water pH of 7.5

[2hotmomma88]

Do u know if this process will fry flies? damn little s.o.b's ive got fly traps hanging and keep getting tangled up in them. I absolutely hate them!

 

[kolah]

I went out to check my progress and donchaknow it.... ????? the sun went away as it clouded up, temps dropped and the rains came. It's been raining all day, lol. I think I had about 80 minutes or so at 120F or higher. I wanted them exposed for 3 hours. The plants all looked fine, none showed any signs of stress or droopiness. I'll see what tomorrow brings.

OK. I also found this:
" Heat treatment. Cyclamen and broad mites are heat sensitive and can be killed if immersed in 110 degree F water for 30 minutes. These temperatures are generally low enough to cause little damage to most plants but water temperature must be maintained properly and the whole plant, pot and all, needs to be immersed. Removing heavily infested shoots first may make this process easier."

I'd like to try this but each plant (and its pot?) needs to be immersed for 30 minutes. Shit, that would be quite time consuming for me. OTOH I must admit I like the hot water treatment a bit better than the hot sun treatment. A combo of both may be the ticket.

Also I may try this: Lipid soaps are an option... they work to soften the insect body as well as destroy the protective coat of the eggs... but they can also strip the protective waxes from the leaves of your plants and leave them vulnerable to other problems... but they're gentle if used as directed. I like the Dr. Bronners Hemp-based Castile Soap in particular.

Or a g-damn blow torch! lol

 

[kolah]

Do u know if this process will fry flies? damn little s.o.b's ive got fly traps hanging and keep getting tangled up in them. I absolutely hate them!

Offhand, I don't know what temps flies can withstand without doing a search about them. As far as heating my GH goes I had great results by doing something similar and beat a mild case of PM mold.

 

[SunGrown]

fire up the hot tub and take a swim with the ladies!

edit to add:

I guess you wouldnt wanna swim in 100 something degree water though! OUCH!

 

[kolah]

fire up the hot tub and take a swim with the ladies!

edit to add:

I guess you wouldnt wanna swim in 100 something degree water though! OUCH!

If I had a bigass hot tub, I'd do it!

 

[Seamaiden]

I went out to check my progress and donchaknow it.... ????? the sun went away as it clouded up, temps dropped and the rains came. It's been raining all day, lol. I think I had about 80 minutes or so at 120F or higher. I wanted them exposed for 3 hours. The plants all looked fine, none showed any signs of stress or droopiness. I'll see what tomorrow brings.

OK. I also found this:
" Heat treatment. Cyclamen and broad mites are heat sensitive and can be killed if immersed in 110 degree F water for 30 minutes. These temperatures are generally low enough to cause little damage to most plants but water temperature must be maintained properly and the whole plant, pot and all, needs to be immersed. Removing heavily infested shoots first may make this process easier."

I'd like to try this but each plant (and its pot?) needs to be immersed for 30 minutes. Shit, that would be quite time consuming for me. OTOH I must admit I like the hot water treatment a bit better than the hot sun treatment. A combo of both may be the ticket.

Also I may try this: Lipid soaps are an option... they work to soften the insect body as well as destroy the protective coat of the eggs... but they can also strip the protective waxes from the leaves of your plants and leave them vulnerable to other problems... but they're gentle if used as directed. I like the Dr. Bronners Hemp-based Castile Soap in particular.

Or a g-damn blow torch! lol

Any castile soap will work for this. :)

 

[kolah]

back at it again, GH sealed up and monitoring temps.

Another plant has showed symptoms, a nice GSC Forum cross. It starts at the new growth tips and the small shoots ( leafs) do a 90 degree bend about 1/8" from the tops. It's like a mini claw/curl appearance.

 

[kolah]

Greenhouse temperature gauge has been pegged at over 120F for the last 3 1/2 hours. I was going to say enough is enough but decided to check the temps at the soil level. Currently the gauge was about 4 feet off the beds. Temp readings at soil level was only 103-105F so I decided to let er go longer. Plants are looking a little stressed but holding their own. Once I see them droop at the tops I'll open things up and mist them.

 

[kolah]

The sun was out all day and no clouds. My GH stayed shut most of the day and temps stayed around 120F for about 5 solid hours. Nice. I did have some problems getting the ground temps up to 120 and that is why I kept things sealed up longer. The plants held their own.

After the Cry and Fry, I misted and watered them and fed them aspirin 325 mg per gallon of H2O. I'll wait a day and then heat things up again but next time I'll build some planking to raise the plants up higher from the ground. I want everything exposed to 120-130F. They're all in buckets so this will be doable. Again, I'll push it to the extreme and see if they can hold out for 4-5 hours. I have to work the next 4 days so time will be limited and I really need to hit them up again in case there were any survivors (mites or eggs)

btw, these fuckers are very hard to see with a scope...they hide in all the nooks and crannies and deep into the bud sites.

 

[kolah]

this is an easy to follow but geeky-nerdy reading discussing cyclamen mites versus broad mites. I actually think I have the cyclamen variety. Or had. ;)

https://archive.org/stream/cyclamenmitebroa301smit/cyclamenmitebroa301smit_djvu.txt

"The cyclamen mite develops slowly and does not quickly kill the
new growth, but, by feeding on the young tissue, causes characteris-
tic curling and distortion. The crevices in which this mite usually
hides are found in the young upward-folded leaves in the bud. Feed-
ing in this fold injures the upper leaf surface and prevents its growth,
while the lower surface expands and causes the leaf to curl upward
(figs. 1 and 2, B). On cyclamens the mites are found at the crown
within the young folded leaves (which are only one eighth inch long)"

 

[caregiverken]

Wow Kolah..:eek:Are you sure its ok to let the roots get that hot?
I wonder what DE would do to them broads in the soil?

 

[kolah]

The plants are doing good, Ken...and yes my next plan of attack will be DE for sure. From what I have read these mites can't survive in the soil too long as they need plant flesh to survive. I don't think the pots and their roots got to 120 degrees as I heavily watered them before I started the heat process and I think it would take quite a bit for the heat to penetrate into that wet dense soil. It would be kinda cool to stick a temp gauge in the pots to see where they get though. I'll probably do that on the next go-round just for shits and giggles.

Throughout the 5 hour heat process only one plant looked a little droopy but nothing to worry about at all. I expected (at least) that all the tops would start folding over but they did not. OTOH, stressing these gals out (if they beat the mites) may flip them into hermies. But at this point I am just rolling the dice and hoping for Lucky 7's.

 

[caregiverken]

Glad to hear the plants are doing well Brother!
Sounds like your going to beat em!

 

[kolah]

a bit of good news here:

"However, studies for 2 years have shown that both
mites continue to breed on the plants the year round, and no evidence
has been found that they hibernate in the soil or in benches during
part of the year. It appears that access to living plant tissue as food
is necessary for existence of the mites and that they die when con-
fined to soil or to dry or moist decaying plant tissue. These points
have an important bearing on the control of the mites by proper
greenhouse practices."

and this about DE use:

Diatomaceous earth, which adheres well to the bodies of the mites,
also killed the mites dusted with it, but was less effective against the hatching
larvae.

both from https://archive.org/stream/cyclamenmitebroa301smit/cyclamenmitebroa301smit_djvu.txt

 

[caveman4.20]

Huge find , thanks for sharing kola....I'm uh get reading!

 

[kolah]

So you dont think its a ph problem or tobacco mosaic now just the mites right? Would be cool if the high heat works.

yup..just mites and under the scope I have both types, broad mites and cyclamens.

update; I did two more doses of high heat and elevated the pots about 2 feet off the beds so they would be exposed to the higher temps which accumulated higher towards the roof. On the last two doses I kept the temps 120F plus for 3 hours. I have done 3 doses total. All the plants look very good and I removed two of them just as a precautionary measure as they were heavily infested and rough looking. I am monitoring them closely and scoping them daily and have yet to see any mites at his time (fingers crossed) All the rest have begun flowering, a bit slow to go but that's OK. Time will tell.

 

[caveman4.20]

Thanks for sharing so the two plants you removed ...do you mind sharing about your efforts taken to minimize cross contamination? Im Fucking stoked by the way of your approach and resiliency....much props and best wishes in this season and seasons to come

 

[kolah]

Thanks for sharing so the two plants you removed ...do you mind sharing about your efforts taken to minimize cross contamination? Im Fucking stoked by the way of your approach and resiliency....much props and best wishes in this season and seasons to come

The two plants I removed were very close to my other plants while in the GH. The only thing I did beforehand was spray them heavily with a soap mixture and then I covered then with large trashbags before removing them. I put them them far away from the GH, outdoors where they will still get sun. I just scoped them this morning and zero signs of mites or eggs. I have shitty eyesight and these fuckers are hard to spot..they almost look like drops of water and can easily be missed. They also hide in all the nooks and crannies. You literally have to tear the plants apart to see them (inside buds, at the apices of leaves and branches, etc) They were NOT directly on the leaves (top or bottoms) where they could be easily seen. I am anxious to see if these two recover. I'll try and get some pictures today.

As I said the other plants looks very well and are flowering out nicely, all Baba G's Dubking crossed with GSC Forum, OG Kush, Big Bud and Cannatonic. I have one lone Alien x Superskunk but sadly lost all 11 Dive Gentics Cheetokushes and I lost Baba G's Salmon Creek/Bigbud ....much inpart to my own errors due to my lack of correctly identifying the problem.

My SSxAlien is the nicest (so far) but skunks do great up here. The GSC Forum cuts are a mixed pheno, some with big fat dark indica leaves and others a 50/50 I/S. The Skunk is leaning maybe 60/40 Indica and the Big Buds are also leaning indica. I didn't top all of them because growth was already stunted from the mites so yields will be down. I experimented a bit and supercropped one BigBud by tying the main top down at 90 degrees to inspire more main colas and shes doing well. A few others got 3 inch holes drilled in the sides of the buckets and went halfway into my soil beds. I think I'll feed them today as I avoided that as they underwent my heat treatment. I am using General Organic Bloom and Roots Organic Trinity catalyst mix. I sit in there and play my guitar as well... trying to keep em' happy.

I am still being cautious and biting my nails though.

I also have a gopher or something inside the GH as there are a few large holes in my soil beds. I set a big rat trap but have not caught the critter/s. If they don't bother my plants I'll spare them their lives and pull up the trap. I hope I have created a environment where everyone can co-exist in there. Hell I have wild flowers and dandelions growing in there too.

Net year I'm putting in fine screening in all my windows and vents to reduce bugs and stuff and I think I'll do some organic preventative maintenance sprayings.

 

[kolah]

Here we go: to the left is mostly Big Bud/Dubking and to thee right is GSC/DK ...nothing much to brag about other than they are still kicking.

 

[kolah]

Here's a BBxDK that was stunted out from the mites so I supercropped it to get some bigger colas from the side branches. I picked off all the taco leaves before I heat treated the GH. It's small but looking pretty good I must say. OTOH it looks my first indoor grow back when I was 16 years old, one flouresant tube and Miracle Grow...lol.