Where do spider mites come from
- Thread starter Vegetate
- Start date
JonnyBlunt88
Well-Known Member
They come from Mexico...move North.
th3bigbad
Well-Known Member
well u see it all starts with a lonely guy spider mite. he lives in a cramped 1 bedroom apartment. he picks up some chick after some of the best lap dances of his life. they go back to her trailer park. long story short he gets a wicked STD, and mugged before leaveing the park. she has 20,000,000 baby spider mites and spends the rest of her life makeing sure your grow room is completely miserable.
JohnnyPotSeed1969
Well-Known Member
LMFAO!!!!!!
they come from hell.
you can control them with neem oil or pyrethium(sp) spray. i did a sulphur burn and killed them. there are also "spidermite predators". they are a mite that eats spidermites.
JohnnyPotSeed1969
Well-Known Member
if you worship the devil, you can command them to do your bidding, just like little soldiers of doom 
didnt yor day tell you about sex??,,,are you 18 yet,,,,,lol,,
Vegetate
Well-Known Member
Thank you to all the smart asses out there, I don't know how I could grow without you. Thank you fdd for your answer, but do you know where they originate from to begin with? Are they in the dirt, hanging out in carpet? How do I get rid of them before they ever get on my plant?
th3bigbad
Well-Known Member
ok,ok,ok i dont know how true this is and thats why i didnt say anything to begin with but i heard they get into your clothes and thats how you get them into a completely sealed grow room. they just jump on you socks or whatever and you unknowingly take them to your room. but like i said thats just something i heard,,, dont hold me to it.
their eggs are tiny. could have been the soil. could have been your clothes. they do get on you from outside. i guess. any plant brought from outside should be covered in them. mine were. they can get in thru the fresh air intake if it draws from outside. a lot of different ways actually. trying to find out how they got there is a very smart way of thinking.
Trix
Active Member
Soooo did some research, much of which may already be posted here somewhere but either way, will post it all. Basically though, they are transferred in, through, clothes, wind, dirt etc... ready for a read??
ps this is RESEARCH...my own personal experience is not over yet...
Mites by themselves are not aggressive movers. They pretty much stay on the same leaf or nearby leaves for their entire lives. They are moved (vectored) by bird feathers, dog and animal hair, and clothing. They are usually worst in dry dusty conditions, although two spotted mites have been known to thrive even under very wet conditions.
Spidermites thrive in dry (20%-30% humidity), warm(70-80 degrees F) conditions. In temperatures above 80 degrees F, spidermites can reproduce in as little as 5 days, making early detection a necessity.
The most important step you can take to avoid pests is to keep your growroom clean, free of odours, free of bacteria and free of rubbish.
• Keep your environmental conditions as close to perfect as you can, maintaining variables such as temperature, humidity and air quality. Make sure that you have got good air exchange, and keep the air moving.
• After visiting a risk area and before entering your growroom, change clothes to reduce the chance of cross contamination.
• Try not to draw air into your growroom directly from outside if possible. If you do then filter the air, especially in summer.
• Do not let other gardeners or people who may have come from infected areas into your growroom.
• Quarantine any cuttings that have come from other growrooms for a few days (or until you are sure they are free of mites) before introducing them into your growroom.
• Keep pets out of and away from your growroom.
• Stick to quality growing media rather than compost and other bagged media from garden centers. Dedicated hydroponic media is much less likely to contain bugs than standard soil.
Mites usually start becoming a problem in late spring and reach a peak by late summer or just at the peak heat of the season. They are definitely hot weather critters. In cold weather they move and multiply much more slowly. In summer their life cycle is about seven to ten days, that is, hatchlings are laying eggs after a week or two. Any treatment must take this into account. Just killing the adults does little good. Repeat treatments are almost always necessary to kill the emerging mites. In winter they begin moving off trees and shrubs to winter over on grasses.
Mites, like aphids are easily dislodged from the leaf surface, at least before they have a chance to begin building webbing. A weekly hard blast of water can stop an infestation from occuring or slow it down once it starts. However, you must be able to spray the undersides of the leaves. Just hitting the top surface will do little or nothing. Concentrate your attention on the lower parts of the plant. Mites won't be found on the upper and succulent parts of the plant.
If you find more than an occasional mite, and most of the lower leaves have two or more mites and perhaps webbing, you are probably in trouble. Begin lower levels of control. First try blasting them off with a spray of water. Do this about every two or three days. It may or may not work. If the population continues to build, use an insecticidal soap designed for mites (it should be on the label), or introduce predators.
Once mite count reaches about 40 per leaf, the population will really explode and mites will begin moving to other leaves and plants. In the worst cases, they will even begin moving to other species that are usually resistant. Treatment with predator mites at this stage is possible, but difficult and expensive. At this stage you may want to take a more toxic route.
Red spider mites are pretty easily dealt with. You can usually knock them out with water sprays. The big problem is that there are few effective ovicides for mites, so you must follow up in five to seven days with a repeat treatment to kill the hatchlings. Usually three treatments are necessary to end an infestation. Read and follow all label instructions carefully. Do not use more or less than the recommended amount or concentration. Using less can result in breeding mites with resistance to that chemical.
If you have two spotted mites, your job is even harder. These mites are very difficult to control and most are resistant to most miticides. Don't bother using typical over the counter insecticides, they will do nothing. These mites can build a resistance to pesticides very quickly, so repeated use of the same one just breeds new problems for the rest of us. These two spotted mites can still be killed it just takes a more serious approach.
Critics have said that while predators may work in a nursery situation, it won't in a small yard as long as your neighbors are engaging in chemical warfare. I think it is worth a try as long as you have a yard that will provide a complete environment, which usually means some exposed soil, trees and shrubs. In fact predator mites are more useful to small scale operations, than to larger ones such as mine. They can be used to treat individual plants, but long term control means changing the environment, including establishing a population of predators.
You must choose the right predator mite for your situation. There are several species available that are adapted to a particular climate. They have a rather narrow range of humidity and temperature requirements. Predator mites are available from several bio control companies
Predator mites can be expensive. At times, somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 a gram, or $50 to $80 per thousand mites.
Effective treatment is dependent on getting the proper predator mite. Green Methods lists about six, Nature's Control lists three. The most important parameters are temperature and humidity, but there are also other factors such as fast knockdown, early introduction, longevity, etc.
If you have ONE infested plant, I'd say forget it, the mites would cost as much as the plant, but if you have a good size collection and mites are a general problem, including your landscape, it might be a feasible method of control.
Additionally, yes the mites do stick around because bio controls do NOT eliminate the pest but simply set up a dynamic between the two species which keeps the pest from getting out of hand. If you want total control (read elimination) you must use chemicals.
ps this is RESEARCH...my own personal experience is not over yet...
Mites by themselves are not aggressive movers. They pretty much stay on the same leaf or nearby leaves for their entire lives. They are moved (vectored) by bird feathers, dog and animal hair, and clothing. They are usually worst in dry dusty conditions, although two spotted mites have been known to thrive even under very wet conditions.
Spidermites thrive in dry (20%-30% humidity), warm(70-80 degrees F) conditions. In temperatures above 80 degrees F, spidermites can reproduce in as little as 5 days, making early detection a necessity.
The most important step you can take to avoid pests is to keep your growroom clean, free of odours, free of bacteria and free of rubbish.
• Keep your environmental conditions as close to perfect as you can, maintaining variables such as temperature, humidity and air quality. Make sure that you have got good air exchange, and keep the air moving.
• After visiting a risk area and before entering your growroom, change clothes to reduce the chance of cross contamination.
• Try not to draw air into your growroom directly from outside if possible. If you do then filter the air, especially in summer.
• Do not let other gardeners or people who may have come from infected areas into your growroom.
• Quarantine any cuttings that have come from other growrooms for a few days (or until you are sure they are free of mites) before introducing them into your growroom.
• Keep pets out of and away from your growroom.
• Stick to quality growing media rather than compost and other bagged media from garden centers. Dedicated hydroponic media is much less likely to contain bugs than standard soil.
Mites usually start becoming a problem in late spring and reach a peak by late summer or just at the peak heat of the season. They are definitely hot weather critters. In cold weather they move and multiply much more slowly. In summer their life cycle is about seven to ten days, that is, hatchlings are laying eggs after a week or two. Any treatment must take this into account. Just killing the adults does little good. Repeat treatments are almost always necessary to kill the emerging mites. In winter they begin moving off trees and shrubs to winter over on grasses.
Mites, like aphids are easily dislodged from the leaf surface, at least before they have a chance to begin building webbing. A weekly hard blast of water can stop an infestation from occuring or slow it down once it starts. However, you must be able to spray the undersides of the leaves. Just hitting the top surface will do little or nothing. Concentrate your attention on the lower parts of the plant. Mites won't be found on the upper and succulent parts of the plant.
If you find more than an occasional mite, and most of the lower leaves have two or more mites and perhaps webbing, you are probably in trouble. Begin lower levels of control. First try blasting them off with a spray of water. Do this about every two or three days. It may or may not work. If the population continues to build, use an insecticidal soap designed for mites (it should be on the label), or introduce predators.
Once mite count reaches about 40 per leaf, the population will really explode and mites will begin moving to other leaves and plants. In the worst cases, they will even begin moving to other species that are usually resistant. Treatment with predator mites at this stage is possible, but difficult and expensive. At this stage you may want to take a more toxic route.
Red spider mites are pretty easily dealt with. You can usually knock them out with water sprays. The big problem is that there are few effective ovicides for mites, so you must follow up in five to seven days with a repeat treatment to kill the hatchlings. Usually three treatments are necessary to end an infestation. Read and follow all label instructions carefully. Do not use more or less than the recommended amount or concentration. Using less can result in breeding mites with resistance to that chemical.
If you have two spotted mites, your job is even harder. These mites are very difficult to control and most are resistant to most miticides. Don't bother using typical over the counter insecticides, they will do nothing. These mites can build a resistance to pesticides very quickly, so repeated use of the same one just breeds new problems for the rest of us. These two spotted mites can still be killed it just takes a more serious approach.
Critics have said that while predators may work in a nursery situation, it won't in a small yard as long as your neighbors are engaging in chemical warfare. I think it is worth a try as long as you have a yard that will provide a complete environment, which usually means some exposed soil, trees and shrubs. In fact predator mites are more useful to small scale operations, than to larger ones such as mine. They can be used to treat individual plants, but long term control means changing the environment, including establishing a population of predators.
You must choose the right predator mite for your situation. There are several species available that are adapted to a particular climate. They have a rather narrow range of humidity and temperature requirements. Predator mites are available from several bio control companies
Predator mites can be expensive. At times, somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 a gram, or $50 to $80 per thousand mites.
Effective treatment is dependent on getting the proper predator mite. Green Methods lists about six, Nature's Control lists three. The most important parameters are temperature and humidity, but there are also other factors such as fast knockdown, early introduction, longevity, etc.
If you have ONE infested plant, I'd say forget it, the mites would cost as much as the plant, but if you have a good size collection and mites are a general problem, including your landscape, it might be a feasible method of control.
Additionally, yes the mites do stick around because bio controls do NOT eliminate the pest but simply set up a dynamic between the two species which keeps the pest from getting out of hand. If you want total control (read elimination) you must use chemicals.
remember your name
Active Member
right I want to know the same effing thing as i sprayed my grow room with insecticide a week prior to growing and its supposed to kill bugs for 3 months so WTF are spider mites doing in my dirt? I'm so pissed right now, MAINLY because I dont know what to use, i cant go to some specialty store so what can I get at walmart or home depot to kill the bugs and not hurt my baby?
potsmokinbasturd
Active Member
If you dont want spider mites and u havent got them just spray your plants 2 to 3 times daily with plain water. Mites hate humidity and also any mites will be sprayed off before they would get a chance to hatch more.
Lifted1
Active Member
the best remedy is prevention. just get in a habbit of neeming your plants through week 2-3 every harvest. Never, never bring outdoor plants in. and dont grow in spaces you keep lawnmowers ect. they are found on all kinds of outdoor vegetation. i never put anything in my room unless quarantined/spray'd and inspected. Also, minimal foot traffic in grow room is good prevention. you can track them in.