Hi Folks, Ok as the title says my problem is spider mites I treated my second infestation with phytooeses (phonetic spelling) (a bug that eats spider mites) and told my partner who has the grow room at his place that the temp must not fall below 10c at night or the bugs will die...... yep you guessed it he ignored my information and they died befor they took care of the mites now I have approx 2 weeks to harvest (1 of feed and 1 of flush) and I have no idea what else to try as I cant spray for fear of mould in my nice bud. Strangely the mites have stuck to only 1 of my plants (I have 9) I check them every day and can find no evidence on the other 8 the mites seem to love the big bang plant and are staying there??????? At this late stage is there any way I can save the bud from this plant or would it just be better to cut my losses and bin it (approx 2oz of bud) or run it on and kill the mites by freezing the bud after harvest??? come on guys/gals this is only my second grow and one of you more experianced folks MUST have an idea how I can get this problem sorted many thanks for any advice and happy growing to you all. Tazman (Paul K)
Hi. Dont believe for a second that theyre not on the other plants - this just doesnt happen. Theyre there, I'll bet my life on it. This is the worst time that they can hit (2 weeks to harvest). At this point, its a judgement call. U could fog with pyrethrin, but, the residual effects last up to 21 days, and the weed will have a distinctive crappy taste. Those little critters that u tried out - yes they do eat SMs, but they are too slow to keep them in check. I suggest u cut your losses on that plant and watch over the others. As Spock said to Kirk when he died: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the 1. How far along are the other plants ??? Get yourself a magnifyer. Freak
Hi freakbro1, All the plants are the same age all due for harvest in next 2 weeks and I have a magnifying glass and have been looking at other plants from day 1 and can find no evidence no eggs no lavae and no crawlers or webs this infestation has been ongoing for about 7 - 10 days since first notice and I inspect all 9 plants daily and have never found any trace of mites on the other 8 I also think it highly unlikely they are not there but despite good hard long looks on underside of leaves stems and in bud mass I just cant find any trace of the little buggers except on this one plant. I have trimmed all the plants of about 50% of their leaves on first notice of mites to reduce sites of eggs and have trimmed the 1 plant of about 80% of its leaves today to stop egg hatchings I am not going to lose this harvest after having my last harvest stolen from me (15 BIG plants worth sob!!) if I have to wait till harvest them, freez the bud and pick off all the frozen little corpses I will they are not getting the better of me lol and as for the bugs well I put 1000 of the little critters on 9 plants and that number is supposed to treat 20000 mites and I would have been very surprised if I could have counted 2000 on the plants before release they did survive 2 days so should have made a big dent in the numbers only being a 2-1 ratio instead of 20 - 1 so we will have to see where we go from here ........ any one got some very small sticks of dynamite for these buggers???? lol tazman (paul K)
I commend u on your efforts bro. Just in case - if u do the freeze, make sure its after the drying/curing or the thc becomes inert. Freak