Hi all, Jonny here for my first post. Bear with me if my information isn't as elaborate as it needs to be, I'm not exactly 'forum-savvy' yet. Here's my situation. I currently have 22 plants (I can have 24), 7 are kush plants and the other 15 are blackberry skunk. The first 12 plants I received didn't have any pest problems and were growing just fine. The last batch of 10 I brought in had a plant that I later figured out had spider mites. Soon all of my plants became infested and I sprayed them with a soapy water mixture. This worked for all of 2-3 days and they returned, which prompted me to spray them down with Azamax. The latter treatment effectively cured them for a good while. I'm currently 5 weeks into flowering and they all have produced nice frosty buds already which I'm happy about. However, the fleas have begun to strike again, and I really don't want to spray them again with Azamax especially if the buds need sprayed too. What should I do?
Dunno your between a rock and a hard place there man. Definetely don't spray anything but water and not too much of that either or you can cause the buds to mold. Spider mite predators are about the only thing you could safely use on em right now. I'm afraid things really don't look good for you though don't save any clones from these plants and make sure to decontaminate your grow room after this. Good luck
I'd grab some stuff to kill spider mites with : Check if pyrethrin is safe to spray in flowering. If so, grab something like DrDoom to KILL a lot of the mites. Check that they wont MOLD your buds! Following that, mist with water in an hour. Be careful; you can EASILY burn your plants with this stuff; do some spray tests on a single plant on how you need to stand and how you need to apply to coat the whole plant, but not with too much - seriously, pyrithrins suck ass and are very able to burn your plants. Pick up some spinosad, mix a batch, and carefully apply it to your leaves; this'll inoculate your plant with bacteria that squirt out toxins that KILL any and all insects nearby. After that, grab some predators like jinn said. I have used ladybugs to help spider mites : With HID's its not worth it, though. They will not kill an infestation and instead work better to prevent one and slow a current one down. Were I you I'd drop the 10$ locally for some ladybugs even if you have HID's; if your temps are cool that'll allow the ladybugs to be active (if its gets too hot they sit on your colas/leaves sunning themselves; also know that most will kill themselves in your light eventually - cross your fingers that you teach a few that that light is BAD!) as well as slow mite growth (mites like warm, dry environments - make it cold, wet and they'll slow breeding and spread). Spraying your ladybugs down with sugar-water will stick their shells together and prevent some from flying in the beggining; spraying your plants with plain water will make the ladybugs prone to stay on the foliage and drink rather than fly away For future reference, grab TWO spider mite killing products. I use neem oil (IMO, better than azamax) and spinosad A/B. Use them, alternating, for a whole two weeks giving 2-3 days rest in between products and a misting of water on one of the rest days in between products. This'll prevent shit like that mites coming back in flowering.
Good advice but you have to really watch it with ladybugs and HID's. I let a bunch go in my room to get rid of a aphid/thrip infestation one time and holy hell almighty did those bastards stink when they hit that light. Talkin about imagine a room with 10 Indian dudes heating up they're crazy ass burning bandaid smellin food at the same time. I've smelled some pretty wicked smells in my time but man that had to be the worst smell I've ever smelled in my entire life. I think you could use in place of smelling salts or to wake up people who are in comas.
Make your own neem oil spray by mixing 2 tablespoons of neem oil with one-quart of warm water. Give the plant foliage a good spray once the solution has cooled down to room temperature. Source
I have used h2o2 to kill the mites while in flower . 1 part 3% hydrogen peroxide to 4 parts water is safe, it didn't burn the leaves . 1 part 3% h2o2 to 1 part water did this wombat#, Feb 28, 2019 so that was too much.