage, I have used neem oil during flowering with no ill effect, try using something pyrethrin based since it comes from chrysanthemums. I like it because it can be used up to 3-5 days before harvest. Here is a link to check out: hxxp://www.espoma.com/p_consumer/pdf/products/earthtones/insectControl.pdf

 

[newgreenthumb]

I also thought I would include this tidbit of info. This has been taken form wikipedia.org
Pyrethrum (Chrysanthemum [or Tanacetum] cinerariaefolium) is economically important as a natural source of insecticide. The flowers are pulverized, and the active components called pyrethrins, contained in the seed cases, are extracted and sold in the form of an oleoresin. This is applied as a suspension in water or oil, or as a powder. Pyrethrins attack the nervous systems of all insects, and inhibit female mosquitoes from biting. When not present in amounts fatal to insects, they still appear to have an insect repellent effect. They are harmful to fish, but are far less toxic to mammals and birds than many synthetic insecticides and are non-persistent, being biodegradable and also breaking down easily on exposure to light. They are considered to be amongst the safest insecticides for use around food. (Pyrethroids are synthetic insecticides based on natural pyrethrum, e.g., permethrin.)

I hope this is useful to you.