Spider Mite Eradication Mission

Gang,

Late spring I bought some house plants and herbs such as Orange Mint, Chocolate Mint and Lemon Balm.

Well, I was raided by spider mites. I am pretty sure they were on at least the one house plant & THEY LOVE MINTS AND LEMON BALM!

They feasted on those plants and subsequently attacked my MJ.

I bought safer soap, and Dyna-Neem to kill and control them.
Using those products kept them away from my MJ and house plants, however after I harvested they keep on coming back!

I have read many threads where people say to clean everything and that is what Im gonna do.

My question is what did you use to clean with?

More info:
I dont want to use a Doctor Doom fogger because it is flammabe and I have several pilot lights in the house I rent and could cause an explosion and or the land lord coming by.

I bought a 1 gallon hand pump pressure sprayer to distribute safer soap and or other cleaning agents as needed.

In general here is my plan:
>I am going to spray my plastic pots, trays with safer soap and neem oil.
>Any seedling / cloning domes I am going to wipe down with dish soap and vinegar.

But, I want feedback on what YOU used in your growing area, room or cab (I have a C-25 grow cab) including tables, chairs, storage totes, etc.?
Likewise, what did you use to clean your lighting equipment?

Sadly, I had this nice big palm tree that just kept on getting raided by the mites. I kept on spraying it over and over and over. Finally I had enough, took it outside, chopped it down with my machete and threw it out.

About year ago I got some scale from this shitty mushroom compost I bought from this dude who had this huge pile of it in his yard.
I thought scale was a pain in the ass to deal with but now I can truly say I know what is meant when people refer to spider mites as the BORG.

Thanks,
-~WW~-

You can't go wrong by cleaning everything, but I didn't fully eradicate my spider mites until I started setting off pyrethrin bombs every ten days for four or five rounds. You have to kill them before you see them.

no pest strips and azamax. they havent come back

yea, i have also had really good luck with azatrol (almost same thing as azamax i believe). applied once, applied once again in 5 days. havent seen a single insect in there since. the stuff is supposed to make the plant taste bad for the insects and repels them as well as other effects on them. you can find out all about them on their website.

If your goin for the total kill, Floramite works way better than azamax.. And maybe add some sns217 to kill any eggs.. I suggest doing the fogger and turning off your gas and electricity at home before you do it.. That would be a lot less work.. Also, the no-pest strips work great! BUT!!!! They only work once! meaning that the bugs develop a resistance or immunity to them after the first time.. I got rid of them for aprox 8 weeks, then got a few new clones, which had mites.. Then after that the no-pest strips never worked again, and I would try using like 6 at a time... After that I had to just chop everything down and start new plants in a different section of the basement.. that was 6 weeks ago.. Everything is still bug free so far (knocking on wood).
If your interested in floramite, i believe it was rezdog that wrote a article on it.. He really repped it up.. Friends have also said great things.. I have only used it on outdoor bushes before, but it seemed to work..

I still go with aerosols. Take the locking cap off and trim it so you can use it like a fogger. I totally understand your safety concern and I applaud it. Aerosols are rated for flammabilty on a five point scale,extremely flammable being the highest. If the warning says "extremely flammable" it contains flammable ingredients and very easily burns with the flame being drawn to the aerosol can. Yikes,here is a safe way.Turn off the pilot light turn off the exhaust,hold your breath and fog the hell out of it, turn on the fans.Do this every other day.Three to four applications you will be good to go. Try it on your houseplants ,it will assure you that it is safe for the girls. Those other ways are just bandaids,your just controlling them.

Have you considered biological control?

Neoseiulus californicus is a great preventive strategy. I have experience using it indoors and in greenhouses with great success. What is nice about this solution is that if the conditions are right and your inoculation is successful they could live there for years keeping the spider mites below the threshold of economic damage without any effort.

If the problem is already out of hand perhaps you should consider Stethorus punctillum which is capable of eradicating high populations of spider mites but quickly dies out when populations get too low. When the populations get too low to support stethorus would be the best time to inoculate with californicus.

Sometimes attempts are eradication are futile and re emerge stronger than before because you end up killing any ecosystem which may have existed capable of having pressure on their population.

Unfortunately complete eradication is unlikely considering the life cycle of the spider mite. They are capable of going into diapause which some of them will and while you are killing his buddies he is hiding away in stasis. Waiting for you to cheer your victory so he can come out of stasis and start breeding, before you realize it - there is a huge population again.

When using pesticides remember to study the life cycle of the pest you are targeting so you can make sure to time applications properly.

This is cut and pasted from another IC thread with several people reporting very good results. Good read HTH

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=192286

sprayed my plants last night (they were mostly clear of mites from having being bathed in neem several times before) with my lavender tea and it worked great...the concentrated oils i got smell wonderful and it looks pretty oily and viscous...i then followed Jay Kush's recipe and diluted 10mL of oil into 500ml of RO water...once the solution was diluted it lacked any real smell (which is much better than the pungent ass smell of neem oil) and just seemed like normal water...i wasn't sure if i had diluted it too much but used it anyway and was very surprised to see the efficacy of this stuff...i noticed that not only did it kill the mites but it also still worked as a leaf sheen much like neem oil leaving my plants looking a very healthy dark green...

AVID @ 1mL per Gallon.

Dunk clones into AVID solution immediately after rooting and any time still at a dunkable size in veg.

Mites cannot re-appear for around 45lbs and typically wont unless you keep bringing them into the garden via cuttings, etc.

I've done this method on a few gardens and have not had mites return even after I stopped doing the dunk after root.

I think they've given up...lol

harkers Mectin one for the armory



Antibiotic insecticides - abamectin, ivermectin, spinosad
Produced by fermentation from actinomycetes or streptomycetes (spinosad)
Usually the activity is selective to individual groups
Abamectin is an acaricide and also shows activity against some thrips
Ivermectin is mainly of veterinary use/But we can use it too
Spinosad shows activity against certain Lepidoptera larvae and thrips
Even gnat larvae are effected by mectin when water into the soil

The active ingredient is Ivermectin a close relative of Abermectin/Avermectin. This is available to buy for treating mites in chickens, pigeons and other birds. Here we have a pure source of Ivermectin that can be used later in flowering than any other acaricide/endectocie and for a fraction of the price that grow shops sell Abermectin for.

The avermectins block the transmittance of electrical activity in nerves and muscle cells by activating voltage dependent membrane-bound proteins containing chloride channels.Chloride channel blockers in both insects and mammals are highly toxic convulsants causing a hyper-excitation of the nervous system through antagonism of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA.4 Avermectins effectively block GABA stimulated uptake and cause a release of chloride-channel dependent neurotransmitters.

The drug binds and activates glutamate-gated chloride channels (GluCls)[12].The naturally occurring avermectins are a series 16-membered macrocyclic lactone derivatives with potent anthelmintic and insecticidal properties


Breakdown in soil and groundwater: Ivermectin is rapidly degraded in soil. At the soil surface, it is subject to rapid photodegradation, with half-lives of 8 hours to 1 day reported. When applied to the soil surface and not shaded, its soil half-life is about 1 week. Under dark, aerobic conditions, the soil half-life was 2 weeks to 2 months. Loss of ivermectin from soils is thought to be due to microbial degradation. The rate of degradation was significantly decreased under anaerobic conditions. Because ivermectin is nearly insoluble in water and has a strong tendency to bind to soil particles, it is immobile in soil and unlikely to leach or contaminate groundwater. Compounds produced by the degradation of ivermectin are also immobile and unlikely to contaminate groundwater.

Breakdown in water: Ivermectin is rapidly degraded in water. After initial distribution, its half-life in artificial pond water was 4 days. Its half-life in pond sediment was 2 to 4 weeks. It undergoes rapid photodegradation, with a half-life of 12 hours in water. When tested at pH levels common to surface and groundwater (pH 5, 7, and 9), ivermectin did not hydrolyze.

Breakdown in vegetation: Plants do not absorb ivermectin from the soil. Ivermectin is subject to rapid degradation when present as a thin film, as on treated leaf surfaces. Under laboratory conditions and in the presence of light, its half-life as a thin film was 4 to 6 hours.

It can also be used as soil drench for killing fungus gnat larvae, as the plant will not absorb the mectin
it just binds to the soil and becomes immobile.
spray at 1 drop 2L of water
the same for a soil fix.

Its effective on a range of pests, even used in humans for treatment of worms or scabies, also used on tobacco crops

There are products on the shelf at stores that contain mectin in one form or another. for one westlands attack has mectin in, but also carries a systemic poison that needs so many weeks to be free from the plant. dynmex was another product to contain mectin.

Iver mectin can be used late in flower. but obviously dont go spraying happy buds. pre flowers yes. as long as you give them a good shake off. alternatively you could apply it to the leaf later in flower, and not have to worried about any residue or nasty chemicals from the product.pretty much destroys the mites and anything else.

r1

I just googled Avid $109.99/8oz,Floramite $204/8oz vs. 3 pack of bug bombs for $9.90 with tax and since I fog with it I get three applications per can.

Yes - the AVID is pricey if you gotta buy a whole bottle, but its guaranteed to work.

I've had pyreththrum (sp?) bombs not 100% work as they do not kill eggs. Depending on how many stages of mite generations are in your room you may need several applications if going that route. They do work, but one should keep using them until they are certain they are ALL gone - all stages, otherwise they WILL return. They also really only eliminate mites in the room and not mites which may ride in on your sweatshirt, dog, etc..AFTER an application thus re-infesting your room all over again.

I'm lucky enough that a local hydro shop round' here sells AVID by the mL. You bring in a water bottle and they dish out how much you need. Was able to eliminate mites completely for $5...or 5 mL as the place here sells it for $1/mL.

Also used to be a guy on ebay selling Floramite in smaller broken down QTY.

- -

If you want to ELIMINATE mites from your garden completely give AVID or FLORAMITE a shot..

Everything else is just ultimately a preventive ...in MY opinion.

Forbid 4F is the only thing that eradicated my mites after 2 years of using Mickey mouse bullishit organic/home recipes and even floramite, azamax and no pest strips. Never tried avid though.

FORBID 4F! You can get it on eBay.

Try the Tiger neem

Ciao

Great Feedback

Great Feedback

ICmaGang,

Ok, so I have been spraying down anything that comes in contact with the plants with anti bacterial dish soap and vinegar.

I have also started spraying tables, racks, carpet/floors, and the walls with a mix of anti bacterial dish soap,vinegar, and pinesol.

I am going to wipe down my lights, C-25 cab, tables and other things with bleach other than the walls and carpet.

Has anyone every heard of using rosemary oil to kill mites?

I googled spidermites and found this came up as a solution to the problem.
I ordered some from a local health food store today.

Like many have said about the spider mites' life cycle. I am going to continue to spray regularly going forward and mix it up so to speak.





I bought two of these Red Star Spikes, this spring and they were loaded with mites. I have been spraying this lone survivor with Safer Soap over and over and I finally decided to toss it! Waste of time, energy and $$$! Red Star Spike? More like Red Star Spider Mite!


This has come in handy.


Here is my machete I had to hack down my palm tree with..LoL.

And finally two tunes for everyone who stopped by:
http://www.myspace.com/dirtbombs/music/songs/i-can-t-stop-thinking-about-it-39527360

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5ZeASxPYFU


Thanks
-~WW~-

Cheeb said:

Yes - the AVID is pricey if you gotta buy a whole bottle, but its guaranteed to work.
...

I'm lucky enough that a local hydro shop round' here sells AVID by the mL. You bring in a water bottle and they dish out how much you need. Was able to eliminate mites completely for $5...or 5 mL as the place here sells it for $1/mL.

Also used to be a guy on ebay selling Floramite in smaller broken down QTY.

- -

If you want to ELIMINATE mites from your garden completely give AVID or FLORAMITE a shot..
...

Click to expand...

phattybudz said:

Forbid 4F is the only thing that eradicated my mites after 2 years of using Mickey mouse bullishit organic/home recipes and even floramite, azamax and no pest strips. Never tried avid though.

FORBID 4F! You can get it on eBay.

Click to expand...

Ebay sellers provide small quantities for cheap.

Veg and no more then 2 weeks into flower:
Floramite = best
Avid=GREAT
Forbid 4F=BAD ASS

Flowering:
Azamax/Azatrol
lady bugs... lots o lady bugs. More then you think need and maybe then you just thought you needed.