Spider mite prevention. Your organic method?

[BurnOne]

I'd like to discuss preventing these pests from ever happening in the first place. I treat the vegging plants with a neem, soap and water solution before moving them into the flowering room. Sometimes that isn't enough.
What do you growers do (organic of course) to prevent the BORG?
Burn1

 

[mad librettist]

1)avoid hot. dry conditions in the indoor garden when the weather is going from warm to cool. this is the time when bugs look for warm places to overwinter. I spray my plants with water during this time.
2)living mulch so your cannabis is not the only food around, and so that you can keep a good predator population around (unproven)
3)inspect, inspect, inspect

 

[jaykush]

for prevention, healthy plants, and a diverse micro-ecosystem. everyone around here gets the bad mites, i just see the decomposing/predatory mites.

if you do get them, the lavender spray works excellent for about 95% of the people who use it.

 

[In~Plain~Site]

Got some cuts that were loaded last year,didn't quarantine(HUGE mistake) been treating with the exact method you're using,Burn...haven't seen them since *knocks own head*

I think humidity control has helped me along the way, somewhere dead smack middle, or just south of, seems to help with more than one issue...mites included.

 

[MIway]

Full plant dunks in Horticultural Oil.

 

[pearlemae]

 

[pine boy]

Its hard to do in the s.e. but If I keep my temps cool I wont get to many bugs.
I shoot for an 80 degree max in the room and low around 70-75 degreesfor low temps.
80 degree low and higher with lights on and mites eat everybody...bar none.
Mites ate my lavender

 

[geopolitical]

I keep the room, tools and everything going in and out of the room clean.

I mean CLEAN. Tools get sterilized after every single use, I change clothing & take a shower, shoes get changed, unknown materials going into the room get a "time out" in a VERY warm section of the solar wood kiln. Pots, even new pots, get a scrubbing in a bleach solution and a thorough rinse. The floor gets swept once a day and walls washed every few weeks. In between grows the walls get nuked with bleach & any bad paint/etc is promptly repaired/replaced. There are no cracks/gaps/etc in the room that haven't been caulked or otherwise sealed. I haven't had a pest issue in years due to this. My greenhouses & outside beds regularly get nuked by aphids, thrips & mites but they simply can't make it indoors.

Unless you're silly enough to have an established population of pests they have to be brought/travel into the room on you or on their own. Mites really don't travel that far looking for food but they can be quite difficult to completely eradicate if your activities or grow setup actively imports them constantly.

 

[Scrappy4]

I grow in summer with the idea that I will have mites. My intake air comes from outside and is twenty feet from woods. With this in mind I'm using neem and karanja cake as soil amendments, these guys have up to 6% oil. I also add crab meal to the soil.
Then from veg on up I spray with a 50/50 mix of neem/karanja oil more often in summer. I added it at 1 tsp per quart, 1 tsp liquid silica, and a squirt of dr bronners soap, then I shake it like a mad man. After 3 weeks in flower or generally when the budding is going well, I stop spraying neem if I can't see any. Then I use a tea made with kelp and neem karanja cake as a drench, this grow only once, and spray roughly weekly with a dried lavender flower tea. After all this when I was trimming I still found mites on trim leaves, but apparently they came late (10week flower) or had a rough existence. I had a handful of spotted leaves for four large plants. No yellowing, webs or anything else.....the neem and karaja came from neem resource and the neem information came from señor coot, the lavender idea came from JayKush.....scrappy

 

[guest2012y]

Love those gifted cuts with passengers.

Karanja and/or neem oil and yucca extract as emulsifier works well. Spraying every few days for a couple weeks ends that bad trip.
CC1

 

[supermanlives]

azamax and ej essential spray. cant say enough good things about ej spray it got all the goodies in it .kelp.quinoa,eucalyptus,orange,capsicin,rosemary,patchouli,tea tre,lemon grass,cloves,lavender.works great for us lazy folks or people who dont grow their own erbs.

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

I'd like to discuss preventing these pests from ever happening in the first place. I treat the vegging plants with a neem, soap and water solution before moving them into the flowering room. Sometimes that isn't enough.
What do you growers do (organic of course) to prevent the BORG?
Burn1

Yeah neem and lavender do the trick for me. But nothing as yet is 100% preventative. They never get too out of hand.

I also use a silica foliar to toughen the girls up.

What amount of neem do you use?

 

[beta]

.

 

[Bullfrog44]

I like to hang picture of burnt spider mites on the walls of my grow room.

 

[rckymtnthuglife]

Lavender is the shit.

Treating cuts by soaking them in 1/2 gal of water with 1tbs of regular bleach for 1/2 hour.
Remove from solution and rinse with plain water.
Not exactly organic but it works.

This simple "trick" makes it possible to take cuts from others without having to worry about hitchhikers.

 

[mad librettist]

IMHO bleach is perfectly acceptable to use in organic gardens. of all the cleaners out there, it is one of the greenest and safest, believe it or not.

 

[flotationdevice]

.

 

[mad librettist]

btw tanglefoot will also help protect you from and monitor for bedbugs. I like to put each leg of the bed in a plastic cup, so that the tanglefoot is not exposed. That shit is very messy.

 

[geopolitical]

It's also great for intake vents, nearly impossible to fully clean off though.

 

[C21H30O2]

liquid dish soap works so well that I only spray when I see problems. And trust me I know spider mite problems.