Hey Grow Bros Having a spider mite problem A little info 1st that might help Normally I only grow 1 or 2 plants for personal use Usually on a window sill or outdoors Got some seeds from a friend & started 3 indoors under lights 1st time trying indoors / Surprisingly they did good Not hydro / Plants are in soil / Organic Well one way or the other I missed them not being use to dealing with spider mites & by the time I noticed them my plants were well in to / past the half way point of flowering I'm not totally infested with them / They really haven't started webbing yet But yeah there's a Lot of them & there is leaf damage I only have about a week or two till they are ready for the picking Is there anything I can do at this point??? I have been doing my research & reading up on them But I would really prefer not to spray the buds with anything at this point in growth / But if I have to what would be best??? Would it help if I was to mist the plants & put something like a bucket of water with an aquarium heater in it in with them to raise the humidity??? Any & All Help and/or Suggestions Will Be Greatly Appropriated Thanx E G
in two weeks yours buds wil be covered in webs. 20-30mL food grade rosemary oil (health food store) 20mL ivory clear dishsoap or unscentend castille soap 1qt distilled water shake in spray bottle, douse everything increase ventilation.....not good to spray buds with anything if you don't have too repeat in 3 days and 1 week good luck fuckin spider mites
Hi Dave Thanx for the replay That's similar to the dish soap oil etc. mix I use on my veggie garden The reason I didn't use that was Dish Soap is made to break up grease {Oil} and THC is oil based Wouldn't it degrade the buds / Break up the THC if you were to spray it on them??? Or Am I over think things Thanx E G
Yeah. You're overthinking it. The soap acts to emulsify the oil into smaller particles for spray and as a wetting agent to help stick to plants. Could use neem but smell is awful. This solution is nontoxic and should be completely gone by harvest. You could try essential orange oil I guess -- never have myself but would smell better.
All said, prevention is best. Shower and wear clean clothes into your garden. Most pests are brought in by you.
No! Your plant can be saved... go to your local hydro store ASAP and get some neem oil. Mix some up in your water solution and water them with it ASAP! Then get a spray bottle and mix up a very light solution with the neem oil and lightly spray the entire plant, bottom, tops, underneath the leaves especially, everything. (Do this right when the lights go off) after a few hours go back to your plants and mist them with just regular water. You will be good to go after that.
most neem oil products contain petroleum based products, which can choke out your roots when watering. i wouldnt advise to water with neem. spray your leaves ONLY with neem oil. the neem reaks, and you dont want your buds smelling like it. a few pyrethrum foggers will also hold them back. you wont be able to cure the infestation on those plants, there are way too many spots for them to hide, especially this late in flowering when you dont want to mess up the buds. you can keep them under control, though, untill you harvest. next run remember to stay preventative!!
That's not true dude, neem oil is systemic, which means once absorbed through the roots its inside the plant, from there any bug that bites the plant is dead. You can easily get rid of those mites if you follow the above post*
neem oil is an oil concentrate, which repels water. if oil gets on your roots, it will "suffocate" your roots from water. i have personally watered with a few neem brands, and azamax (i dont consider this a neem brand because they purify the neem oil) and it results in extremley droopy growth. late in an infestation, neem isnt the best thing to use to kill them. neem is better preventative than a pesticide. although neem coupled with other methods to kill them greatly increases your chances of fighting the infestation. those little mites can hide anywhere. you can spray the buds and there can still be pockets of mites that he could miss. his chances of winning this infestation are slim to none. killing them and staying preventative in the veg room is the best way to keep your grow controlled for flower. i will never use neem oil as a soil drench again, because of the negative effects it has on your root zone. neem cake on the other hand, that stuff is awesome to mix into your soil before planting. if you use neem cake you dont have to spray down with neem at all, ever. so yes, it does get absorbed by your roots. but if your roots cant absorb anything because of the oil, than it defeats the purpose of watering with neem. especially this late in flowering. when your plants use extraordinary ammounts of water and nutrients, i believe it would be quite destructive to choke the roots out with oil. thats just my suggestion i am basing on my experience, though. the OP can decide to do whatever he wants.
Okay... first off you're way wrong about application on neem oil, and you're WAY off base on how neem oil works. It doesn't suffocate your roots at all when used correctly. You don't drench your soil, you simply mix in a little neem oil on a regular water cycle. You only water with it once or twice in the plants entire life cycle, SINCE neem oil is systemic it stays in the plant, therefor ANY spider mite on the plant that looks for food from the plant will die as soon as the neem oil is inside the plant. Even if the bug is just walking on the plant it will DIE. The only way you could suffocate your plants with neem oils is if you used TOO much per gallon of water or use it more than a few times. You don't continuously water with neem oil, you only have to use it once or twice during a plants entire life cycle. Every time I use it, indoor and out, no bugs are present, and a day after application I see expedited growth. The other thing you're forgetting, if soil or outdoor, is all of the bugs in the soil that YOU can't see. Neem oil takes care of everything, protecting the entire plant. I've had spider mites during flowering first hand and did the following and they disappeared within a week, since then I DO THIS ONCE when my plants are about a month 1/2 old. "Mix some up in your water solution and water them with it ASAP! Then get a spray bottle and mix up a very light solution with the neem oil and lightly spray the entire plant, bottom, tops, underneath the leaves especially, everything. (Do this right when the lights go off) after a few hours go back to your plants and mist them with just regular water. You will be good to go after that." If you do this, I guarantee that those spider mites will be gone and you will have the best chance at saving your grow. If you use smoke machines or chemicals you will see and taste it in your buds. Neem oil side effects (from spraying on) for the smoker dissipate after about a week unlike every other pesticide. There are no negative side effects for smokers when neem oil is used with watering.
I have yet to see Neem alone eradicate a SM infestation. It can eradicate, but only at the very beginnings of an infestation when numbers are extremely low. If u read OSUBuckeyes above post, you'll note that he said that Neem Products contain petroleum-based oils. These are the additives that are mixed with the pure Neem extract. So yes, he is correct in stating that it will clog up the roots. Pure Neem, with no additives, is a better choice, as it will not clog up the roots. It must be used in very low concentrations tho. Neem products tend to be non-systemic. Neem, in its natural state, is systemic. Freak
Almost all neem oil is systemic. If you're using some that isn't you're already doing something wrong. I can tell you from personal experience on at least 5 different grows that the above method will in fact completely eradicate spider mites and prevent any future infestation in that plants life cycle. If you're still worried you can always get a q-tip and run the neem oil on the under sides of the leaves, as this is where the EGGS are... and he's definitely not right, as not ALL oil is from petroleum, the oil additive in mine is 100% vegetable based. Therefor, doing absolutely nothing to the roots when USED CORRECTLY. The main ingredient besides neem in most "neem oils" now a days is Azadirachtin, which is now known to affect over 200 species of insect, by acting mainly as an antifeedant and growth disruptor, and as such it possesses considerable toxicity toward insects. It fulfills many of the criteria needed for a natural insecticide if it is to replace synthetic compounds. Azadirachtin is biodegradable (it degrades within 100 hours when exposed to light and water) and shows very low toxicity to mammals. This is why you use THIS instead of any kind of chemical based foggers or anything chemical, with it being so close to harvest, this is your BEST bet. The fact that you're so far off base shows you've never used it correctly or you've purchased the wrong kind.
As far as smell and taste, my product has no smell, and you definitely can't taste it in the buds. Idk where you're getting that... I'm not trying to be a dick at all, but I LOVE what this stuff does for my plants. As a preventative and a treatment.. if you take away the bugs food supply and disrupt its health and breeding from the INSIDE and OUTSIDE, bam, good bye bug.
i just noticed spidermites they dont seem to be very serious but its only a matter of days before that changes. my 10 plants are in there 3rd week of vegg whats the best product to use? i was looking at Einstein oil
vegetable or petroleum - oil is oil, bub. oil seperates from water, which will be harmful if it gets on your roots. anything than gets on your roots that repels water is not good, and there cant be any disagreement there. im not saying neem is bad for your soil. neem oil is terrible for it, but neem cake is a gift from the heavens above. i have been growing for a few years, and have experimented with many different types of neem oil products. i know how to calculate how much of what i need, pesticide or fertilizer, thank you very much. foliar sprays and soil drenches with neem, been there, done that, and past that. i have fed them to my plants in a water mixture with weak and strong concentrates during an infestation, and the mites have still come back on the treated plants, not to mention how bad the new growth on the plant looks from the oil. neem oil is a better preventative thing than an actual pesticide. pyrethrum (which is derived from the crysanthemum) is a better insect fighting agent. when foggers are coupled with neem, you have a near organic cocktail of pest controlling apocalyptica. i have a very keen sense of smell, and ive used a fogger a week before harvest before, resulting in a very very miniscule remnant of an odor. in fact, the curing process completley removed the pyrethrum smell. as for putting neem your soil only, no it will not make your buds taste strange. if you spray them on your buds with 2 weeks left to go, than your buds will most definitley taste like neem oil. if youve sprayed neem on your buds before with this little ammount of a time to go, than no offence but you must have been born with 3 out of 5 senses. sometimes i get weed from a dealer and i can tell if the grower used neem or not, just by the way the buds smell. me and many other growers on this site will tell you - and argue with you - that any type of "oil" product is not good to include into your watering cycle. if you want to spray the top of your soil with a solution, than that is OK. i wouldnt do anything more than that. you should try the neem cake. its cheaper than neem oil. you add it one time to your soil, and you never have to spray or add more, ever. now that neem is some good shit to put in your soil. einstein oil will be good. just make sure your only get it on your leaves when you spray. if not, you will face the consequence of having buds that smell like neem oil upon harvest in a week or so. for the plants in veg, you can soak the entire plant in a neem solution. just be sure to raise the light after you spray so they wont burn. or, you can spray in the dark, if your veg room isnt on a 24/0 photoperiod.
Like I said, you don't flood your damn pot with oil and it sounds like your comparing BRANDS / PRODUCTS, and not the actual substance. Neem oil / neem / neem seeds / nematicide are not brands or products, they are simply a substance. 'That's like me saying all fertilizer is bad for plants because miracle grow fertilizer killed my maryjane plant' --- doesn't make much sense now does it? It's all about Azadirachtin... Azadirachtin is a secondary metabolite present in neem seeds..... (It is a highly oxidized tetranortriterpenoid which boasts a plethora of oxygen functionality, comprising an enol ether, acetal, hemiacetal, and tetra-substituted oxirane as well as a variety of carboxylic esters.) You say you've used several "neems" - why would you even try one with petroleum based oil in it... that sounds like your first "doh!" HAHAHA yea right you can tell if the buds have neem on them, its completely GONE after 5 days of being sprayed on. You could spray your plant with nematicide the day you harvest and by the time curing is done you could literally test your plant and it would show no signs of it. You're pulling info out of your ass dude. The smell itself dissipates once its dried; that statement alone from you indicates the fact that you used some poorly made neem products. This is botany, this is what the chemicals do. You can argue all you want but when push comes to shove, it's all science Sounds like the brands you used were pretty awful (meaning they had a bad process of extracting neem) *** neem oil / neem / neem seeds / nematicide (ALL THE SAME THING - just a different point in the process of extracting it). It's all about the way they extract the neem and the way they crush the seeds. This is exactly what you want: GENERAL HYDROPONICS Like I said, you're using the wrong brands or applying it wrong. Apply this once before flowering in a water mixture and you will never have a bug problem. If you do have bugs, simply water with a mixture of this and also spray it on your entire plant. ALL BUGS GONE. *As far as the growth associated with this product, I've seen nothing but perfection. I've used this product on several friends grow rooms when they had bug problems, I never even had to ask what the bug was, just applied this with watering and by spray and they told me within several days the bugs were gone and they're plants growth was improved. This is another sign to me that you've used a poorly made product, or your spray mixture was too strong, or you sprayed at peak light times... because I've never had issues with growth in a negative way. My best guess, you used a poorly refined neem oil, with a high concentration of oil vs other chemicals, hense the negative impact; thus leading me to my final conclusion, you used the wrong products. Educate yourself~!
Hey farmers. Neem works fine sprayed to match egg hatch and reapplied as necessary. If you've heard of SNS spray--- also works well. Rosemary oil based and easy to make your own.
first, quit being so literal. a soil drench (which i explained) is simply another word for watering with somthing to moisten your entire medium. i dont mean flood the shit out the pots; that would be called a flush. you water one time with the product. you can also do soil drenches with avid, mosquito dunks, and gnatrol. the first time i grew i wasnt a genius. i didnt know what brand of neem to buy; so i purchased a dyna grow neem oil product. that one wasnt as hamrful to my roots as azamax, but they still caused some droopy leaves. before you make assumptions, do a little research yourself. if you spray azamax on your buds, contrary to the REAL neem oil, you wont get very much of a smell. it is a refined neem oil that has been purified to have more azadirachtin than a normal neem extract. it also doesnt have any smell. so if you spray it on your buds (which puts moisture on your already moisture packed buds, a breeding ground for botrytis bud rot) you wont get any resulting smell. other neem products, like the dyna grow one i stated, will make your buds smell like neem. and it wont be gone in 5 days. i have done this with a few different harvests, and if you think neem (not azamax) doesnt make your buds smell like the substance, than that would lead me to think you are getting all of your information from the internet, not from experience with using different brands of neem. because, like i said, i have done it, and i KNOW what happened to my shit. and i also know not to do that ever again. you must have only sprayed azamax on your stuff, because there deffinitley is a leftover smell from neem. like seriously, you say you must have been using bad products - have you even tried anything other than just azamax? the science of what chemicals do wouldnt be botany. quit trying to make youself look smart. about 6 months ago, i had a root aphid problem. a few organic things i tried didnt work, so i did what someone told me and watered with azamax. the result? an infestation of root aphids that were unharmed + strange droopy new growth. no, i didnt use the 15mL/gal or whatever they reccomend for a strong mixture, i used a weak mixture. and i also sure as hell dont mix anything else in with the azamax and water. i had to spend another 4 hours (that i didnt have) immidiatley after the watering to flush the plants out. the root aphids died eventually after i used beauveria bassiana, but there were also a few fungus gnats making a home in the soil (in a big grow gnats are unavoidable). the azamax didnt kill, nor repel those two bugs. plus, i choked out my roots bad enough where i knew i had to flush. spraying azamax on the leaves and such has kept me bug free on my plants for 2 years. i dont spray anything on the buds during flower, not only because i dont want that oily substance on my buds but late into the cycle one time i sprayed azamax and the excess moisture gave me some type of mold problem. i spray in veg and the first 2 weeks of flowering. putting azamax in the soil however, gives me a headache. 'That's like me saying all fertilizer is bad for plants because miracle grow fertilizer killed my maryjane plant' --- doesn't make much sense now does it? nope it doesnt make much sense. if that grower knew how to correctly balance their fertilizer and calculate their PPMs, than there is a very good possibility the miracle grow that the same growerr he used to kill his plant would work good for what him needed, if he just blindly followed procedure on the bag. but were not talking about fertilizer here - were talking about pesticides. if you mentioned adding oil (dont say neem, just say oil, because even though it is neem oil it is still oil) to that uneducated grower's soil before he gave it nutes, what do you think his first reaction would be? oil is bad for plants dude. chemicals that are toxic to insects. and every pesticide out there isn't good for your plant. you act like plants love neem oil. well, they dont. and thats botany. you can go ahead and try to put a twist on what I am saying, but oil is bad, mmk. your not talking to an idiot here, i know what azadirachtin is. unlike what you have steriotyped me as, i do research on products before i give them to my stuff. and by the way - nice going copying and pasting out of wikipedia. havnt you learned that you can never get your info from online encyclopedias? neem oil is an IGR (insect growth regulator). this means that when applied, the life stages of the insects will not progress (larvae will be prevented from growing into adult.) it also effects insects reproductive organs. thats what it does. it doesnt kill them immidiatley, they wont be GONE like that. aside from that, any way you look at it, putting oil in your water and watering is bad. to be honest, i really just think you are looking for an arguement because i cant see how anybody could think giving oil to their plants is ok. like, you may not even see any foliar effects but it is oil, and oil is not somthing you want to feed your plant. it shouldnt be on your roots and it shouldnt be in your medium. like i said, neem cake (a compressed, crushed up berry remnant brick they take after they make neem oil) is very cheap and great to add to your soil. it isnt all oily, so it doesnt harm your roots. you can continue and continue to argue, but i really dont see where this is going. now i have wasted a valuable hour of my life that i will never get back, thank you very much. i am now late for what i need to be doing. you seem smart, thats why i think you just feel like arguing or somthing. i dont get why you dont understand how oil is bad for your plants..... edit: to the above poster Sierra Natural Science isnt a very good product, everybody who uses it says its awesome at first but than they say everything comes back. it probablly would be good to use in combination with neem, pyrethrum, cinnamon oil, garlic oil, and/or rosemary oil, though.