Literally JUST found them. Thought I had a runt in the garden but she has russets. Not seeing a lot of symptoms throughout garden. Most of the other leaves I checked have some, as well m. My Durbans look fine. Have a large outdoor garden. Been spraying spinosad, BT, and Nuke em to keep leafhoppers under control. I've been alternating sprays every 4-5 days. Thought those hoppers were my only issues. Soooo.... Now what? Clearly those sprays haven't worked. I'm due to spray early. I have Grandevo on hand but no surfactant. I don't want to put off spraying. I have been using a few drops of bronners with other sprays but not sure that's good enough. Thoughts on surfactants? (Haven't ever used grandevo yet but I hear good things.) Was thinking of adding pfr-97 and botanicare to the rotation...every 3 days. Thoughts? I'm literally sick to my stomach. We have a huge yard with all sorts of foilage all around. We just moved here in May. I could cry. (This is boy spirits wife, btw! Lol) Everything has been going SOOOOO well. Help? Any good news out there? Thanks ahead of time.
Get that infected plant outta the garden. Those mites can carry on the wind. Predatory nematodes. Try using horticultural oil instead of a little Bronner's. You can find recipes and add some EO and other nastiness. Vegetable Glycerine can also be added to sprays to increase efficacy. Good luck. Sent from my SM-J700T using Tapatalk
They already spread... That one is the worst... The garden otherwise looks healthy but as I've looked more - they are there. :-( It's a large medical garden. Not just something I can afford to let go without serious effort. We just moved here in May. It's the perfect property. Hoping we didn't acquire the devils from the property. I wouldn't even know how to begin to disinfect all of it. We are way out in the forest on 8 acres.. Anyways - Found our bin of unpacked warfare and in it I have: Green Cleaner Pyganic Actinovate (may need later on due to all the spraying I'll be doing.) I'm considering pyganic 1st since they are just showing pre-flowers and think we'll still be safe. That will knock their population way down. I think I can pull it off... Gonna talk to our grow store. If not, I'll go green cleaner to take them down a notch. 2-3 days later - Grandevo. 2-3 days later Pfr-97. Checking into preferal or Venerate 3 days after that AND REPEAT. for a few weeks.. And either use the actinovate or regalia to help with stress and preventative PM since I'll be spraying a lot and come september we'll be getting into risky weather for PM. We plan on hoop housing the rows to protect from heavy rains. Looks like I'm on a really strict schedule from here on out. Damn. Can't even begin to think of what we will do for next year. All this soil I've been amending and building up. Just crushed. Oh! and I will be adding beneficial insects as soon as I know I won't be killing them off with the green cleaner or pyganic. Damn. Not sure how all that sounds but it's a starting point.
I don't even know the full infestation. I wanted to get a good spray in before I go digging any deeper.
You have posted no pic's. How have you identified the issues that you're experiencing as being the result of russet mite infestation?
Here are some of the leaf curl I noticed yesterday. I will post some pics tonight or tomorrow of the magnified russets... (Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to send dead ones.) they are DEFINITELY russets. I have the leaves in a bag and don't want to open the bag. I will see what I can do through the zip lock. They are still wriggling and munching away. Anyways, I was in panic mode and just started researching every and any angle. Way too much invested in this medical garden to give it away to these monsters. I just came in from spraying. I went the pyganic + BT route for the first full spray. (Did the worst 12 plants early this morning with Nuke em. But didn't have enough for the whole garden. Those 12 showed the worst symptoms. Hopefully I didn't over do it by spraying 2x in 14 hours. Tomorrow I will get to every single plant, thin as necessary, and see how far they've spread. They aren't all displaying symptoms but I gotta assume they are all infested. Here are some leaves that made me suspicious. I wondered if it was too little or too much water or nitrogen. I had been noticing the taco and then the claw. Had seen a few yellowing leaves on the worst plants (I will take pics tomorrow) Plus the worst ones were looking sad. I thought maybe I let them dry out too much so fed them real good and brought in some leaves and it took me a while to see them. Was in denial thinking they were thrips but....... I know thrip damage. I thought maybe root aphids were making one stunted and what I saw in my scope was maybe whitefly larvae ... I went through every other pest first and then when they were a match to the Russet, my heart sank and I was literally sick to my stomach.
We have leafhoppers and they leave similar marks (not seen in these photos). Burnt looking tips. Rust colored spots. I thought russet damage would be obvious much sooner so wasn't suspecting them til my gut kept nagging at me to look closer. Lol
The first is a pic of eggs. The 2nd an unknown bug I found today while seeing how the pyganic worked (pretty good! Way less ALIVE mites today.) I can't recognize this bug. I don't see ANY broad mite eggs to make me concerned about that. Could it be a predator mite? What else? Has 3 sets of legs, I think. Still microscopic though. And only 1 that I could see on any leaf I looked at. The 3rd is a pic of the russets on the day I found them. (Still alive in a zip lock). The 4th is from a leaf on most infested plant. I'm gonna pull her if they haven't decreased in numbers dramatically after next spray. (Tomorrow night). I had to really search for a live russet on other plants. Plenty of eggs though. I'm feeling confident I'm gonna be able to stay in a strict spray schedule every 2-3 days and win this battle.
Well, I wish I had more knowledge/experience (not really!) about/with these critters, but luckily I do not. I'm unfamiliar with the various products you've listed for combating them. Please be very careful with insecticides, as many are not approved for use with consumables. You might find some useful information here, especially in the comments section... The Eleventh Plague: Hemp Russet Mites | The Marijuana Times The only thing I can suggest using as part of your battle plan would be rosemary oil. It causes mite eggs to explode on contact, which is inherently important in breaking the reproductive life cycle of these lil' SOB's. Be sure to utilize a liquid silica product as an emulsifier so that the oil will mix evenly with water. You will need to apply this mixture at the end of the day after the sun has gone down/is going down, as the oil and sun will conspire to burn your foliage. You'll need another blade to hook you up with mix ratios, as I am fortunate enough to live in a climate where indoor garden pests are a rare experience, and can't recall them off the top of my head.
There is quite a difference between Russet and broad mites. Broad mites are even more evil. Both of these pests will simply laugh at most organic pesticides. Sulfur based products is the only organic control listed by UC Davis. Likely for good reason. I worked on a farm where broad mite infested plants were sprayed w Judo, Avid, Forbid and cans of piperonyl butoxide were used. This was done in Veg and barely kept them in check. To make matters worse...they will hide in the buds and come back out later. Still...sulfur sprays are about your only hope for an organic harvest. If you have Russet and not broad mites...you might have a chance.
I'm not spraying anything that isn't ok'd for testing in Oregon. Won't touch forbid or avid and can't spray sulphur. Pyganic is an ok'd product though I only did it once as a knockdown and before flowers were present. I'm sticking with dr. Zymes, green cleaner, BT, and grandevo. I also add Rosemary, eucalyptus, tea tree essential oils to sprays that are compatible. I will be releasing lady bugs soon. And using a light sugar water spray to keep them on the plants. I am watching an experienced grower experimenting with russets on purpose and he is seeing great success with sugar and lady bugs. Fascinating!
I will incorporate the rosemary and silica into the rotation. For the eggs. Will botanicare a silica blast work, I wonder? I will also double check ratios
