Mite Resistant Strains???

[Werunwild69]

Damn these bugs!!! Just in the past 6 months I've invested over 10k in seeds. Every time I think I won the battle....nope I sure didn't. Right now I'm running various strains and beginning to see a outbreak occurring again. My Romulan seems to be the least affected and the "White" the most. My gdp's & urkle strains are trying to hold on but I think they won't hold out much longer. I think my best luck would be to try and grow resistant strains only for a while. I was surfing various seed banks and several breeders mention if they are somewhat mite resistant or not. I need information! Everyone please chime in.

 

[MrBelvedere]

Damn these bugs!!! Just in the past 6 months I've invested over 10k in seeds. Every time I think I won the battle....nope I sure didn't. Right now I'm running various strains and beginning to see a outbreak occurring again. My Romulan seems to be the least affected and the "White" the most. My gdp's & urkle strains are trying to hold on but I think they won't hold out much longer. I think my best luck would be to try and grow resistant strains only for a while. I was surfing various seed banks and several breeders mention if they are somewhat mite resistant or not. I need information! Everyone please chime in.

Did you really spend 10k on seeds. You can learn to clone to save money. The basics of minimizing mites is prevention prevention prevention prevention

Nothing will help if you are fully infested. You need to get rid of 99.9% of them then start over with a good baseline and assume that they will be back the next day. You need:

Healthy plants
Cooler temperatures
Beneficials
Call the people at http://www.naturescontrol.com/controls.html and tell them to mail you mite, thrip, aphid, gnat controls monthly and tell them the area you are growing.

Even if you have a resistant strain they will still choose a plant to live in. Good luck


Effects of Chemicals on Beneficial Insects
Many commonly used pesticides are harmful to beneficial insects long after they've been sprayed, and long after pest insects are no longer affected by the pesticide. Hard to believe, that's because beneficial insects don't get sprayed with pesticides nearly as much as pests do, so

they never get a chance to build up that same level of pesticide resistance, and when they do get sprayed, because they travel around looking for food much more than pests do, they get exposed to a double-whammy dose. The best answer is to avoid use of pesticides if possible, or use those marked "S" on the table below. But if other pesticides must be used (or, have been used), please allow for the proper "wait" period before beneficial insects are introduced.

This table provides an indication of the toxicity to various beneficial insects of commonly used chemicals and pesticides under "field" conditions. It should be used as a rough guide only, as many variables can affect residue persistance, especially ultraviolet light exposure.

For instance, indoor environments with artificial lighting can take considerably longer than these figures for pesticide breakdown to occur, because artificial lighting of all types is much weaker in ultraviolet light (a major pesticide breakdown factor) than actual sunlight. If there's any question, you might try using some inexpensive beneficial insects such as ladybugs first, before using more expensive, more "targeted" controls.

http://www.naturescontrol.com/pesticidewaitperiods.html

 

[Werunwild69]

Well, the 10k probably includes the seeds I have on hand now too. This is what I've lost since Thanksgiving.
The White
Fire OG
Wifi
RD #1
Grandaddy Purple
Purps
GSC
Animal Cookies
White Urkle
White Romulan
NL #1
NL #5
Bubblegum
The Hog
LSD
Fire Alien Urkle
White fire Alien
Blackwater
Williams Wonder
Blue Magoo
LeeRoy
Grape Ape
Herijuana
Romulan
Snozberry
As well as a quite a few other freebies that were pretty good too.

I now have now replaced about 75% of the above in fresh seed and since I've been a member here on THCFarmer I've added to the my seed bank all that I see that Loompa has for sale online except for Black Yeti, most of CSI's and a Divine GSCxpurple urkle. You add in shipping, wire transfer fee's, insurance and yep 10k. I'd assume I can call myself a seed junky.

As for the growing conditions, shit it's pretty damn clean, I sponge clean my floor with bleach, I spray with every fucking miticide/pesticide. Heat is a constant 75 f and RH is a steady 45%. I've never had a single bug ever in over 20 yrs and a couple years ago I just had to get a box full of gsc's. I found out what root aphids were then. Actually they grew to maturity before I realized what I had. Then I got a box of Chernobyl. Then i met the spider mite. They seemed easy to rid. Just since Thanksgiving though I think some white fire I got screwed it all up again. Since I've gotten wifi seed. Damn that took forever.

 

[dogznova]

I agree it's definitely all about prevention.. But you also have to find the source..

For instance, if you stop growing for lets say one month and completely clean everything and I mean everything with bleach.. If you have ozone, pump that room full of it for a few days and nothing I mean nothing will be living and ozone destroys the spider mite eggs and larva.

Then if you start back up and mites come back again.. Thats what I mean by finding the source.

Prevention is one thing.. Finding the source is another. Both need to take place in this situation IMO..

Also check out this place for mite control

Neoseiulus californicus predatory mite works very well for prevention.

Stay away from hydro store poison.

Good luck

 

[Werunwild69]

I agree it's definitely all about prevention.. But you also have to find the source..

For instance, if you stop growing for lets say one month and completely clean everything and I mean everything with bleach.. If you have ozone, pump that room full of it for a few days and nothing I mean nothing will be living and ozone destroys the spider mite eggs and larva.

Then if you start back up and mites come back again.. Thats what I mean by finding the source.

Prevention is one thing.. Finding the source is another. Both need to take place in this situation IMO..

Also check out this place for mite control

Neoseiulus californicus predatory mite works very well for prevention.

Stay away from hydro store poison.

Good luck

Well damn! Thanks for the info. I did shut my room down, but for only two weeks while I had new seedlings going in my other room. I wished I'd thought of the ozone as I have 3 industrial ozone generators. shit! I've just been looking under the microscope and to me they look like broad mites. Last night, out of 99 plants I inspected every single fuckin leaf. I got to the last plant and on a leaf I found I guess the only way to describe it is to call it "white splooge". What is that shit as well?

 

[Werunwild69]

I do know ozone is deadly to live plants though.

 

[dogznova]

Oh yeah pure ozone will kill everything. lol But yeah pump the hell out of the room 'without the plants of course' and start fresh.

Mites lay eggs down the leaf veins on the underside of the leaf. The eggs are white in color yes, but will mostly always be down any of the main veins on the underside of the leafs. Could look like 'white splooge' yes.

You should see black little dots under the leaf and little white tiny spots on the top of the leaf. The black dots are the adult mites.

Where there are eggs there is 100% sure to be mites. Unless of course you killed the adults with poison then yes, eggs will be the only thing left.. And that there lies the problem with poison. It kills the living mites yes but not the eggs or the pollen.. So the mite problem really never goes away when using poison.

 

[Werunwild69]

Ok I brought in the heat for 2 1/2 hrs. Didn't take long to get to like 106 or so but I got it to 122 at the tops of my pots at the highest. It was around 126 at the top of the canopy. Kept it that high for a solid hour. Hope at least a few survived. If not I will pop some Loompa's, Devine and CSI's and start over again. I'm heat'n down the rest of the house so it might take two more days. Do I need to go that far? I've got Akari on the way. Think that would work as a surface contact pray to kill all if used on the other areas??

 

[dogznova]

Spider mites love 100 plus temps.. Are you trying to multiply them?

 

[Werunwild69]

Gosh I don't really know at this point I suppose. One thread says take the temp to 120 and hold it for two hours, another thread says soak them in 120 F water for anywhere from 45 min. to two hours. I don't think I have spider mites. I've seen them many years ago. They are broad or russet or rust or something common here in colorado going around in the clones and I guess I didn't kill em enough before I started my seed crops. At mid level of the plants it was 127 and finally got to 122 at the floor. Kept it there for 1 hour. My plants so far today, 12 hours later and I gave them another dose of heat this morning for two hours at 118. Hopefully they were driving that subaru (They Lived) !?

 

[Werunwild69]

Now also my plants are a foot off the floor plus another 10" or so for the container. At soil level it was 122 F for two hours.

 

[dogznova]

I see. I haven't got much experience with braud or russet mites sorry. Heat just might be the trick for them, but spider mites not so much.. Spider mites thrive in dry high heat conditions.. They hate cool damp conditions.

 

[HiPlainDrftr]

It would definitely be good to get a positive ID on the critters before taking measures.

Not sure what you mean by "white spooge" could you get a pic? Thrips maybe?

If not spider mites, most likely you have Russets Mites. These guys spread via plant to plant contact. The common scenario is that they come in on a clone introduced from another garden.

Russet mites can only be seen by a handscope. They leave a brown residue on the petiole that most people mistake as rust or brown mold, sometimes people think they have TMV. In most cases by the time you actually notice the damage from these little buggers its already to late.

ID them by taking a handscope to the center of a leaf where the petiole splits into leaflets. This is where they hang out, they breed down the notch of the petiole.
If you see 1000s of little maggot looking things lurching around, you got Russets.

 

[Werunwild69]

It would definitely be good to get a positive ID on the critters before taking measures.

Not sure what you mean by "white spooge" could you get a pic? Thrips maybe?

If not spider mites, most likely you have Russets Mites. These guys spread via plant to plant contact. The common scenario is that they come in on a clone introduced from another garden.

Russet mites can only be seen by a handscope. They leave a brown residue on the petiole that most people mistake as rust or brown mold, sometimes people think they have TMV. In most cases by the time you actually notice the damage from these little buggers its already to late.

ID them by taking a handscope to the center of a leaf where the petiole splits into leaflets. This is where they hang out, they breed down the notch of the petiole.
If you see 1000s of little maggot looking things lurching around, you got Russets.

 

[Werunwild69]

I'm calling it a 1 chance operation, if they live they live. I hope so as a lot of the plants I do not have more seeds to start over. Could take a year to get them again. In Jan. of this year I lost a new crop that I started from seed in Nov. of last year. I had just harvested, cleaned my room for a week and introduced my ready to flip new crop. Like a fuckin dumb jackass, I had to have some wifi and fire og. That's when all hell broke out. The clones appeared to have transplant shock and just a change in grow atmosphere. The fire og started getting white spots that were very obvious. I started using 3 in 1, Monterey and pyrethium bombs. I applied the same to my seed crop. They seemed healthy and no symptoms. The clones seemed to be hit & miss for several weeks but not so bad, that you'd of thought you were through it finally. I started thinning them out a little so I could keep a good watch on the plants in the middle. As I was thinning them, I noticed how fragile they were. I found that I didn't need any shears or scissors to thin them. I could just grab a branch and they instantly snapped. No hemp fiber to it what so ever. When they snapped water would actually squirt out under pressure like someone was blowing water through a small straw. I just scrapped all of the clones right then. I discovered that there were thrips by blue sticky traps and I got rid of them. Then on my seed plants I discovered that all the new growing tips and were turning yellow then black like overnight. I assumed they were the thrips as well. I scrapped them also at that point. Cleaned and cleaned with bleach, peroxide etc... I mean clean and I really thought sterile. I washed all utensils everything, shelves the whole 9 yards. I even sponged most surfaces with alcohol. Started again. All fresh happy frog & ocean forest and another couple grand in seed. The seedlings seemed like they came out of the gate slow like most stuff with dominant purps genetics. My white's they were running like a race horse. Again a fucking clone. ( I quarantined them, the whole works before introduction to the others) Then I started to notice what most folks on here call a ca/mg deficiency. I acted as such. Didn't get better. So I assumed bugs. Started mitigation. Got worse. Never could see these fucks with anything less than a microscope. I borrowed the neighbors. FUCK! I could see them now. There could be several strains as they look different, not all identical. I've identified eggs too. Everything maybe are different stages. I added heat as a last resort. Seemed to kill them yesterday. I'm frying them again right now. My canopy heat is at 135 right now and shutting it down right this moment. I'm back, This time no doubt they are all stressing this time, and a few dead ones. I started timing when the temp hit 110 at ground level. Let it go for about 2 hr 45 min. I'm dropping it to 85 right now and going to soak them down with water. Anyways back to the bug. My wife say's they are broad mites by her research. At this point I dont think the plants made it. The bugs though? Ya know you could actually feel the little fuckers even biting you where you have skin exposure, face , neck ears.

 

[MrBelvedere]

Maybe they're bed bugs gone wild? Is NL#5 really gone forever? The one Neville had and also lost? FML :confused:

 

[Werunwild69]

I don't know if it was Neville's but I got it from Marc Emery in the late 90's when I lived in Vegas. I made 5 trips up to BC over two years to stock up. Good seeds were very rare for some of us at that point in time so I planned ahead. I crossed some of my own of that stock and just grew from my own seed then. I had saved almost all my BC seed. Kept care of it through many move's. When I moved to Colorado I started using my original BC seed. Many years ago, before you may of seen the guys being exploited on TV with med/ commercial grow shops here in summit county, colorado offered to buy the seeds I had left five years ago (my Emery stash) and I wouldn't give any of em up.Then I got to know many people trading all these clone only crosses. I've since learned about various bugs since then. First was white fly, then it was spider mites, then PM after that, root aphids, then it was just plain fuckin root rot (clones) or anything shared in that recirculating tank. Then thrips and I think the mites came in on the same clone as the thrips. The white, wifi or fire og. I now have a seed stock on all these seeds finally, but I'm loosing interest in them fast as they fucked a lot of stuff. If I don't salvage them I'm going to run some Divine, Loompa's and CSI. Bed bugs? Not that critter. But they could very well be in my bed by now as I work my grow from 6 pm to 1 am every day. But for my original Emery seed, I think I have like 20-25 left that are mixed and no clue what they are until I grow them and figure out what they resemble. I do clone my own but I will run them twice maybe, before I'm planting seed again. People say they don't drift that quick when cloned from a seed mother but I feel like they do. I prefer seed vigor once they're established. Just me I suppose.

 

[Werunwild69]

It would definitely be good to get a positive ID on the critters before taking measures.

Not sure what you mean by "white spooge" could you get a pic? Thrips maybe?

If not spider mites, most likely you have Russets Mites. These guys spread via plant to plant contact. The common scenario is that they come in on a clone introduced from another garden.

Russet mites can only be seen by a handscope. They leave a brown residue on the petiole that most people mistake as rust or brown mold, sometimes people think they have TMV. In most cases by the time you actually notice the damage from these little buggers its already to late.

ID them by taking a handscope to the center of a leaf where the petiole splits into leaflets. This is where they hang out, they breed down the notch of the petiole.
If you see 1000s of little maggot looking things lurching around, you got Russets.

At this point I don't see any bug. I do see what could be fried bug or fried egg, not sure. Just looking under the microscope zoomed in, I do see some black splotching. ( microscope visual only). I was thinking infection setting in from the mite eating the shit out of them. I used fairly high pressure water on them too. When you are spraying the underside, you can see where they've eaten start to appear as the chlorophyl washes away in those spots. Saturday I actually saw bug( some kind of mite) under the scope. Can NOT see it without the microscope. Anyway after frying I did observe the bug changing shape so assuming they were turning to nuclear waste from the heat. Where I've seen them is on the under side of the leaf, not in any particular spot. I have applied extended high heat for a much longer duration than anyone would recommend. Several times. Will ozone do it? Who knows? Experts please chime in!

 

[MrBelvedere]

Hmmmm... maybe take your mattress and frame onto onto your front lawn and torch it with kerosene just to be sure....

 

[dogznova]

Ozone will kill the plants at a high level.. yes it will also kill the bugs and eggs, but I think at that point it won't matter cuse the plants will be dead.

Start over.. Don't use ocean forest (for starters) to pop seeds.. Heck you might not want to use ocean forest at all, some bags are full of bugs.

Once the grow area is fully clean. Start with new seeds and immediately with beneficial bugs, don't wait till you see new bugs before introducing beneficial bugs. Beneficial bugs work best when they have time to establish themselves, it's very important to get beneficial bugs in there early. Basically from the start if you can, and from what i'm reading you have the money to get beneficial bugs in there from the start.

Don't use POISON of any kind. Stop wasting money on POISON.

1. Get your credit card out and go here.


2. The only products you should be spraying on your plants is either Met52 or AzaGuard, in veg only IMO. Both are compatible with beneficial insects.

3. Order predatory mites. Dont be afraid to order a few different kinds. But definitely get Neoseiulus Californicus for sure. They hang in the garden long after their regular food source is gone.

Even if you think you don't have spider mites. It's a very good idea to put predatory mites in the garden on regular intervals, like every few months until you're 100% sure you got the source of the infestation fixed. Small price to pay for piece of mind.

4. Next: Same place but different beneficials. These are Nematodes. Get these as well. These kill thrips, white flies, gnats and a ton of other harmful insects that the predatory mites don't get.


Regular intervals of both of these beneficial bugs will make you a happy farmer.

5. PROBLEM solved.

6. Never look back

7. Grow dank flowers.