Buying soil and preventing spider mites

Hey everyone. I have grown in hydro for the last few years. And I have had very minimal issues with bugs of any kind. I recently got a new patient and they wanted me to grow with soil. So I bought some roots organic soil and threw some ladies in my veg tent. This morning I found 3 mites. I have since sprayed the plants with flora mite. As they are in veg and have over a month before flower I'm not too concerned about this product. But for all you soil growers out there.... What is a girl to do when running into this problem. I'm talking about future preventative measures.


-Purely Medical

ammend with neem meal

Thank you. Never heard of that product but I will do that. Of course I have heard of neem. I assume neem meal is a powder of some kind.

Diatomatious Earth

Available at your local nursery... even found it at Homey Despicable.

It's non-chemical. Sprinkle on the dirt, or where ever the crawlers are (preferably NOT on the bud you are going to smoke I suppose).

Some mix it into the potting soil (preemptive strike).

I've had Fungus Flies, and it really put them down. Never had mites, however.

Some have recommended Pyrethrum.... it's a 'contact' spray only however. So if you can't spray on them directly it won't work.

Has a short toxicity life... and is also sensitive to light. So needs to be used in the dark or just before dark.

Also a chemical, so not so much for me.

Purely medical said:

Hey everyone. I have grown in hydro for the last few years. And I have had very minimal issues with bugs of any kind. I recently got a new patient and they wanted me to grow with soil. So I bought some roots organic soil and threw some ladies in my veg tent. This morning I found 3 mites. I have since sprayed the plants with flora mite. As they are in veg and have over a month before flower I'm not too concerned about this product. But for all you soil growers out there.... What is a girl to do when running into this problem. I'm talking about future preventative measures.


-Purely Medical

Click to expand...

-Amend with neem meal as aforementioned.
-Also, amend with crab chiton.
-Every 3 days (mite eggs hatch every 3 days.drench all parts of plant (top of soil, surfaces of pots, all stems and leaves on all sides upper, under, side) with foliar spray made of 1/2 oz per gallon sesame or neem oil, 1-3 drops of each essential oil of cinnamon, thyme, clove, rosemary, oregano, and orange, and 1 tsp potassium salts of fatty acids (safer soap, or any eco-friendly boron-free soap with potassium salts of fatty acids).
-(Optional step, be careful with this one) If plants are small enough and this is possible, drench entire pot and root zone in aforementioned pest-knockout mix--submersing pot + soil + roots in drench for 10-28 seconds on each pot. Then, flush pots with pure H2O or light bionutrient/compost tea to clean root zone of any oils immediately after soaking.
-Then foliar spray with light dilution of compost tea or whatever foliar you prefer as much as possible (mites like dry conditions, plus the plants love constant misting of bionutrients like they would receive in a prime environment outdoors via dew and mist each day).

Like you said, prevention is key.

-Clean your entire space (throw out/outdoor recycle old soils and remove any clutter/organic matter upon which pests, pathogens or diseases could live) and ideally use only homemade, noncommercial soils or hydro/soilless to avoid pests, pathogens, and diseases from commercial soil-recycling facilities.

-Sterilize with strong bleach solution every square milimeter of your space (including pots, watering containers, nutrients, and any other molecules that interact with your system) after each cycle.

-Avoid bringing in plants from external sources;
-ideally start fresh from seed in clean soil/hydro/soilless.

-If you do obtain clones, quarantine them away from your space while dunking entire plant (root plug/cube, leaves, phyllosphere, rhizosphere, the entire plant) in pest-knockout solution every 3 days for 2 weeks in quarantine until sending plant(s) out of quarantine and into the system.

Much love and blessings from my fractal-temple-conduit-spirit-seed to you on your path of divine evolution,

SoulSynergySoil

floramite

I've not had such good luck with roots organic, bugs. But a friend of mine has a deep freezer, throws his bags of soils in and freezes them for like a week. Sometimes more if time isn't an issue. No more issues for him. Winter is here and depending on where your located might be easy to freeze em.

freezing sounds like a good idea.

Neem cake and crab meal in your soil, and OGBIOWAR foliar to keep them gone forever.
http://eurekaspringsorganics.com/organic-pest-control/ogbiowar-foliar-pack-4-oz

HidingInTheHaze said:

floramite

Click to expand...

2 years of battling borg w/pyrithrums, safers, neems of all kinds, iso, etc blah blah one shot of Floamite combined with unfortunately no longer available Stirrup M sex attractant, never another mite. One ap, with one more for safety sake, years ago.

I might be crazy, but just found a bunch of two-spotteds in my tent yesterday. Stuffs been running in there for over two weeks and then I check it out yesterday and a ton of leaf speck and little mites under the leaves. We've been transplanting with Happy Frog and premix. Don't know if it's possible that I got a bad batch of soil. I'm gonna be using the beneficial predatory mite Persimilis, they'll patrol around, quickly killing the problem mites, then die off when their food supply runs out. Gotta put the order in.

I think a lot of people just blame the soil....IMHO if you bought soil at place with plants its just as likely they hitched a ride on you as coming from soil lol

Medical and Floramite is just bad. I hope you tell the patient that you are growing for that Floramite was used on his meds. I don't think they will be happy with that one.

so many folks using whatever to achieve their goals without reguard for end consumer.... met a few here too in my new spot.. makes me wonder about ever buying any smoke here...got to get shit up an runnin asap

if you have a way to bake your soil outside like a metal drum and build a fire around it ,then add back you micro heard,a liitle ash add in if its a hard wood fire ,good luck