Hi,
I have the little buggers all over my plants right now. I treated them with Neemo at the beginning of the flowering period and thought I'd got rid of them.
However with 2.5 weeks left to go, I found a new infestation on several plants last night.

The buds are forming up nicely and getting quite crystally so I'm, VERY reluctant to treat them with anything this close to harvest.

Any recommendations as to what to do?
What exactly is the effect on a crop this close to finishing?
Do the little buggers smoke nicely? If they've been gorging themselves on all my precious THC for the past few weeks, should I just ignore them or is the crop ruined?

Thanks
Surfer8

Ok, so now I've got 'em and it's too late to do much about it other than increase the humidity (thanks GG) which is possibly going to make them more prone to bud rot.

What's the best course of action -if any, and what will they do to the crop? I know they live off the plant but if I ignore them or fail to eliminate them, what ACTUALLY is the impact.
Do they ruin the tatse, will I die from incinerating the little barstewards and inhaling their ashes?

Or can I just forget about them, and be sure to clean them out before the next grow?

Cheers
Surfer8

I will say this for you Ed, you have some balls.

At least you are asking if you can use other peoples material now at least.

Might I suggest that you go back to the places that you ripped all the other stuff on your site off from, and likewise, ask the permission of the authors, or at least put a link on your site to the original threads and put a credit on to the authors.

People tend to get funny when their work is stolen

Cheers OMH

Thanks for the hint, if we get another cold night down here I'll give it a try.
Shame the mods were more interested in having a go at the other guy than offering any answers themsleves.
Obviously some background between them that I'm not aware of (but as a member, should I need to know?) but at least the guy took the trouble to answer my question -even if it was info lifted from somewhere else

mind you, that may explain why he only answered by PM rather than a post. Takes all kinds I guess.

...by the way, that 600W kit is still going strong and doing everything it should do

all the best

S8

Sorry mate. We have had an influx of people taking the piss lately, and we have been full on trying to deal with them rather than answering questions.

If you only have a fortnight left, then I would not worry too much about the mites. They tend to eat the leaves mostly, and leave the buds alone. The biggest problem you are likely to have from them is their webs.

Keep a close eye out for their webs on your buds (they are like very thin latex) and remove them as soon as you find them. The webs trap moisture and can cause bud rot. Don't spray the buds with anything - just go on a squishing mission for the next week or so, to keep the population down until you harvest. Don't remove the leaves either unless they are so badly damaged that they are no longer capable of photosynthesis, because you will reduce your yields - the plants use the leaves to make their food, and a damaged leaf is better than no leaf.

Once you harvest, you are going to have to take some fairly drastic action to make sure your room is clear of the mites and their eggs. This means a lot of cleaning, disinfecting your system, hoovering ect. I used to set off bug bombs in the room to get shot of em, but the bloody EU went and banned them

Buzz Off is supposed to be the business for getting rid of them - get some of that and use it on your mothers, and repeat until there is no sign of them, and treat your cuttings for your next crop with Buzz Off until they go into flowering.

Don't waste your money on predators. They go into hibernation when the lights are on 12/12 and do nothing, although they can be effective at keeping the numbers down in veg.

Hopefully that should do the trick. Be ever vigilant though. The borg are nothing if not persistant

Surfer8 I apologise if you were not answered properly, the reason the mods jumped on Ed look at my post Spam! He did not answer you in his own words but from copyright text stolen from here

On your problem there is no way of eradicating spider mite with currently available domestic products, that I know of.

If you have access to professional/commercial products. Torque or vertimec will both eradicate mites completely in an artificial environment like a grow room.

If you are able to move your plants taking them one at a time to a shower/bath laying it down and spraying from the bottom of the plant under side leaves with water just off the chill moving all the way to the top will blast most of both mites and eggs.

This is very effective, do not use at pumped power shower pressure as you may damage leaves. This should be done just before lights out so you don’t get water burn. Make sure your ventilation is on during the dark period and your circulation fan blowing through the canopy. This will get the buds and leaves dry before the lights come back on.

Guys,
Thanks for the detailed info. I've always know that the borg were bad, but never seen any definitive info as to why.
I've had varying answers as to the best solution, but will continue now with close attention for the next 2-3 weeks before harvest. Then it will be a total sterilisation for the grow area, although being in a garden shed I suspect that now I have had the little monsters, they'll be there for evermore!

The cold shower seems sensible and like all good advice, obvious when you think about it.


Thanks again
Surfer8