Indoor “The Spider Mite Genocide Grow” Sour Crack, 3 Bears OG (Mephisto), LED, Cabinet Grow

[KapScot]

Okay admit it, you’re not reading this post because someone is growing Sour Crack and 3 Bears OG, plenty of those by people with more experience who can pull miracles from coffee cup pots fed with tea. But Spider mite genocide might have raised an eyebrow. Yip you got it, this journal is really about Spider mite eradication and control, the plants are just there for fun , honest officer it’s for ‘research only’ cough...

So the problem is a persistent Spider mite presence in my grow cabinet. Persistent = I’ve been fighting it over a year, presence = while I’ve been able to achieve ‘control’ I have failed in total eradication.

Should be easy you say – empty cabinet – clean thoroughly – start new grow…

Tried that and hasn’t it hasn’t worked – perhaps this time!

So tag along for some chemical warfare in a confined indoor space and share your mitey experiences…

 

[STILLSMOKIN]

Okay admit it, you’re not reading this post because someone is growing Sour Crack and 3 Bears OG, plenty of those by people with more experience who can pull miracles from coffee cup pots fed with tea. But Spider mite genocide might have raised an eyebrow. Yip you got it, this journal is really about Spider mite eradication and control, the plants are just there for fun , honest officer it’s for ‘research only’ cough...

So the problem is a persistent Spider mite presence in my grow cabinet. Persistent = I’ve been fighting it over a year, presence = while I’ve been able to achieve ‘control’ I have failed in total eradication.

Should be easy you say – empty cabinet – clean thoroughly – start new grow…

Tried that and hasn’t it hasn’t worked – perhaps this time!

So tag along for some chemical warfare in a confined indoor space and share your mitey experiences…

Neem oil and also you may be buying dirt that has been infested.

 

[KapScot]

Thanks I'm lining up a few posts - tried Neem - it really is only a control measure.

 

[KapScot]

The Grow Setup

wdh 70x50x140cm home/office cabinet (70x50x60cm grow space when pots and lights are in consideration << I used to screen mesh if a plant is going to be big << but that makes removal for spraying nigh impossible), 2 x Mars Hydro 300 (one original the other it’s equivalent Eco replacement), ducts are passive intakes at the base under the grow shelf, with extract ducted thru the wall into a walk-in cupboard 5” Rhino Filter/Ruck Fan. The cabinet isn’t moving anywhere without leaving a large hole in the wall. The 5” is overkill for the size but since this as it is now located in my office (box room) it can get a bit hot in here + I wanted to put a more advanced speed control fan in at some point and they really only start at 5” size (future proofing). Temps run at about 4 deg C above ambient at the moment – so generally fall in the 22-28C range in summer.

If you want more cabinet details let me know. (I’m sure they’re on AfN somewhere - lol)

The Grow Cycle

Aha…this is part of the problem. I use a continuous grow cycle. That is to say I normally have three plants - one flowering, one in stretch and one seedling, growing in a rotation. This maximises the space available and thus yield, but also creates part of the eradication problem – there’s always somewhere where the little buggers can hide from the spraygun.

 

[KapScot]

Introducing the Enemy

Since many people may not have heard of Spider mite... or only in nightmares...

Smaller than a pinhead and surprisingly resilient …. Spider mites come in many different colours and sub-species (tribes) throughout the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_mite



(These images do not belong to me – they are a compiled from the best representations of spider mite in Cannabis I could find online – copy and be damned).

 

[STILLSMOKIN]

Thanks I'm lining up a few posts - tried Neem - it really is only a control measure.

Buy neem extract and add .5ml to gallon of water once every month with it. Spray is for crawling and extract for root zone

 

[KapScot]

Original Infection and Eradication Methods to date.

I’m pretty green fingered and have a plethora of houseplants – if I see a window my mind populates it with plants. Last summer was, for here in the UK, particularly warm and dry… perfect conditions for Spidermite.

Windows left open to let in any cool air in perhaps…. first spotted ‘well established’ among three chilli peppers on a windowsill a closer inspection revealed a Spiderplant in the same room, a monstrous thing, also had it bad. To me ‘well established’ means at the point the little buggers start producing webbing. If you spray (mist) your plants this is often be the first you’ll notice of them as the webs catch the water droplets between the leaves, by this point a lot of damage can already been done and the plant may also look a little sickly or limp.

The chilli plants were actually spare runts I hadn’t potted up and the spiderplant gets replaced with a new clone every couple of years so I just binned them. I’ve dealt with Spider mite before and always lost, so to prevent other plants becoming infected it really is the safest way. I also increased misting frequency on other plants around the house to increase humidity. This appeared to be the end of the problem….

Six weeks later and they had claimed a large Ivy as home (in a different room from the original infection). Either there was a two pronged window assault or more likely I cross infected plants while doing watering between rooms.

I want to save this plant so it gets nuked from orbit. I can’t actually remember what I used. It was one of those multi action pesticides (contact kill + systemic action) definitely not to be handled without rubber gloves or used on any plant to be consumed by humans!

Job done….

Oh !!! Bugger – (that bugger is a polite way of a string of expletives after a closer grow cabinet inspection) – Note to self : put your reading glasses on granddad, see there and there. Should have gone to Specsavers moment…

I can see pale spotting on the top surface on some leaves of one of the younger plants and the fans on the flowering plant are looking yellowish and are dry (some you can crisp) – I thought it was just finishing (which it was), but looking up I can see tiny webs around some of the bud guard leaves.

Harvest time...

Shite, now I have a problem since ‘Nuke from Orbit’ with pesticides or throw them the bin, just isn’t an option with these babies.


Method # 1 Clean and Detox (Traditional Soapy method)

I empty the cabinet of plants and give it a good wipe down (soapy water + bleach), roughly (if I’m being honest) trying to get all surfaces. The plant pots get wrapped in cling film and the remaining two plants get a spray wash down with soapy water, paying particular attention to the undersides of the leaves where they seem to prefer to live.

The theory here is that the soapy water breaks the adhesion either to webs or leaves and you wash a lot of them off, it also impairs their ability to ‘breath’ (being so small this is a simple gaseous exchange through their skin membrane – a coating of soap impairs this).

Since neither of these plants are in flower yet I can spray them regularly and keep the humidity high. So far so good but as the weeks progress into full flower and regular spraying becomes a bud rot issue it’s time to ease back, and it’s clear that I have failed to eradicate them, in fact they seem worse than ever. Some plants are obviously tastier than others, but with three to choose from one always gets it worse than the others.

Over several successive crops while I was keeping control throughout the grow phase it was getting our of control during bloom and following several hospital detentions (me) and some stressing erratic watering (surrogate gardners), it was obvious that the spider mites were winning.

It was starting to effect my yield.

Method # 2 (a better version of [HASHTAG]#1[/HASHTAG]) + Restart the Grow

Time for a more thorough clean up as per method one. A particularly large MBAP had taken over the cabinet anyway so once harvested everything got a wipe down.

EVERYTHING, cables, switches, timers etc. Then a second wipe down – with a 50/50 water/isopropyl mix.

Pots all cleaned etc. Restart growing and in theory that should have been a job well done. A totally freshly started grow. No other plants in the house infected either etc..

Bugger me did they not come back. Slowly at first – you could see a spot or two – but even inspecting leaves revealed nothing until one plant they loved appeared and there was a population explosion.

Method # 3 – SB Plant Invigorator & Bug Killer

I really don’t want to have to break my grow cycle again (street weed is expensive and I prefer unavailable Indica varieties for my pain relief). So I start using SB. This product works on the same principle as soapy water, in fact it is really the soapy wetting agent for the foliar feed that does the work here. It’s just more effective than using washing up liquid. Controls : Aphids, blah, blah, blah, spidermite…..

Note that word ‘control’, even the manufactures are careful to use control not something like ‘kill’ or ‘eradicate’. It does kill them by suffocation, if you can get them ALL over successive generations (a ten day period). But there’s always a leaf in a bud somewhere or an air bubble where one survives to begin the re-population exercise. Time to get radical and bring in a pesticide.

Method [HASHTAG]#4[/HASHTAG] – Py Bug Killer

Now I don’t like using pesticides on something I’m going to consume. It doesn’t sit well with growing in compost using (largely) organic derived nutes. But this is starting to piss me off.

Py is a pyrethrum based product derived from chrysanthemum flowers. It breaks down naturally and is considered relatively safe for fruit and vegetables with the caveat of waiting two weeks before consuming.

WARNING THIS PRODUCT IS ALSO TOXIC TO FISH :

It says not to use indoors if you keep fish in tanks but I’ve seen it used – you just use common sense and take precautions. Turn air pumps off (overnight) and make sure tank is well covered so as to minimise air contact to any vapours/spray splashes – use Py sparingly and ventilate the area well before turning pumps back on. No casualties reported.

So I’ve got two plants (just harvested one) one in early flower. Out they come get a thorough spraying with Py and the cabinet gets cleaned again. After 10 days I continue the SB treatment… and wait… and oh looking good looks like a mite free grow… then bugger me sideways… terminator style ‘I’ll be back’ so they have… but took a while to regain a visible presence, the Py certainly seemed to dent the population, but I must have missed a few.

Picture the image – one last spider mite that had the sheer willpower to say FU pyrethrum, giving me the finger as it lays its final egg in a protective oxygen filled soap-bubble cocoon (Aaaaargh!).

 

[STILLSMOKIN]

I had hundreds on a tomato plant outdoors, bought 1500 lady bugs. Released at night after spraying feed for them. Woke up to 20 lady bugs and spider mites every where. So I gave up trying and sprayed that night added neem to my watering and next day mites were gone. I'm guessing the neem runs through stalk and they dont like eating it anymore.

 

[KapScot]

Method [HASHTAG]#5[/HASHTAG] ‘Gas em...’ ‘Spray em’ and ‘Suffocate em’….

So here we are at the latest episode of ‘kill em – kill em all’



The Sour Hound has a couple of weeks till harvest, maybe less depending on trichs. This has spider mite under SB control at the moment, but they are present. It had it’s last SB spray 5 days ago – the buds are so heavy now that it lost a branch due to the extra water weight during handling – so it’s not being manhandled to the bathroom again. The little buggers have a free feast till harvest now.

The young subjects in this episode will be a Sour Crack (day xx and a 3 Bears OG (day xx). The Sour Crack was picked for being small and fast and the 3 Bears for being larger and slower – the time gap will help re-establish my 3 plant cycle.

These and the cabinet will be subjected to the following, unless someone has better (semi-organic) suggestion(s)???

Cabinet – deep clean.

Cabinet and plants/pots – Pyrethrum Smoke Bomb

Plants – SB Control + raised humidity (grow stage only)

Plants – Pyrethrum (spray) – applied early flower or if any signs of infection

Plants – SB Control (repeated)

If at the end of that if I’ve still got a problem I will have to try something based on Spinosad (reluctantly) otherwise I’m shit out of ideas about what else would be safe to use indoors (it will be also obvious that I have a Py resistant strain of mite as the smoke bomb is pretty heavy overkill in the small cabinet space and should reach places missed by any spray).

Thoughts and input welcome...

 

[KapScot]

Hmmm strange... I tried Neem on the Ivy when it got infected and it had little effect << admitedly I didn't try it on the Canna but I would have thought the effect was similar (Neem is just a foliar coating which they don't like). Outdoors all it takes is a large drop in temp (less than 20C + increase in humidity) for things to become uninhabitable for spider mite anyway so maybe you got lucky