Terrible russet mites, and an interesting observation

So after about six weeks of troubleshooting I figured out it was not nutrient lockout, nor phosphorus deficiency, or excess nitrogen, or cold root ball temperatures. Nope, my previously vigorous plants were suffering from my poor choice to bring in a craigslist clone, and the microscopic russet mites. Microscopic! Have to actually look super close with a 60x loup for the little maggot looking mites.

Lower buds grew tiny, malformed, and eventually crispy.

New growth was twisted, malformed.

Root ball growth was close to zero. They barely drank.

Leaves were showing heat stress signs, curling. And leaf tip claw like to much nitrogen.

Basically the little f#$ks mimicked everything. They are microscopic! You have to look with a lens. Ugh. My first really problem and it can't be something easy like spider mites, or pm.

Well I'm ramping down operations and plan to throw out what I can't bleach or bake. The last few plants were close to finishing so I had planned on using them for extract. Thought I would share my observations though.

The GG4 got eaten like drunk cheer girl on prom night. No resistance at all. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures. She wouldn't give consent. Or I was just really upset.

The Pineapple Chunk from Barney's also got hit very hard. The tall plant with twisted sugar leaves is her.

That cola should be beer can sized or bigger. It's not much thicker than a candy bar, and mostly fluff. On the lower end the stigma are all eaten away.

The other strain is Scott's OG from Rare Dankness. It's never been a huge yielding plant. And it's medium to small in stature when it's healthy. But it's been a great little producer of very tasty, very crystally bud. And it appears to have some resistance to russet mites. It's had the same exposure that the Pineapple Chunk did, and yet yield has probably only been cut down by about 40%. Since I caught the infestation well into flower but wasn't able to do much for any kind of treatments for these two strains. Here's the Scott's.

I just took off all the fan leaves with the thought that with just a few days left to go I don't want any mites migrating from dying leaves up into my buds. I know there's already mites in the buds but I'm trying to keep the overall load as low as possible. Maybe one of the future goals of breeding is to work on resistance to these little buggers.

Any ideas on how to kill the ones on the buds after I harvest? I was thinking of throwing them in a plastic bag and just filling it with straight CO2.

Vhawk

Russet mites.......Your going to have to sanitize the whole grow op - EVERYTHING! Spray in cracks and undersides of tables, floors, walls, ceiling, under over around - all surfaces - under where things were and the bottoms of what was there.......Bug bomb the room....

ANY plants in veg need to be hit with a mite nuker NOW.....FORBID 4F has a good rep with Russet mites....

As far as gassing them on the buds.....might as well.

Thanks Dr Who. I think I've spent literal hours reading up on Aculops cannabicola, Hemp Russet Mite. I don't think I could have picked a worse pest to invite in to my grow. The plan is to finish up these last plants, bag and dispose the tent. Run a propane heater in the room to get the temps up to 120 for a couple hours. Soak in a bleach bath stuff I'm keeping, and moving to a another part of the house entirely. New plants in the downstairs area I'm growing from seed I'm running abamectin and Forbid and checking everyday. There are eggs on them, but nothing creeping. If after a couple more week's it looks clear I'll set up an actual sealed grow room. If they look like they might be a continued point source I'll burn them.
I'm going to develop an actual integrated pest management system, booties in the grow room, loss of sticky pest tape, a spray rotation for veg, maybe even routine release of predator mites during flower, etc etc.

I'm amazed that something with an imperceptible biomass (all the mites put together on one mature plant couldn't weigh a gram) can cause such devastation. And super interesting how they just shut down root growth. Pulling out the infected plants that were in 7 gallon smart pots, and basically the roots hadn't expanded beyond the size and shape of the 2 gallon pots they vegged in.

Quarantine clones if you must have clones, and definitely run the 60x loup on them before taking them home.

Vhawk

I guess I should say what I used that didn't work before someone who's had no experience with russet mites starts offering suggestions. Sulphur Solutions didn't work, neem oil didn't work, azamax didn't work, trying to save clones off infected plants by submerse in them and hundred and fifteen degree water didn't work I think because the plants were already stressed out, dunking clones in a peroxide solution didn't do s***. Pyrethrins probably made them stronger, or maybe it's a russet Mite aphrodisiac. Because it didn't kill a single adult mite.
Praying to baby Jesus, adult Jesus, Buddha, and Thor didn't help.

Avid and Forbid 4f appear to be pretty damned effective on very small plants. And from what I have read floramite is also effective if used in conjunction with one of the aforementioned miticide.

I still feel pretty stupid for not figuring out sooner the Borg were assimilating my grow.

http://www.evergreengrowers.com/broad-mite-control/amblyseius-swirskii-for-broad-mite-control/amblyseius-swirskii-slow-release.html
http://www.dazeys.com/blog/trifecta/

No need to sterilize your grow space, just clean out anything vegetative, including leaves on the for, and let it set for a week or two. Babies hatch and starve. Done.

Sorry to hear of your bad luck. I've had my wars with them and the only thing that worked for me was this;
3ml Avid, and 60ml Azamax mixed into one gallon of warm water. Apply immediately, drench everything.

Do it again 1 week later.

Don't do it at all in bloom, veg only.

ttystikk said:

No need to sterilize your grow space, just clean out anything vegetative, including leaves on the for, and let it set for a week or two. Babies hatch and starve. Done.

Sorry to hear of your bad luck. I've had my wars with them and the only thing that worked for me was this;
3ml Avid, and 60ml Azamax mixed into one gallon of warm water. Apply immediately, drench everything.

Do it again 1 week later.

Don't do it at all in bloom, veg only.

Click to expand...

How do they over winter then?

backtracker said:

How do they over winter then?

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I think the answer lies within the question. They go dormant I believe under 10 C. I can't find they paper I read that gave the exact temps. So keeping the contaminated room warm should force maturation.

But screw that, I'm cooking the room with a propane heater to run the temps up to 120 F. I don't have a co2 monitor but I'm guessing the amount of co2 and co gas will mean I run in and shut the burner off and dash out.

backtracker said:

How do they over winter then?

Click to expand...

No idea. But it's worked for me. Maybe the cold does it, and it doesn't get cold inside.

vhawk said:

I think the answer lies within the question. They go dormant I believe under 10 C. I can't find they paper I read that gave the exact temps. So keeping the contaminated room warm should force maturation.

But screw that, I'm cooking the room with a propane heater to run the temps up to 120 F. I don't have a co2 monitor but I'm guessing the amount of co2 and co gas will mean I run in and shut the burner off and dash out.

Click to expand...

That's a recipe for death. Few rooms are well sealed enough to keep all the gas inside and separate from the rest of the house.

It's a 100 sq ft room. With the door closed, and the rest of the house open (2500 sq ft) I'm not too concerned. I'm more worried about lingering in the room which I don't plan on. 30 seconds to walk in and shut off the burner. It takes hours to kill people in an RV using those same heaters, and they are in the same tiny space.

vhawk said:

It's a 100 sq ft room. With the door closed, and the rest of the house open (2500 sq ft) I'm not too concerned. I'm more worried about lingering in the room which I don't plan on. 30 seconds to walk in and shut off the burner. It takes hours to kill people in an RV using those same heaters, and they are in the same tiny space.

Click to expand...

Just let the room stay warm for a week or two and they'll be gone, no deadly gas required.

Avid and Forbid 4f were the ticket. Nothing else was slowing them down. I used it to try and save some small blueberry clones. The operation was a success, but I killed the patient. Burned them from using the recommended strength.

I threw out the tent, was used to begin with and well beat up. Everything else, that I didn't throw out, was bleached and moved downstairs to a new grow room.

It's been more than a month, no mites so far in the new grow room. I glass over the leaves with a 60x scope daily. Multiple times daily.

Learned to isolate any foreign clones in quarantine. I was being lazy before. I knew better. Now I really know better. Plus I'll take a scope and look them over before I bring them home.

Just in case you're wondering the new line up:

Sour Tangie, Crockett farms
White widow, Southern Oregon Seeds
Pineapple Chunk, Barney's
Bluedream

vhawk said:

Avid and Forbid 4f were the ticket. Nothing else was slowing them down. I used it to try and save some small blueberry clones. The operation was a success, but I killed the patient. Burned them from using the recommended strength.

I threw out the tent, was used to begin with and well beat up. Everything else, that I didn't throw out, was bleached and moved downstairs to a new grow room.

It's been more than a month, no mites so far in the new grow room. I glass over the leaves with a 60x scope daily. Multiple times daily.

Learned to isolate any foreign clones in quarantine. I was being lazy before. I knew better. Now I really know better. Plus I'll take a scope and look them over before I bring them home.

Just in case you're wondering the new line up:

Sour Tangie, Crockett farms
White widow, Southern Oregon Seeds
Pineapple Chunk, Barney's
Bluedream

Click to expand...

Glad you killed them. The recipe I posted above was highly effective and did not kill or damage the infested plants.

You've learned a valuable lesson!

In my case, once I realized the problem I traced it back to the source... And then informed my friend who had no idea he even had russet mites and was battling a 'nutrient deficiency'.

Grand evo!

Atomizer and nuke em along with green cleaner should work well without all the toxic chemicals

Beng01 said:

Atomizer and nuke em along with green cleaner should work well without all the toxic chemicals

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Nope. You've got to have something with a substantial residual effect.

I've had my battles with them and that's the only strategy that works. Period.

Remember that by the time the grower notices their presence, the infestation is very likely well advanced.

The combination of Avid and Azamax has two advantages; one is better residual effect than either alone, and the other is two separate modes of action. It's this one two punch that makes the recipe effective.

Grand evo!

ttystikk said:

Nope. You've got to have something with a substantial residual effect.

I've had my battles with them and that's the only strategy that works. Period.

Remember that by the time the grower notices their presence, the infestation is very likely well advanced.

The combination of Avid and Azamax has two advantages; one is better residual effect than either alone, and the other is two separate modes of action. It's this one two punch that makes the recipe effective.

Click to expand...

The azamax alone didn't do squat. That's with a couple applications in a week. Avid and Forbid did the job quickly. Might be that avid alone would work, but after doing the organic stuff, then up the chem warfare ladder, I was done tip toeing around the problem.

On a side note, might not be using the azamax ever if possible. I work in an ER and I see enough cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome to know it's a real thing. My very deep suspicion is it's one of our newer pesticides, azamax being high on the list of suspects. No pun intended. Prior to 2010, never saw a hyperemesis patient that wasn't either on chemotherapy, pregnant, or had known liver/pancreas/gallbladder issues.

Find it odd that this thing pops up in my lifetime, but people have been using cannabis forever. Also odd that it hits someone for a couple weeks or so, repeated ER visits, like every day or every other day. But then they manage ok for a month or two sometimes. Did they switch growers from the dispensary without knowing? All the people I've talked with buy commercial weed. They don't know how it's grown.

If you have russets,spidermites,caterpillars or anything.....try grand evo! Anything that eats your plants will me eradicated within a few sprays. The thing is it breaks down under light easy.....so you need to eradicate the problem then spray 1nce a week.