I have had a spider mite infestation problem for over a month now and have tried various methods. All of my plants have been in flower during the infestation. These are the methods I have tried and no success so far. Neem oil, spraying on all leaves front and back once a week or so till I ran out. No luck. Actually the least effective method I have used. SNS 217 spray I ordered online comes in a 4 ounce spray bottle. Has a distinct smell and ran out after spraying the 3rd plant so I had to add water to it. Seems like it left a nice oil film on the leaves but did absolutely nothing for my infestation. Alcohol/water spray. Mixed a spray bottle with 50/50 rubbing alcohol and water and sprayed the entire plant buds and all. This seems to kill the mites temporarily but after a day or 2 the mites begin their construction work again, and I don't feel safe spraying my babies with alcohol every other day. Ladybugs. This might have been the worst mistake of all to kill the mites. They have polluted my grow room with dead bodies everywhere and do absolutely nothing to kill the mites. All they do is walk around looking for mold and end up drowning in my watering runoff or the hps cool tubes and various ladybugs are now walking around my home looking for light sources and whatnot. When my current plants are done with harvest, in a week or two im gonna fully sanitize my grow room, but I know my vegging clones are semi infested so I will have to combat that problem when it comes to that. Basically I want some professional growers who face this problem frequently and have come to a real solution to ridding of these fuckers. I have heard a lot about the hot shot no pest strips but I hear they are toxic, since my grow room is my closet in my bedroom and I have dogs, I dont want to risk the toxicity. Please don't mention neem oil on here the shit doesn't work for an infestation only preventative measures. Also I was looking at spider mite predators, but wouldnt that defeat the purpose since their eggs and corpses will be on the leaves as well as the spider mites? I want nothing on my leaves and them to be green. It seems like all of my fan leaves will never be green they are all ate up from the mites =(
I also tried the Neem after infestation and it really does not do much.. After a few try's myself, I ended up finding a pretty good solution but its gonna depend on how far along into flower you are. You will want to hit up Home Depot and grab a Hot Shot No Pest Strip and set it in the room for a couple of days. This will kill pretty much every bug in the room with the exception of a couple of stragglers. Then you will want to hit them with Liquid Ladybug. This will basically instantly suffocate anything that lived, and then evaporate off your plant (completely organic and safe to use all the way up until harvest). You will need to do this in three day intervals in order to kill all new hatch lings instantly before they mature enough to lay eggs. After a couple of weeks, you should have broken their life cycle and have control of your room again. This is what I just did to get back control of my crop.. To look at the leaves with my hand held microscope is pretty Gross seeing all of the dead creepy crawly things, but the point is, THEY ARE DEAD. Now its just maintenance spraying. Good luck, Mites are a bitch!
Oh I forgot to mention, I tried the spider mite predators and they don't work when your in Flower because the humidity is too low. They require a higher humidity, so only really useful in Veg. They die in the lower humidity.
For an *absolute* cure, there is FORBID and FLORAMITE, with the Forbid being my favorite. I would not use either in flower as they both have a 30 day residual and are, to say the least, toxic. A few drops/gallon is the doseage if that gives you any indication. I've never had to do a second application. You can find affordable amounts on ebay. 7ml of the Forbid has lasted over a year with over 1/2 left. Otherwise, you need a license to purchase and both are several hundred dollars for just a pint bottle. $20 worth off ebay will be more than enough. I hit my clones a day or 2 before 12/12 and have ZERO mite problems. Get some for the next go round, do not apply in flower, but both are 100% for mites. BTW, I used to be a licensed applicator and Forbid is the best stuff I've seen in 30 years, with Floramite a close second. Everything else is just playing with them. Wet
if you got mites that bad you are going to need to fumagate the whole house not just the room and good luck . each time you walk in to visit the plant you cary mites out with you . i have battle mites at big plant stores but i took care of them with heavy duty stuff mallithion . orthanex stuff that you spray a pot plant with just in veg state never with buds . may tri a few roach bombs after harvist the gass one .