Rosemary oil for spidermites????????

Discussion in 'Sick Plants and Problems' started by Maczimms, Feb 14, 2010.

  1. So, I live in norcal and our hydro stores are now carrying a new miticide that kills both the spider mite adults and eggs. I bought a small bottle, which was very expensive, and read on it that rosemary oil was the only active ingredient. Down at my local GNC they have pure rosemary oil for less than the 2% solution that I bought at the hydro shop.

    Has anyone used rosemary before?

    I am going to try it and will let everyone know how it goes.
     
  2. interested,
    sound's allot better than using bomb's and soap's.
    let us know how it goes.
    cheer's
     
  3. Update!!!

    I have sprayed a 2% solution of the rosemary oil with r/o water every day for the last 3-4 days and have not seen any spider mites or any eggs since I began. I should say that I never had a serious infestation to begin with, but it appears, again it APPEARS, that the solution is working. I look for the eggs and adults for about 10-15 minutes everyday, but there are plenty of leaves that fail to be thoroughly examined during each check. I will continue spraying for another 5-7 days and will update this thread to let everyone know how it goes.

    I should also say that I found some scientific studies conducted by universities about rosemary oil's ability to kill adult and juvenile spider mites and their eggs. Apparently some strawberry farmers prefer to use this method when spraying their fields closer to harvest.

    I found a really good price for the oil at the website below. They charge the same price for 4 oz as GNC charges for 1 oz, but you have to pay a few bucks for shipping and it took about 4 days to get to my house. With a $9 bottle of rosemary oil I, seriously, can make at least $300 worth of the stuff they sell at the hydro stores (if not more).

    Here is the link.....
    NOW Foods, Rosemary Oil - 4 oz - Nutricity.com
     

    Attached Files:

  4. Still clear of those little bastards. I hope that this continues.
     

    Attached Files:

  5. I also do not waste my money on products like SNS-217â„¢ Spider Mite Control and just buy rosemary oil from my local health food store. I pay about $5 for a few ounces and after diluting down to the solution I need in a spray bottle it costs me pennies.

    Why in the world would I want to pay $66 for 32 oz. of this stuff when it is just good ol' rosemary oil that growers have been using for years without the stiff price tag. Do yourself and your pocket book a favor and make your own.
     
  6. HOW TO CONTROL SPIDER MITES WITH EDIBLE ROSEMARY OIL SPRAY!


    This is the correct way to control spider mites with Rosemary Oil. I have gigantic rosemary bushes outside my home offering more than a lifetime supply of it so I learned how to make this and mix it properly to get the desired effect.


    Required Items:

    1. Rosemary plants, trees, bushes or Rosemary Oil

    2. 1 Large container of cooking oil, olive oil, or 2-4 containers of grape seed oil

    3. a crock pot or possibly a double boiler

    4. a small hand held fine screen colander strainer grocery store bake ware isle

    5. an atomizer

    6. a 1 ounce shot glass or measuring cup with 1 ounce msmts

    7. Liquid Joy dish soap or another safe emulsifyer


    Finding a rosemary bush:

    If you don't know what a rosemary bush looks like, google image it, you or your neighbors might have one and not even know it! The plants get filled with bumble bees so look for that and tiny blue or purple and white flowers all over the bush... they make good privacy hedges and have a very STRONG odor.


    Rendering the oil:

    1st I grab about 10 big shoots of rosemary and strip the leaves off onto the table, you can dry it out, but you don't have to if you're in a hurry. If you hold one end of a rosemary shoot, the leaves will easily all strip off if you pinch with 2 fingers and slide them all the way to the end of the shoot. You want about 2-3 ounces of leaves & you can do more just make sure to cover all of it in the crock pot with oil in the next step. I take a crock pot, it's a ceramic pan that sits snug inside a warming case, drop the stripped rosemary leaves into the bottom of the crock pot, cover them completely with either grape seed oil or olive oil, both work well, and cook them on med to high for 3-4 hours, or low for 6-8 hours, once again if you're in a hurry you can shorten the length of time down to 1/2-2 hours on high. A lower temp and longer interval will yield a more potent oil. Simply strain the leaves out of the oil using a hand held steel fine screen colander found at any grocery store, use coffee filters in a pinch. OK, congratulations you've got your oil now! You should have as much oil as you used oil from the first step roughly. So if you poured in 60 ounces of oil, you got 60 ounces of rosemary oil now! That's enough to last a long long time!


    OK here's the mix part:

    When spraying this on your plants, use an electric atomizer for best coverage and effect . Take 1 ounce of rosemary oil, you should have 40-100 ounces of concentrated oil, you'll know if you did it right because it will smell like delicious rosemary. To 1 gallon of clean water. In your 1 Ounce shot glass, throw a couple of drops of Lemon Joy to emulsify and YOU MUST SHAKE THE ATOMIZER AFTER SEALING, and shake frequently during the application as well. I think using Protekt will achieve similar results. DO NOT APPLY THIS MIXTURE UNDER LIGHT, there is a small content of oil which will sheen the leaves and magnify your lights and quickly burn your leaves! Apply under light, right when they are shutting off, or in darkness.


    Application:

    MIX WELL! This won't work until you actually MIX the solution inside the sealed atomizer chamber!

    Make sure to completely cover your plants with this stuff from the undersides especially, the signs of spider mites are little white dots and tiny creatures crawling UNDER your leaves! They love to be in the hardest to reach places of your grow so make sure to get those places especially well. Drench them, the stuff is FREE! I will take this stuff, and right out of the atomizer spray it on my hand and lick it off my hand to demonstrate to my friends how safe it is, but even though the plants transpire and quickly process the oils off the leaves, if you get crazy and get it on the panda wrap, use SIMPLE GREEN to easily remove it from that and any glass surfaces like the glass under your lights!


    Frequency:

    If you have an infestation right now, spray once a day for 4 days, then every other day for a week. Then twice a week for 2 weeks, and finally once a week for maintaining once all signs of live mites and their damage have stopped. Spider mites hibernate so you will see them again most likely if you don't do a weekly maintaining spray. NEVER SPRAY UNDER LIGHT! unless the light is about to turn OFF. And remember to store your rosemary oil in a cool area preferably in a glass or ceramic ramikin with a tupperware sealable top. You can cut back on the mixture to conserve oil, possible 20-30 ml per gallon, a little more than half a shot glass full per gallon, but it will not have the same effect as a good one ounce to one gallon mix.


    FUN FACTS!

    This stuff is completely non-toxic and EDIBLE! You can get it on your skin or on the walls. Clean Up is a little work on the elbows, otherwise, easy to manage. This spray will kill DOUBLE SPOTTED SPIDER MITES on contact! If you see tiny spider webs before you spray, make sure to look close and see the little bastards crawling along them, after you spray, the spider mites will literally be frozen DEAD on the webs, hanging there as if someone strung them up with a sweet little spider mite noose.



    If you appreciate this post, please sub my youtube at trendyasdabbers! Thx!


    Trendy As Dabber Nay


    p.s., about the 10,000 ppms of CO2 thing, yes it works, to some degree, I've done it, but nothing kills like my spider mite spray above! I had a 95% kill rate with the CO2 gas, but it's always 100% with the rosemary spray. Eggs will continue to hatch, but the continued usage as recommended above will yield far better AND SAFER results than gassing them!
     
  7. Maczimms, when you bought the oil OTC, how much water did you dilute the oil with? Im currently using the SNS and it does work awesome but it comes, as you know, with a hefty price tag even when buying th concentrate. I looked online for deals on the rosemary and it is for sure the cheaper bet!
     

  8. hey man, when i use the recipe described above, I mix one ounce of rosemary concentrate with 1 gallon of water and add 10ml of dish soap like lemon joy.

    stay trendy!

    nay
     
  9. If I use the dish soap, I can't use it through harvest though right? So it wouldn't be all organic like the SNS
     
  10. i'm not worried about a fraction of dish soap on my fruity ass buds... mostly because I know if I spray as directed above, there will not be mites in my grow at that stage of growth. Once someone has a source for their rosemary, preferably growing their own, they will have little cost in treatment. SNS costs a FORTUNE compared to my solution.

    However, if you need to stay strictly organic, which I fully understand, perhaps look for an organic spreader/emulsifier on the internet. here... i did it for you.

    Considering the craze and popularly of bars, sauces, juices and instant beverage throughout the world, a variety of gum system has become a necessity. Till now, the gum and additives used in instant food and beverages were mainly chemical and synthetic. But during recent years the craze and demand of organic food has largely increased the necessity of an organic emulsifier. Guar gum can very stably meet this necessity. Guar gum is basically a polysaccharide (a long chain of sugars) made of the sugars, galactose and mannose. Guar gum is white to off white powder. Being odorless, guar gum can be easily and profusely used in food materials. Emulsifier is, actually, a kind of food additive used to keep oil dispersed and in suspension. An emulsifier is a substance that stabilizes an emulsion. Examples of food emulsifiers are egg yolk (where the main emulsifying chemical is the phospholipid lecithin) and mustard. Emulsifier reacts chemically with both oil and water and thus stabilizes oil-in- water. For this property, emulsifier is largely used in making detergent, soap, and grease for the purpose of cleaning and even in pharmacy to prepare creams and lotions. These emulsifiers are not very much available naturally and organically. Therefore, the organic guar gum has achieved its popularity. Organic guar gum is nowadays processed by companies and is available in the form of guar gum powder in different viscosities. This guar gum powder is widely used in order to serve as thickener in cosmetics
     
  11. Add 1/4 cup Aloe Vera to your Rosemary oil & water mix. With the Secondary Metabolites in this plant material you'll see a dramatic increase in benefit - plant immune system activators (SAR), etc.

    CQ
     
  12. Did anybody get any leaf burning from spraying the rosemary? I'd image you wouldn't get it like using the chemical stuff out there..
     
  13. For under 35 bucks (+ shipping) you can get 16 ozs of Rosemary Oil here.

    Chunk
     
  14. made my own for like 5 bucks bought a bunch of rosemary in corn oil, smells nice! n i have a companion rosemary plant in with my girls (cuz i got mites) :( not too bad. was told by a vet put a rosemary, chive, or garlic plant in with ur grown bugs will stay AWAY! truth? fiction? rosemary oil n companionship of a live rosemary plant deter mites? well see. juss sprayed for first night, turned lights off a lil early.. im like 3 almost 4 weeks to flower, theres not too many now n its not bad, but i think they may be attracted! to the rosemary.. i dunno. chives... garlic, etc.?? whataya think
     
  15.  
     
    Hey Chunk, old thread here.. but how do you know which kind of Rosemary to get? They list a few different types.. does it make a difference?
     
     
    I wanna say that good things come from Morocco, but I'm not sure really. :confused_2:
     
  16. Ironhead,
     
    I'd just shop price if I were you. Rosemary is so loaded with different insecticidal terpenes that you really can't go wrong. The different varieties offered at Liberty might vary a little bit from region to region but not enough to significantly affect the efficacy IMO. Below is Dr. Duke's breakdown of ROSMARINUS OFFICINALIS.
     
    http://sun.ars-grin.gov:8080/npgspub/xsql/duke/plantdisp.xsql?taxon=873
     
  17. Cool deal. Thanks for the help Chunk. :wave:
     
     
    I've figured out how good this stuff is.. I have been spraying for a few weeks now with great results. I have been using the Dr. Bronners Peppermint Castile soap as the emulsifier with a dash of protekt in there too. Works great and the plants respond very well. :smoke:
     
  18. really simple ive done this for 4 years or so and never a spider mites...NEVER 1 mite...... just get a rosemary plant from grocery store or home depot or whatever and let it grow in flower room along with  mmj.....water  once in a while and , trim it it nice ...mine  looks like a big ass lollipop...shaped like a ball on top  prob about 3ft tall now....added bonus is u get to learn how to shape a small hedge into a somewhat bonsai tree....did I say that I NEVER had mites since the rosemary bush........
     
     
     
     
     
     
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  19. extra is that u don't add anything or have to spray anything....every grow  I do is 100 organic and it shows
     
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