So these are spider mites, right?

thailer said:

it will happen again and you'll need more than soap.

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The spider mites were two grows ago.
Then I cut the plant and threw out the soil.

My last crop was my best crop with over 100 grams and no bugs.

My latest crop has the big soil mites and springtails.

Thanks for all the feedback friends!


I currently believe that they are soil/compost mites as well.
They look most closely related.
And I also agree that from what I learned/read about spider mites, I would expect them to be a lot smaller than what I got.
Also I have no visible damage to the leafs/clones themselves, they don't crawl on the plants, they are all in the soil and below the pots when I lift them.


They are also not "everywhere". They stick to some plants more than others.


So the explanation that they are soil/compost mites and feed on dead roots seems fitting to me as well.


I assume they had a breakout straight after transplanting from the cloner to the pots because some of the roots surely broke/died off and not all of them grew into healthy roots in the soil. I bet they just feasted on those, multiplied massively and that's when I noticed them crawling around on the pots and below and in the soil.


Then I likely continued overwatering with the addition of heavy neem spraying and while the neem surely fucked them up, it might have also resulted in more root rot (together with the regular watering) which also kept the soil/compost mites alive.


I think for now I will stop the neem treatments, maybe I spray below the pots only. Let the clones dry out more and water with regular water and see what happens.


Last I stopped the neem treatments though (after 3 days of heavy treatment I feared the plants suffer from too much neem foliars), they did re-emerge and became more numerous under the pots again...




But what really makes me hopeful in all this is that by all accounts these mites or whatever stayed with the clones and have not moved down the shelve to the other vegging plants.


I am pretty sure if it was spider mites, they would have covered all of my veg chamber by now ..

If it IS mites, sulfur would have been the best choice. With having sprayed oils, do not use sulfur or your plants will burn. You need at least 30 days after applying any oil before using sulfur.

The Borg make webs. Living in the soil is not their M.O. They tend to destroy leaf after leaf, moving up the plant.

Spraying the plants is futile if the bugs are soil borne. Just pour the neem spray straight into the substrate. I killed my springtails in one hit.

Just be sure to let people know you use neem. I, for one, will appreciate you letting me know. I won't smoke or use any neem cannabis.

f-e said:

The Borg make webs. Living in the soil is not their M.O. They tend to destroy leaf after leaf, moving up the plant.

Spraying the plants is futile if the bugs are soil borne. Just pour the neem spray straight into the substrate. I killed my springtails in one hit.

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Don’t look for webs, look for white spots on the leaves. The web making stage happens late in the infestation and if you get to this point you are screwed anyways

Douglas.Curtis said:

Just be sure to let people know you use neem. I, for one, will appreciate you letting me know. I won't smoke or use any neem cannabis.

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Why? Since when is Neem systemic?
I wouldn't use it in flower obviously but afaik it's absolutely unproblematic in veg and washes off/out.


I kept an eye on the clones and mites and haven't watered or treated with neem the last few days.
At first there was a little explosion of the buggers below the pots, I rarely ever see them on the soil or the pots now.


Over the last couple of days numbers have come back down and there seem to be fewer and fewer buggers as time goes on.


Think just letting them be will be the way to go here.

bigbadbiddy said:

Why? Since when is Neem systemic?
I wouldn't use it in flower obviously but afaik it's absolutely unproblematic in veg and washes off/out.

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Since always. There are estimates of close to 3 million cannabis users who have CHS symptoms. I'm sure there are many more. 99% of the people who have tested clean cannabis on my advice have an issue with azadirachtin. They can use cannabis without vomiting, as long as there isn't any aza in it. The remaining 1% will have CHS with THC isolate, so there's zero doubt they have true CHS. (I'm guessing it will probably be the death of some gut bacteria due to high antibiotic use as an infant, the same source as many peanut allergies)

It's completely problematic to people like myself with a sensitivity to azadirachtin. (the main active ingredient) It gives me full blown CHS symptoms, plus occasional bouts of hypothermia.

It's very systemic with cannabis and it's an oil which does not 'wash off/out.' Same reason you cannot use sulfur for 30 days after using it.

Should you stop use of neem oil before flower, chances are I would be able to use some of your flowers. Should you be using neem seed meal in your soil, I won't touch it and I'd rather eat red meat. (I'd rather have 3 days of gut pain and rotten meat smelling offal, than deal with the vomiting and pain from azadiracthin any day.) Should you happen to use an azadirachtin product at any time in veg, I won't touch the flowers.

Look up CHS azadirachtin poisoning. People using neem/aza has messed me up for 10 years.

Wow, thank you for that info, I was not aware!


I will read up on it more.


I have been using a small dose of neem cake in my soil as a form of IPM and have only ever used neemseed oil emulsion as a foliar spray in veg, twice. Once when I was trying to combat the fungus gnats and now with these mites that I was fearing could be spider mites.


Was not aware this could cause any problems whatsoever, always thought neem is absolutely unproblematic.


Might have to take a step back towards rosemary oil and the like in the future ...


Like I said, will read up on it but I had always considered Neem as my organic "Roundup" i.e. emergency product that is used "in case of emergency" that, unlike Roundup etc. is not problematic.
Seems I need to rethink that...




Anyway, as I stated, I have left the clones alone the last week or so and the mites have all but disappeared. Just a few below the pots (and surely in the soil) when I lift them. Numbers went down considerably and I believe they will soon be gone.


In the meantime I used a spray bottle to try and "wash off" the neemseed oil emulsion.
The plants definitely suffered from the neem, I think the first time I sprayed it was also too much neemseed oil in the emulsion and I overall went too thick and heavy with it (I thought spider mites and thought I need to drench the leafs so they don't start spinning webs and eating up the plants).


Since these were monstercropped clonse, the neem had a lot of sticky surface area on the bud sites to stick to and cover the plant. There is a lot of "fowling" of such sites on the clones, very dark, unhealthy looking leafs etc.


So I have been trying to combat this with water foliar sprays and hope the clones will bounce back.


So far it looks so good. Lost 1 clone and another looks like it's done for. Fortunately both were second copies, so no genetics lost so far.


We will see how they continue to behave. There are a bunch of clones that were so big and healthy that the little damage from the neem doesn't seem to bother them but some others I (probably) killed with the heavy neem foliars.
Might be they would have taken it fine if they were regular clones cut in veg but since they had bud sites, they definitely suffered from it.