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Norcal Outdoor Garden Of Eden

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Norcal Outdoor Garden Of Eden

Bulldog11 426 Replies 57,599 Views
Page 6 of 22 · Replies 101–120 of 427
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#101
Mites can and will develop resistance to Avid, or more specifically it's active ingredient Abamectin. It should only be used at most 3 times per year, many growers vastly exceed that amount which in turn builds resistance. Since it is one of the most used and abused miticides by growers, chances of resistance are indeed higher. It is REALLY important to rotate and alternate miticides - you should NEVER treat with the same miticide twice in a row and most should only be used 1-3 times per YEAR.

Personally I am not a big fan of Avid, its one of PAN's (Pesticide Action Network) 'Bad Actors', a designation for the most toxic of pesticides. It is acutely toxic, a developmental and reproductive toxin, and a suspected endocrine disruptor. If that's all you can get though, it can kill them. I would be sure to have a 2nd option ready for a follow up treatment that uses a different mode of action so you are not breeding resistance in your mite population however.

UC Davis recommends the following for broad mites:

ABAMECTIN - (Agri-Mek, Avid etc.)
PLUS
NARROW RANGE OIL

WETTABLE SULFUR

SPIRODICLOFEN - (Envidor 2SC)

FENPROXIMATE - (Fujimite 5EC)

DICOFOL - (Dicofol 4E)

CHLORPYRIFOS - (Lorsban Advanced)

Good luck, hope you kill 'em dead, and fast!
 
#102
I think I might go with Avid for the first round, because it's available today and I can apply tomorrow. However, I will look into everything you posted @Blaze for my next application, thank you. Have you or known anybody to use any of these products on cannabis? I still worried about burning plants.
 
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#103
It didn't burn the plants when I used it. Past tense, one of my first grows.
 
#104
I thought I should do a little wright up for those who are interested in my battle with broad mites.

I first noticed a small lower branch that looked like it had mosaic virus. I scoped it, and there were little worm like things at 100x magnification......broad mites or russet mites. I knew the battle was on.

My greenhouse at the time had some weeds, smart pots laying around, and my cover crop was busting over the raised beds. I knew all these things needed to be cleaned up, and the cover crop removed. I didn't clean the cover crop right away, but the rest of the greenhouse was fully cleaned. Then I cleaned all the plants insides and bottom branches. I did this with gloves and rubbing alcohol for my hands and arms, working from the plant farthest from the infected plant, then all the way to the infected plant.

I then needed to devise a plan. Snype at ICmag has a thread where he battled broad mites indoors and was able to use Neem to kill them. The key part to his plan was spraying EVERYTHING, every 3 days. The reason for this is the life cycle and breeding cycle of the broad mite. Neem doesn't kill the eggs, so you must reapply and kill the adults before they hatch more eggs.

So this is what I did. I sprayed neem every 3 days for about 20 days. During this time I sprayed every millimeter of the plants, the raised beds, the walkways around the beds, and even finished off my spraying with a broad application of the entire greenhouse with my fans aiding in the spread of mist. After about 14 days I finally got to getting the cover crop out of the raised beds.....This was over 4 yards of material, and a huge pain in the ass. I placed all the clippings in black bags and let them cook in the sun.

Another thing I did twice during this time was heat treat the mites. I closed up the greenhouse, and the first time I let the temps reach 120. The leaf surface was only around 100 when I did this, so the second time I raised the temps to 135, and the leaf surface temp was reading 115 in most spots. I also applied 3-4 compost teas in between neem applications.

Even after all this, the mites were not spreading, but present. I can still find a small lower branch that are showing signs of bugs on every plant in the greenhouse now. My vegetative growth for the last month has been compromised, and my overall yield will be effected no doubt.

So now over the last 10 days or so, I have treated with a round of Spinosad and Azamax. I know Azamax is pretty much neem, but it does have other ingredients that will help fight mites. This seems to have helped, but I still have signs of damage from the bugs. Yesterday I treated with neem again, and even dunked one of the infected branches in a 5 gal bucket of mixed up neem for 5 full minutes. Later in the day, I scoped that branch, and still LIVE BUGS!!! So it's safe to say, these guys have built up an immunity to neem.

I will try to take some pictures, because things still look great in the greenhouse. However I need to get this handled so my season isn't lost.



What really bothers me about all this is my entire growing philosophy is based on organic growing. I always advocate growing healthy plants and bugs will stay away. I will admit, my plant sap PH was high when this bug infestation happened, so my plants were not in perfect health. However, my brix reading was way over 12 when these bugs hit. In other words, these bugs hit me even when I thought my plants should be able to defend themselves. On top of that, after a month of proper nutrition, and applications of neem, the plants still can't rid themselves of these bugs. That totally flies in the face of everything I have studied, and applied to my everyday growing. Obviously I will continue with my organic approach in the coming seasons, but I now realize that organics have weakness like anything in life. The biggest weakness so far, broad mites.


To be continued.....
 
#105
Would you consider or be able to use the DE dusting treatments caregiverken has been using to deal with russets?
 
#106
If I am not mistaken, russets are broad mites?

DE would be great, but my area is so big, and my plants have so much surface area I can't figure out how I would be able to use it effectively.
 
#107
wow, I had always read avid was one they couldn't become immune to.

50 years ago if people had stuck to organic growing, I suspect perhaps healthy plants would be able to resist, and they wouldn't be such a hard fight. However, with the massive amounts of chemicals used nationwide now, it effectively creates new resistant bugs. When I started growing 10 years ago, no one I knew or learned from had even heard of a root aphid or broad mite, but now it seems the forums are full of people battling them. IDK if thats just because I know more growers now, or a increasing in the numbers of resistance insects and mites being transported around. One of my forest biology teachers also made the assertetion that the rising tempatures have spawned a epidemic of insects. Nature used hard frosts, and snow pack to kill off insect populations, but as fewer places have hard frosts, or have them much later in the season, or only early in the season, and fewer places get several feet of snow, fewer populations are killed. Wow I can rant lol.

Anyway, best of luck man!
 
#109
Bulldog11 said:
If I am not mistaken, russets are broad mites?

DE would be great, but my area is so big, and my plants have so much surface area I can't figure out how I would be able to use it effectively.
Click to expand...
They are not exactly the same but they might as well be!
 
#110
@Bulldog11 fr your description under the scope I would say you have the hemp russet mite. Broad mites have the shorter body HRM are more worm like.
Do you get the nightmares from scoping them? I literally had nightmares the more I looked at them the worst they got:eek: felt like they were crawling all over me!
I would advise getting pylon and forbid to go with the avid. And the battle will be won!
 
#111
GrowGod said:
@Bulldog11 fr your description under the scope I would say you have the hemp russet mite. Broad mites have the shorter body HRM are more worm like.
Do you get the nightmares from scoping them? I literally had nightmares the more I looked at them the worst they got:eek: felt like they were crawling all over me!
I would advise getting pylon and forbid to go with the avid. And the battle will be won!
Click to expand...

You have no idea.....I am a germ-a-phobe to start with. I don't like people coughing, kids eating out of my snacks, ext. I use purell or wash my hands 10+ times a day. It's not world ending for me, I can live a normal life. However when I saw those creepy little buggers, I freaked out. My wife is still having shell shock from the rules I placed in the house. No visiting the garden with the dogs, kids or self unless willing to shower strait after and wash clothes ext. No walking paths, free range chickens are caged for fear of them spreading the mites, ext. I can see them when I close my eyes, and feel them in my eye brows and ears. My sanity is hanging on an edge here, lol.
 
#113
i picked up some essentria ic3 and some nuke em. so far so good... coming into first weeks of flower. i hope i can get them under control for the next 2 months..

i have heard the heat treatments work well for those plants in a greenhouse
 
#114
If you're going to use avid you might as well use forbid also.I used both last year it killed a lot of em.. but they came back..I kept them under control with organic methods. Close to dozen different tjings..they're listed in that russet mite thread.
the mites aren't hard to kill its just hard to get them all
and they breed fast. I kept them under control but I still lost about half my crop to those bastards and they never went away completely until I used diatomaceous earth. It's organic. And it kills russets
 
#115
all my plants are covered with diatomaceous earth right now.
the new growth is being sprayed with essential oils weekly along with conserve (11% spinosad ) for worms.
 

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#116
How do you apply the DE @caregiverken? Did you use food grade, or just the stuff for pools?
 
#117
Do NOT use the pool grade DE! It turns to sludge!
Bulldog11 said:
If I am not mistaken, russets are broad mites?

DE would be great, but my area is so big, and my plants have so much surface area I can't figure out how I would be able to use it effectively.
Click to expand...
Mm... I think they're an entirely different group of mites. IIRC, russets are Eriophyids (lemme look that up) and broads are a group that starts with a "T." Lemme look it up. Yep, all in that paper I posted. Different animules.

"Eriophyid mites

Commonly known as rust, bud or gall mites, there are many common species on ornamentals such as maple bladdergall mite, privet rust mite, beech erineum mite, hemlock rust mite, and fuchsia gall mite as well as numerous less common or unnamed species. Eriophyid mites are usually quite host-specific and often cause strange or unusual symptoms, such as small bead-like or felt-like galls on leaves, distortion or bronzing of foliage, or death of buds. One species is becoming notorious of late as the vector of rose rosette (virus) disease. Only certain miticides control eriophyid mites and timing may be important for good efficacy.

Tarsonemid mites

Cyclamen and broad mites are becoming more common in greenhouse ornamentals, possibly related to increased use of vegetatively propagated material. Cyclamen mite overwinters outdoors in much of the northern US and broad mite is mainly an indoor pest except in warmer areas or seasons. Both mites cause similar plant symptoms, distortion and stunting of new growth, that are sometimes mistaken initially for injury due to cultural, environmental, or herbicide problems. Cyclamen mite seems to be more associated with death of terminal buds, but broad mite often also causes a severe bronzing of the undersurface of leaves (e.g. on gerbera, begonia), stems and even flowers or fruit. Broad mite can ‘hitchhike’ on feet of whiteflies to uninfested plants, so controlling whiteflies and possibly other insects may help in containing an outbreak.. Both have wide host ranges, including herbaceous and some woody ornamentals. For example, we have seen bronzing and cupping of foliage on deciduous azalea from broad mite and stunting of new growth on privet associated with cyclamen mite."
 
#118
Bulldog11 said:
How do you apply the DE @caregiverken? Did you use food grade, or just the stuff for pools?
Click to expand...
Food grade it's not expensive.
Goes a long way..but use alot
And a dust mask.
I was using a little tiny puffer thing
But my last application I used the Dustin Mizer <google it. I got it on Amazon
it works awesome.
 
#119
you may not like having white stuff all over your plants I don't like it either.
But, I leave it on there.
it kind of gives me peace of mind at the same time.
the bottom of most of my leaves are white lol I don't have to scope those :)
 
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