So I woke up one morning to mite spider webs on my buds, 2 weeks from harvest. I thought I was 4 weeks out at the time because I am growing a clone called "Grape" about which I can't find any genetic info. After talking to the dude at the hydro shop, he said it would be OK to give them one dose of Azatrol because he thought 3-4 weeks would be enough to flush the shit off my buds. Anyway, after listening to him and spending hours on message boards and watching Planet Weed on justintv.com, I came up with the following: Treatment, 6 weeks into flowering: day 1: mixed a solution of 3ml vegetable oil and 20ml tobacco juice (spit) with water to make 1 quart of solution. I sprayed the underside of every leaf and then lightly and quickly rubbed each leaf with my hand (in a latex glove) It took about 15 minutes and 1/2 a quart to cover a 3' plant that is yielding about 4 ounces once dry. no rinse added silica blast to the nutrient solution. day 2 & 3: twice daily I sprayed the plant as before, but with just ph balanced water superthrive (1 drop/qt) day 4: sprayed with 1/2 oz azatrol, 100ml of SM-90 (an oil like Neem but supposedly better in tandem with azatrol) in a quart of 7.0 Ph water. Rinsed 20 minutes later and again before dark photoperiod. day 5: cut off all fans and extraactions, and let them bake in 128 degree (f) conditions for 12 hours. 0% humidity. day 6-14 sprayed with water daily on the underside. spent about 5-10 minutes dousing the undersides of leaves. Day 11 - switched to ph balanced tap water (only) as my nutrient solution. day5, 10, & 15 (day 15 is today - harvest day!) - 0 evidence of mites under a 100x scope Caveats: they are probably not gone for good. there is no telling how much pesticide is in the buds, but I will just keep yield that for myself. another strain, C-99, was/is another two weeks from harvest so I am not as worried as the azatrol will have had 5 weeks and 20 -25 foliar baths to leave the buds. Hope it worked for real but all my clones and my mothers got them because I was careless about handling plants in all 3 rooms without cleaning off first.
uh... you never spray the buds with anything toxic. It's not going to "wash off". Even if you run water over everything repeatedly (do you WANT mold?), cannabinoids are hydrophobic and so will keep all those lovely pesticides locked up inside for your smoking pleasure. Either torch the shit out of it when you smoke it, or do some kind of extraction that will take the cannabinoids without taking the pesticide. Azatrol is some serious shit. It destroys the mites' reproductive systems, which is why it works so well. It will probably destroy yours, too, with a sufficient dose.
Yeah hopefully I didn't get any on the buds when spraying, I tried not to do so. Fortunately this plant grew 7 big colas due to bending and FIM so I should have been able to keep it off of them. I haven't sprayed the colas with anything except the veg oil and nicotine the first day and the mites stayed off of them so I hope I don't get too much in the trichs. I'm not sure what I will do with those that are ready to go in flower but have been exposed to the mites. I hit them all with the pesticide but I may dip the rooted clones as I transfer them to containers. most of them are aeroponic so they might be ok; I have hear they more or less hibernate in rock wool until a grower changes the cycle to 12/12 I am going to put my mothers into flower and start over with something more popular than strawberry cough, so I will start fresh. Supposedly a guy here in denver has Jedi and Snow cap, pretty serious upgrades, even from cindy