Russet Mites

I learned the hard way what Russet Mites are. Here's my story. I got 3 clones from a good friend and I always thought the leaves looked odd with curled up edges, but the plants were healthy and eventually quite large. A couple of weeks ago some friends were over and they said I had mites. I had read about them in the past and expected a nightmare. I dug up the 3 plants and burned them. My other plants had mites too, but I wanted to salvage the plants and see if I could control the mites. I then put diatomaceous earth on and in the ground, sprayed the other plants with Nukem and every 2-3 days and alcohol-water a few times. I have a manual fan blown duster and dusted the hell out of them with diatomaceous earth before leaving them for a week. I have been home for a couple days now and find only dead mites and my buds all look good. This is a GG4 that I took all the lower growth off of and it's fine. My other plants were not harmed as far as I know. I plan to rinse the buds at harvest. I hope they don't overwinter and appear again next spring. In hindsight, I may not have needed to burn the three plants??

If you are in full flower, there is not really much you can do for a bad infestation without really affecting your flowers. In my experience they tend to be attracted to certain plants while leaving others untouched, which may be why your GG4 still looks good. They will continue to eat your trichomes after harvest and make your flowers brown, so that is something to consider.

Lots of people swear by predator mites but I have no experience with them as they are illegal to import into Hawaii. People usually use a spray to knock the russets back and then release the beneficial insects. There are biological insecticides like Venerate or Grandevo that are approved for use on cannabis but I'd still hesitate to use it this late into flower.

Wettable sulfur powder is the most effective treatment but should only be used in veg....I usually spray it as a preventative right before flower. Make sure you dont use it if you sprayed any oils recently as it will fry your plants pretty bad.

Next season try an atomizer or paint sprayer for your IPM sprays as it is critical to get as close to 100% coverage when battling these bastards. Good idea to spray any nearby plants too and continue spraying even when you dont see any live ones to break the adult-larvae life cycle.

joken said:

I learned the hard way what Russet Mites are. Here's my story. I got 3 clones from a good friend and I always thought the leaves looked odd with curled up edges, but the plants were healthy and eventually quite large. A couple of weeks ago some friends were over and they said I had mites. I had read about them in the past and expected a nightmare. I dug up the 3 plants and burned them. My other plants had mites too, but I wanted to salvage the plants and see if I could control the mites. I then put diatomaceous earth on and in the ground, sprayed the other plants with Nukem and every 2-3 days and alcohol-water a few times. I have a manual fan blown duster and dusted the hell out of them with diatomaceous earth before leaving them for a week. I have been home for a couple days now and find only dead mites and my buds all look good. This is a GG4 that I took all the lower growth off of and it's fine. My other plants were not harmed as far as I know. I plan to rinse the buds at harvest. I hope they don't overwinter and appear again next spring. In hindsight, I may not have needed to burn the three plants??View attachment 4211130

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I don't burn whole infected plants unless they are toast.
You probably didn't have to, but better safe than sorry!
Unfortunately, they'll probably be back next season no matter what you did.

I had excellent results with bonide wettable sulfur when I caught them in veg this year

Miyagismokes said:

I don't burn whole infected plants unless they are toast.
You probably didn't have to, but better safe than sorry!
Unfortunately, they'll probably be back next season no matter what you did.

I had excellent results with bonide wettable sulfur when I caught them in veg this year

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There have to be some mites in the buds and I'm having trouble deciding how to deal with it. I vacuum pack my bud in 1/2 gallon jars and am inclined to just keep doing what I've been doing. I assume they won't overwinter in my drying room without a food source. I'll burn all the plants and roots. Should keep the trim and just let it get really dry? Any advice is appreciated. Ken

joken said:

I assume they won't overwinter in my drying room without a food source

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If it gets cold in there, they'll just hibernate.
At any rate, the eggs might still be a problem...

Keep the empty room warm. Whatever eggs might be in there will hatch, the young will starve, no more russet mites. Give this process a week. If you cool the room, that's what causes hibernation.