TerrapinBlazin
Well-Known Member
I’ve noticed a few spider mites in my flower tent. I’ve been doing my best at manually removing infested leaves. I also treated the soil with nematodes and sprayed the tent with spinosad once.
I’ve been keeping them under control, but I haven’t been able to eradicate them so the next thing I’m going to try is ladybugs.
The only thing I’m hung up on is that I just did a systemic spinosad treatment on the plants. I’ve never done that before but I’ve read lots of evidence that spinosad works great as a systemic insecticide. In theory this makes my plants toxic and kills the mites as they feed. I don’t know if this worked yet, because I just did it yesterday. What I don’t want to happen is for a spider mite to feed on the plant and become toxic to the ladybugs.
I just did the spinosad treatment yesterday. Is it okay to go ahead and get some ladybugs and release them today, or should I let the spinosad metabolize longer? I don’t want the ladybugs to get poisoned.
I’ve been keeping them under control, but I haven’t been able to eradicate them so the next thing I’m going to try is ladybugs.
The only thing I’m hung up on is that I just did a systemic spinosad treatment on the plants. I’ve never done that before but I’ve read lots of evidence that spinosad works great as a systemic insecticide. In theory this makes my plants toxic and kills the mites as they feed. I don’t know if this worked yet, because I just did it yesterday. What I don’t want to happen is for a spider mite to feed on the plant and become toxic to the ladybugs.
I just did the spinosad treatment yesterday. Is it okay to go ahead and get some ladybugs and release them today, or should I let the spinosad metabolize longer? I don’t want the ladybugs to get poisoned.