Heat treating spider mites

[967]

Think i read somewhere you can heat grow room up to 120 - 130F? and it will kill mites. Now i can't seem to find any decent info about it, does it actually work?
Does it kill mites and eggs or just mites?
What effect does it have on the plant? I gather they might not like it
How long do you have to hold that heat for?
How do you get it that hot? Most heaters have a thermal cut-off
Is it a one shot treatment or does it need to be repeated at regular intervals?

If it actually works i would be keen to try it. Getting sick of spending money on sprays and awkwardly spraying, only to have them come back again weeks/months later. My only option left other than this is using avid. Tried the rip plants half way through flower, bleach and pyrethrum bomb room. Three weeks later i saw them cruising round on a web on the ceiling of my room. three damn weeks since any plant material was in that room. They're like the herpes of the plant world!

 

[myiqis55]

You'll probably kill the plants too. Ive had a few accidents and have seen a room hit 110 and shit was ugly

 

[grimmace]

that's toooo hot for me!

that's toooo hot for me!

i've had luck with takedown garden spray. im sure there are other brands also. but basically it's a pyrethrum spray with canola oil.
pyrethrum is an unstable compound on it's own, but is stabalized with the oil. the oil also suffocates the eggs, which the pyrethrum is unable to penatrate. when this mixture is sprayed the pyrethrum will de-stabalize and break down in a few days. so there is minimal risk of contamination of the flowers. the few times it happened that i've seen, the flowers passed pesticide lab screenings.
that said, mites will reproduce faster as the temp rises. a female will lay on average 20 eggs and take 3 days to hatch, then laying more eggs etc. i have noticed a difference between 80 and 90 degrees of at least double the rate of growth. I don't know the actual rate it increases.
so you need to spray at least every 3 days. I have had the spray work well enough that i've only needed one treatment, but if you have an infestation, i'd recommend 3 treatments at least.
de-leafing a bit before hand would help as it will make full coverage easier. long sleeves are good also. after a lot of application i've had itchy skin for a few days on exposed skin.
but i have eliminated mites a few times, and it's been a bit since i've seen them again.
catching them early is the key to success with mites. and even with the characteristics of pyrethrum, i would still hesitate spraying if buds are 5 weeks or more. but given choice of saving the crop. i would spray.
even though pyrethrum comes from the chrysanthemum flower. i don't think it qualifies as organic. if you are an organic grower, you need someone else's advice. (ladybugs, predator mites... that's limit of my knowledge on that.)
other than that, prevention is and air filter on your intake, and keeping your floor swept and free of dust, debris, and general messiness. i always wipe down and sanetize all surface areas between crops.
Hope this helps.
-g-

 

[967]

Not at all organic man coco and chem for me. Not a lot of choice for mite control round my way. Have already tried 2 different sprays which work well to knock them back, but won't eradicate completely. Thought i had rid of them alternating sprays 3 days apart. Got through a whole damn flowering without spraying and without any signs of them, which i was looking for vigilantly. Seems they skipped that grow and on to the next

Just over the time and money that goes into it. I like the idea of the oil suffocating eggs. Does neem oil do the same thing? If it does i could use a contact killer for adults, and neem oil for the eggs?

 

[GMT]

drop temps as low as possible, raise humidity as high as you dare, and up the airflow to noisey max. The only way without chems is to make them want to leave.

 

[bugman52]

I use FORBID 4F three drops to a quart of water, spray every 4 days for 2 weeks, then spray 1 a week for 3 weeks, then 1 every 2 weeks I hope this helps. only spray in the veg room

 

[grimmace]

I think neem oil makes the mites mouths sticky so they can't eat and starves them. not 100% sure that's how it works on them. but remember hearing it somewhere.....
I'm pretty sure it dosen't kill the eggs. a pyrethrum spray will do it. take down garden spray from monterrey. (or any other pyrethrum/oil combo.) don't spray 2 wks before or since sulfur.
I try to spray with lights off. but i've had to do it with them on in a pinch before and didn't notice any detrimental impact.
they also make a spray with spinosad as opposed to pyrethrum... but i haven't tried it as i get results from what i've been using.

 

[grimmace]

also, get the concentrated bottle, add 2-3 caps into a standard spray bottle and add water. shake well. you get 30-40 spraybottles full. and i think it costs 20 bucks for a concentrated bottle. the premixed is not really cost effective. you want to fully coat all surface area.

i haven't used forbid 4f, but anything from bayer pharma will commit total genocide on any intended insects in my experience. they are spendy, but the nuclear option. some mites will develop resistances to chemicals if you don't kill em all. evolution is a bitch sometimes.

 

[whatthe215]

i think the heat treatment is RetroGrow's thing, he talks about it in the "Broad Mites?" thread. 120f for 1 hour is what he says. circulation fans off, ya might need space heaters to help get the heat up. make sure it's a model with no high temp cutoff.

i tried it in a friends 600w tent that had mites, and although we got the top of the canopy to 120 we couldn't get the whole entire area let alone the whole plants/canopy 120. killed some spidermites, but not all forsure.

i dunno, they talk about it a lot in the broad mites? thread around pages 45-55 i think

 

[HidingInTheHaze]

drop temps as low as possible, raise humidity as high as you dare, and up the airflow to noisey max. The only way without chems is to make them want to leave.

And go where? into every crack and crevice they can find only to resurface when environment is favorable. They can go dormant for quite a while.

You have to kill every single one of them, because just one can generate an army in no time.

 

[GMT]

Yeah I've had them several times. I just said what I did, following the opposites of what they like. I now haven't seen them in years.

 

[killa-bud]

in veg the only thing i did was spray the plants down with plain water everyday for a week,mites were gone and that was that..haven't had them since

 

[HidingInTheHaze]

Yeah I've had them several times. I just said what I did, following the opposites of what they like. I now haven't seen them in years.

Yeah they are some of the worst creatures on the face of the planet.

It took me 6 months to eradicate mine, luckily I didn't lose any genetics in the process but it was a lot of pain staking work every day to get rid of them.

Haven't seen them in a while :::knock on wood:::