Mr. Cancelled

Hi all.

I recently ran into a problem with spider mites, and this has raised a few questions for me. This place has some pretty knowledgeable guys reading it, so hopefully someone can offer some insight.

I'm about a month into flowering 4 plants, and last week I noticed that my lower leaves were all starting to "spot", something I had previously associated with the plant canibalizing itself as part of the flowering process. Now I'm not so sure that I didn't have mites then (as these are clones from that 1st plant).

Interestingly enough, the "runt" of the four appears to be most affected at this time. It's also closest to the entrance into the room where these plants are. Are smaller plants more susceptible to mite infestation, and if so, does anyone know what causes this (in other words, could I do something to make it more mite resistant as the large plants appear to be?). Or is it just coincidence that this happened this way??

Also, it appears that the mites just attack fan leaves, mainly. Do they ever infest the buds? Is it bad to smoke dope which has been infected, once cured and dried??

In reading on mites, it appears I have 3 basic choices:
1. Continue flowering since the plants are so mature, and do nothing (Too late for this, but it was an option). Some guides seem to indicate that if the plants are mature enough to withstand a mite infestation, that there's no poor side effects other than the gradual loss of leaves.

2. To try and use a mild insectice (read on for more detail on what I did regarding this).

3. Introduce natural predators. This is what I'm leaning towards, but the fact that you can't buy fewer than 1000 of these various critters is a bit intimidating. Has anyone used mite predators in an indoor situation? The breeders and sellers seem to indicate no problem, but I'd feel safer with some actual hands on experience.

Here's a link for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about:

http://www.mastergardening.com/phytpermeslo.html

Ok... And here's what I've now done, and my most important questions:

I purchased some Schultz's "Houseplants and Gardens Insect Spray". This is made from "botanical pyrethins from chrysanthemum flowers", and "can be used up till the day of harvest". It seemed the most mild, and easiest to use for my particular situation.

So I did a mild spraying last night, trying to avoid the flowers, and just get the undersides of the worst leaves.

Tonight, when I checked on them, several of the buds had began to turn red. At first, I thought "Wow! They're really starting to show!" (and they are actually "just" beginning, but that wasn't the cause for this).

Upon close inspection, it appears that on certain buds (and a higher percentage on the smaller plant!), the pistils seemed to have dried up, and shrunk, looking "wispy". And since they'd dried up, they'd changed colors.

But it doesn't appear that entire buds are damaged. More like just some got hit with some side spray.

So here's my questions regarding this...

Since some buds obviously got hit with spray, does that make them un-smokeable?? I mean edibles... You're likely to wash them before eating them, y'know, but I'm not planning on washing the ol' dope up before hanging to dry (Yeah, yeah... I could probably do a water curing method, but that's not my goal here).

Also, on the subject of the flowers that were hit, will they recover, and continue to swell, or is that it for these?

I'm hoping someone's familiar with this stuff. I know there's similar products out there from other vendors, also using extracts from chrysanthemum.

Also, does anyone know of a better mite control solution than I've mentioned above?

Thanks as always everyone. Keep smoking...

lilbuddie

I'll try my best to answer with what I know .....

Insect resistance is largely due to genetics of the plant and / or strains ... I think ques 1 was a coincidence. But smaller plants are less vigorous than older plants. They have not built up their structures yet ... kinda liek a child ios more likely to get sick than older kids since their immune system has had time to build itself up.

Yes Spider mites will infest any leafy material. basically they are sucking the juice out of the plants

As you found out the spray will turn the pistils brown overnight. It is not a speed ripen but the pistils dying. You will nee dto start to watch the tricomes at this point to tell when to harvest.

The sprayed budz are still smokeable. Or at least I didn't have any ill effects when I had to do that
The flowers hit will continue to produce new pistils just the exsiting pistils that got sprayed will stay brown.

From what I read up on when I was overrun the "nematodes" (predators) (I think that is the right name ) will feed off dead plant matter and something else if there are no prey to eat. It is a nice addition to the garden.

Keep the Garden Green

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