Voracious Russet Mite killer/prevention

[Sara54321]

Hi . Im new here and new to growing. I have these tiny monster crazy bugs. Im guessing russet mites from what Ive read. I have some pic of a stage or two that I havent seen. Ill start there. This is 400 times magnification.

 

[Sara54321]

The 4th pic is one of the adults playing in some diatomaceous earth. I have a video of this but dont know how to get it from dvd to web. That kills the big ones but there are eggs and then these other stages. Ill post some of what it looks like in the brown (rusty) leaves soon.

 

[Bluzboy]

First set off a Dr. Doom, then after three days drench your foilage with "Worry Free"($6.97 in a ready to use spray bottle) from the Wal-Mart Garden section. Also pick up some Azamax from your local hydro store. Again, after about 72 hours(mite eggs hatch in three days) apply/spray Azamax to your plants. If still in veg I would recommend following Azamaz application using manufacturer General Hydroponic's directions and add it to a watering cycle. I believe its one teaspoon to a gallon of water. Now that is the "non-systemic" pyrethrin based way to try first. Azamax is a neem oil and pyrethrin based miticide that also makes the leaves distasteful to chew on for the nits and larva . If it does not work or the infestation/colony too large you may have to go to a "systemic" miticide like Avid. Avid is what a lot of the wheat and produce farmers use all around me in their fields for spider mite control. If you use a "systemic" mitiacide it requires usually weeks, 45 days or more in some cases, to get out of the plants system before you can harvest the plants for consumption. So if you are deep into a bloom cycle it is a very tough call if you cannot get them under control with "non-systemic" pyrethrin or organic pesticide/miticide. Some growers have had good success against mites using Ed Rosenthal's Zero Tolerence, Sm217, and other "non-systemics" available at your local hydro store or over the net.
Hope that helps some. I have uploaded a picture for you of the "Worry Free" non-systemic pyrethrin that worked quite well for me after setting off a Doctor Doom, which I then followed up with Azamax applications after using the "Worry Free".
Best regards,
The Bluzboy

 

[Bluzboy]

Are you in veg or bloom cycle? If in veg and you have a large colony you may have to go to a strong systemic like Avid to get control unfortunately. Also, what is your climate like in your grow space? Spider mites do not like it under 68 degrees very much. I run AC in the bloom room and keep it 65 to 68 degrees in the bloom room while the light is out and the humidity at about 40 percent. This supposedly makes the enviroment very uncomfortable for them. Another attribute that aids mite colony's is over watering/over feeding if you are a soil based grower like myself or use coconut. One thing I would like to point out about using coconut if you do is that about 87 percent comes from Malaysa/Sri Lanka and sometimes infested with mites. Growers I know that use coconut very successfully usually treat the coconut with a non-systemic before use I believe. I will check or you should also bloq some of the coconut growers on this if that is your grow medium. If you are using hydro(deep water bucket, etc....) then I would also put out an SOS to the experts in those grow mediums as well because the treatment can vary somewhat depending on the grow medium you use. I am assuming that you are a soil based grower like myself. I use Roots Organics Formula 707 with perlite in #7 pots in a Secret Jardin DR240 8' x 8' with a 1000 watt HPS and just added a 600/400 watt switchable HPS in a spare bedroom and I veg in a separate spare bedroom using a dilapidated Secret Jardin DR150 I got off craigslist for free that has so many pin holes and tears it was obviously originally owned by Freddy Krueger. I use 8 bulb 4 foot T5's in the DR150 for veg. I have a 4' four bulb T5 in another area on a table surrounded by hanging mylar in the same room for cuttings or starting seed. My mites were coming in primarily from the unattended fields near the veg room. I am still fighting them off in that they show up here and there but I essentially have them under control with a Azamax regimen that I break up with some "Worry Free" or Zero Tolerance here and there, it keeps the mites from building up a tolerance to the Azamax. I do not have them at all in my bloom room on the opposite side of the house. Hope I am helping in some way. These a are just the most insidious little bastards to get a control of if they have colonized in your garden/grow.
The Bluzboy

 

[outwest]

Yo, BluzBoy! What kind of bugs does Sara have?

outwest

 

[Bluzboy]

I am not sure what strain she is growing and we should ask. Hey Sara, what strain are you growing that you are having this problem with? We have some company join us out here to help you and knowing what strain you are growing aids also in fixing this mite problem you have.

 

[outwest]

Doh! That was a typo. I meant bugs not buds. I'll correct that.

outwest

 

[Bluzboy]

Doh! That was a typo. I meant bugs not buds. I'll correct that.

outwest

She thinks she has russett mites which are just the scourge, the bain, of all growers OutWest. But the strain would be nice to know since some hybrids/strains are more or less susceptible to burning from pyrethrin or other miticides and can make a difference in how strong of a "systemic" or "non-systemic" a grower can apply or use since some strains are more fragile in response to what specific treatment being used as pyrethrins and rosemary oil based "non-sytemics". Sometimes the cure can cause as much damage as the mites if used improperly even if the treatment is just pyrethrin or some rosemary oil based organic product. I have in application killed the mites but severly damaged the leaf and foilage. I would rather have a little burn than the mites. But I have also done as much damage to a plant trying to kill the mites as the mites were doing which really really sucked and was frustrating to the nth degree.
"MJ will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no MJ" I quote R. Crumb
Best regards OutWest from the Bluzboy!

 

[Sara54321]

Sorry , my posts will be sporatic. Im very ill and have many bad days and a few purple ones). I should have someone else to do the growing, but I dont, so I do what I can. Im growing a Silver tip and a White Berry that I grew from seeds. The Silver tip, I found a rougue seed in some medical product that I bought. The White Berry , came from a plant that was never around a male, but produced one seed anyway???? I also have a strain called Buddas sister, a clone that someone created off Grand daddy purple. I have an LSD(lemon sour diesel) and 2 purple kush, also clones . Have you ever seen the things that are in the last 4 pictures before.

 

[Bluzboy]

From what I can tell from the picture it appears you have a large spider mite infestation. I would follow my initial instructions and immediately set off a Doctor Doom in the grow room infected, followed three days later by a drenching in "worry free" , followed three to four days later drenching the plants with Azamaz . That is the "non-systemic" pesticide/miticide way you can try first. If that fails you will have to use a powerful "systemic" miticide like Avid to get rid of them unfortunately.

 

[Sara54321]

I dont mean to be disrespectful when you are nice enough to answer me . I don't think they are spider mites because they dont turn into the spider looking things Ive seen in all the images. They also dont make webs. I had them last year, probably from the beginning. I got a lemon haze clone that had powdery mildew. I treated it with green cure. Something still looked wrong so I borrowed a 70x magnifier. Thats when I first spotted them. They are too small to see with out help.Plants were already half way through flowering, so I used diatomaceous earth to kill them. It killed all the adults and at 70x I didnt see the eggs or what i'm guessing are larva? I finished the grow, got only about 1 oz off 2 plants. The plants start off looking great, then the leaves curl up a little then the tips turn brown and eventually the leaves get brown spots or turn mostly brown in veg. When they get in the buds ,they eat most of the tricones ,leaving you a useless mess. I cleaned the room and waited a couple months before I tried again.
The eggs look the same as spider mites but then there are stages where they dig in to the leave like strawberry seeds, grow short tails so they look like a bunch of sperm all pointed the same direction, grow long pointed tails that later break off and leave the shell of it laying there, then they look like the long tubed shaped adults.
Ive been using coco and basically treating it like soil in soft pots. I use GH flora bloom and flora micro nutrients + a calmag.
This time I bought a cool magnifing science toy. It goes form 100x to 400x and plugs into any rca video imput. I plugged it into my dvd recorder. I can see them on my tv which is far better that the squinting, trying to look into a little lens.
I found this current batch a couple days after I got the clones. They may have come in on them( the source swears they dont have them) or maybe i missed some on a light or fan. I right away used the diatomaceous earth. It cuts and dehydrates any bug with an exoskeleton, so the adults all looked like dried shrimp. Things kept turning brown here and there, so I took a closer look. No adults,but inside all the brown spots are the sperm looking things and the round eggs all over. I put some alcohol on a q-tip and scrubbed as hard as I could without tearing the leaf and they were still the same. Then the friendly advice starts. I sprayed them with bleach water, that slowed them down, then soapy water,1 tsp Dawn to 1 qt water, that is supposed to stop the eggs from sticking. It did lessen the amount of eggs. Then I tried Sevin with no noticeable difference. A few days ago I sprayed them with the soapy water mixed with 1/4 alcohol. That seemed to pop a lot of the eggs and turned them a dark amber color . 2 days ago I sprayed them with the Worry free stuff. It seems to do the job, but Im not sure I got it everywhere, so I may have to try again. I have had them in veg now for almost 3 months so they are super ready to be grownups.

 

[Bluzboy]

Well they look like the russet mites I had which are extremely small compared to regular mites and can have a worm like appearance under a magnifying glass/microscope. The other possibility is "thrips". I have uploaded photos. Does the infestation and pest look like these/this up close? Oh, and thrips, their feces spots can be brown as well as black, and the larvae borrow into the leaf and flowers.

 

[Bluzboy]

Sara, here are good photos of hemp russet mites. Notice in the "hemprussetmite" titled photo, which is a scientific manual drawing of a hemp russet mite, notice how they have a long "sperm" as you describe or "worm/caterpillar like bodies rather than the small arachnid, crab, or spider like body as a typical spider mite. Hemp russet mites are very much smaller, extremely much smaller than say a regular spider mite, much smaller than like the typical "red spider mite" even at adult stage. My bet is still that you have hemp russet mites. Keep at them with the "Worry Free" and Doctor Doom them as well. Once you feel they are under control keep a strict "Azamax" regimen and break that azamax treatment up with some "Zero Tolerance", "SM217", etc...(rosemary oil based), and "Worry Free " here and there to keep the mites from developing a tolerance to the regular Azamax regimen.

 

[outwest]

Will predator mites eat russet mites?

outwest

 

[Dirty White Boy]

Yall should check out Azasol. The hands down most effective product ive ever used.

 

[Bluzboy]

I dont mean to be disrespectful when you are nice enough to answer me . I don't think they are spider mites because they dont turn into the spider looking things Ive seen in all the images. They also dont make webs. I had them last year, probably from the beginning. I got a lemon haze clone that had powdery mildew. I treated it with green cure. Something still looked wrong so I borrowed a 70x magnifier. Thats when I first spotted them. They are too small to see with out help.Plants were already half way through flowering, so I used diatomaceous earth to kill them. It killed all the adults and at 70x I didnt see the eggs or what i'm guessing are larva? I finished the grow, got only about 1 oz off 2 plants. The plants start off looking great, then the leaves curl up a little then the tips turn brown and eventually the leaves get brown spots or turn mostly brown in veg. When they get in the buds ,they eat most of the tricones ,leaving you a useless mess. I cleaned the room and waited a couple months before I tried again.
The eggs look the same as spider mites but then there are stages where they dig in to the leave like strawberry seeds, grow short tails so they look like a bunch of sperm all pointed the same direction, grow long pointed tails that later break off and leave the shell of it laying there, then they look like the long tubed shaped adults.
Ive been using coco and basically treating it like soil in soft pots. I use GH flora bloom and flora micro nutrients + a calmag.
This time I bought a cool magnifing science toy. It goes form 100x to 400x and plugs into any rca video imput. I plugged it into my dvd recorder. I can see them on my tv which is far better that the squinting, trying to look into a little lens.
I found this current batch a couple days after I got the clones. They may have come in on them( the source swears they dont have them) or maybe i missed some on a light or fan. I right away used the diatomaceous earth. It cuts and dehydrates any bug with an exoskeleton, so the adults all looked like dried shrimp. Things kept turning brown here and there, so I took a closer look. No adults,but inside all the brown spots are the sperm looking things and the round eggs all over. I put some alcohol on a q-tip and scrubbed as hard as I could without tearing the leaf and they were still the same. Then the friendly advice starts. I sprayed them with bleach water, that slowed them down, then soapy water,1 tsp Dawn to 1 qt water, that is supposed to stop the eggs from sticking. It did lessen the amount of eggs. Then I tried Sevin with no noticeable difference. A few days ago I sprayed them with the soapy water mixed with 1/4 alcohol. That seemed to pop a lot of the eggs and turned them a dark amber color . 2 days ago I sprayed them with the Worry free stuff. It seems to do the job, but Im not sure I got it everywhere, so I may have to try again. I have had them in veg now for almost 3 months so they are super ready to be grownups.

Make sure to wear plastic gloves and a face mask when applying "Worry Free" or even the Azamax Sara. Pyrethrins even though "nonsystemic" are not good for you to breathe or get on your skin. Please be carfeful to protect yourself in your dispersing of any of the above products. We want you to get better Sara and not deter your recovery or spur your illness further with "pyrethrins" exposure. I am sure you know this already but I only say this because I walked in recently on a younger farmer shooting and spraying one of the above listed products like a fireman at three alarm fire in shorts, t-shirt, thongs, and a pair of shades with fans blowing in his veg tent. I asked, "have you ever read the instructions for applying that "organic pesticide" you are currently showering in? His answer was "Nope, should I have?". I replied with a passionate "YES, you should read application instructions even on organic or non-systemic pesticides". I surely hope I have helped in some way so keep me apprised of how things go Sara.
Best regards always,
The Bluzboy

 

[Bluzboy]

Yall should check out Azasol. The hands down most effective product ive ever used.

Thanks White Boy, any effective product I, Sara, or others can add to our arsenals/armories against mites, thrips, etc.. is greatly appreciated. Is Azarol a "systemic" like Avid or Spectral, or "non-systemic" like a pyrethrin based pesticide such as "Worry Free", "No Spider Mites", etc...

 

[Bluzboy]

Will predator mites eat russet mites?

outwest

Out West, I do not know if you can. I have never heard of anyone using predatory mites in an inside grow and having much success or with using lady bugs either. Maybe someone has had success using them in a tent or closet grow but I have never blogged with anyone that has.
hey, here is a shot of some Purple Jones I took down Saturday buddy. Check out the tri-chrome production. Got the strain from Homebrew420. Its Purple Jones(Casey Jones X Purple Urkel).
Have a great week Out West!
Bluzboy

 

[true grit]

I've seen some fungicides knock them back very well, but they came back. Followed up with a Mighty Wash/Fungicide bath with success at the homies. Only had one that didn't bounce back 100%.

 

[outwest]

I do love mighty wash!

outwest