Another way to check for mites and bugs (soil only) REP for Feedback

I figured this one out last night..... So your having trouble determining if you have pests??? Well try this one. First firmly but gently shake your plant so that any debris or perhaps bugs and eggs will fall off and into the soil beneath it.
Now take a good amount of that top soil and put it into a see thrue (think mason jar type deal) container (the lid allows younto shake the container if need be). Now add water to your soil in the container. Cover and let sit overnight. In the Am look at your container and see if you anything floating as the soil will have settled.
If you have mItes they will be floating around in there dead! also the little bastards eggs could he floating around In there. So what do you guys tink
bout this one???

Interesting method ... Doesn't sound too reliable tho. You can have a small colony of mites under a fan leaf or two that are well disguised but not far from being capable of spreading throughout your plant. With their size, it'd be easy to miss them and grab soil without. I'm sure you'd find bugs in there regardless, as the chance of mites being the only thing in your soil is slim. I just think any grower should have a magnifying glass, for reasons of being able to check their trichomes and whatnot during flower. You can use this to look under leaves and inspect them for mites. Mites are visible to the trained eye when looking closely. With a magnifying glass this task becomes very easy. I'd make it a common routine to sift through, starting from the bottom of the plants as they will typically start from the lower stalk, effect lower areas, then work their way up the plant. Spraying your base area (tops soil & plant stalk/leaves) with natural oils such as neem, canola, thyme, rosemary, peppermint, ... are great organic ways to help resist these insects. It is also proven that by feeding your plants silicon products such as Silica Blast or ProTekt to your plants will help their cell walls build more resistance to insects & enviornmental stress, as well as assisting in yield. I'd highly recommend one of those products if you aren't using something of that sort already.