Trust in what the guy above says!
I saw some pretty odd answers here..
Using Neem in the feed solution is, well, not a great idea,,period!
If you invest in any Myco's of fungal's to add to your soil...The use of Neem in your feed solution is killing them!
Neem has a true shelf life of about nil. Especially in the concentrated form. Once the stuff has made contact with O2 and light.....It's becoming worthless fast....
I have issues with putting any "oil" on my plants.
Kill them with heat and win the battle? Not very fucking likely! There will be more then a few that make it through....They simply will restart the cycle.
Seeing Russet mites in some of the pictures shared here is uncommon. You need to be looking through something with 100x at least...
Seeing the ones that look like a brown rust type fungus on the stem and leaf petiole. More then likely what I said. A Brown "Rust" fungus.
To actually become that infested....Somebody had to be
SLEEPING on that grow!
99% of the time you will never "see" a Russet or a Broad mite.
The Russets tend to attack lower branching and this in turn effects upper plant structure, especially new growth as an indicator. They will move up the stem and into branching so that is where to concentrate any attempt to kill them off.
You will
not kill off Broad or Russet mites with any Neem or simple contact killer like pyrethrin's. No oil based natural or insecticide soap will either. So you might as well forget about "natural or organic" things that may claim to either. They won't!
Bottom line on Russet or Broad mite killing..
You need to use FORBID 4F
and AVID in a rotating spray method that is done by starting with FORBID then 5 days later you use the AVID and repeat this for 3 weeks at least. You need to get behind any egg hatch that the insecticides might have missed as eggs (FORBID does limited egg killing - depends on age of the egg).
The guy who posted before me. We had Russets at about the same time. They took us 4 weeks (and a cpl others longer {that had tried "natural" methods first})...
While FORBID does not make for "super mites" These other things like pyrethrin's DO! Mites not killed outright by contact killers become immune to the stuff your trying to kill them with.
This is true for their off spring too!
That point alone tells you that NOT being thorough in your use of the substance you choose. Will come back and make it worse!
I'm really hoping that the daily neem feeding is preventing mites... but I just same day ordered a 60x microscope to find out for sure.
also it's worth mentioning that my humidity was extremely high in the tent this past week when my last inline fan went out and i had to wait on a new one. could that possibly have something to do with it too, like maybe some type of mold?
You won't "see" them with a 60X scope.....A Russet mite is the diameter of a White fly leg! That is small!!!!
The damage they do will begin to show as what looks like a confusing cross of micro def's. Sulfur and Iron, yet it's not quite right either....As you struggle with attempting to head off the micro def. Things do not improve and the new growth and the new leaves just behind it, begin to get thin and show a pronounced crinkle or washboard look, between the leaf veins.....This then progresses to crinkly adult leaves (all as the effected parts grow and age).
These infestations are now getting old....The plant will produce small and low potency buds. By this time,
any attempt to propagate the plant will only give you "odd" running plants that don't resemble the mother and her growth or quality at all.. This is because the plant has been damaged on the genetic level... YES, bad bug infestations of some type's,
can affect
a plant's genetic make-up..
If you choose to save the run by using what I said and how I said it!
Be done with that strain unless you start new seeds!
HUGELY IMPORTANT THING!
No matter what you choose to do. Either treat the plants or
burn them and start over.
You MUST sanitize the whole grow area! Inside, outside, under, on top, the floor, the walls, the ceiling, (of the room the tent is in too) ANYTHING that is in that room and all things used in the grow!
Use a 1 part chlorine bleach to 9 parts water as the cleaner. Spray it on and leave it there! You can rinse off the pots and such when done but, leave the spray on everything else (the bleach smell will go away in time)
Now,,,start over...
It does look like a mite infestation of some nasty type.....
should i scrap the entire grow? they still have 7 weeks left to go.