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Issue #377 - Sunday, July 7, 2019
Dear Fellow Grower,
In today's issue...
- Spider mites are truly the borg of the cannabis world. If you aren't familiar with spider mites or the borg, know that they're both terrible, terrible creatures. And one of them is REAL!
- Caterpillars are another annoying pest you could find in your cannabis garden, and they'll eat whatever you've got! Luckily, unlink spidermites, they're easy to get rid of if you know the secret...
- I'm partial to HPS lighting, so when I saw a sea of great-looking buds growing under that tell-tale golden light I was already happy! Witness another home run by a first-time grower!
Nebula Haze & Sirius Fourside (founders of GrowWeedEasy.com)
"We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."
~The Borg
How to Get Rid of Spider Mites
aka "The Borg"
by Nebula Haze
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Spider mites are part of the mite family and are related to spiders, ticks, and other mites. Although they’re a common cannabis pest, they can be very difficult to get rid of.
First Sign of Spider Mite Damage – Tiny Specks (Bite Marks) On Leaves
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Spider Mites and Cannabis
Spider mites have tiny sharp mouths that pierce individual plant cells and suck out the contents. This is what results in the tiny yellow, orange or white speckles you see on your plant leaves.
Spider mites are common cannabis pests, especially when growing in soil. Although less common in hydroponics, spider mites can show up in any setup where cannabis is being cultivated!
Villains! Extreme Close-Up of Two-Spotted Spider Mites with Egg
Spider mites can be an especially tricky pest in the grow room. Since they are so small they can build up a significant infestation before a grower even notices a single mite.
Many growers see the distinctive tiny spots of a spider mite infestation and think it’s some sort of nutrient deficiency, not realizing it’s actually something far more sinister.
An infestation often causes leaves with tons of spots/bites to turn yellow
Spider mites and their eggs found on the back of cannabis leaves
If the infestation goes on too long, you’ll start to see webbing on your plants and buds
Growers despise Spider mites. Here’s why…
- Rapid reproduction – a single mature female spider mite can produce a million mites in less than a month.
- Disappearing act – spider mites often appear to be gone/killed, then they come back with a vengeance days or weeks later, right when you thought you’d gotten rid of them for good.
- Big appetites – spider mites can eat up your tender plants in an amazingly short amount of time; a bad infestation has been known to kill plants overnight.
- Webbing – spider mites cover leaves and buds with a fine mesh of silk webbing, ruining whole crops even after you get rid of the spider mites.
- Zombie-like resistance – spider mites quickly become immune to whatever you do to try to kill them; if you don’t take care of your spider mite problem by eradicating them completely from your grow room, you may soon find you have a population of ‘Super-mites’. The two-spotted spider mite which specializes in cannabis seems to be particularly resistant to insecticides and is sometimes referred to as “the borg” in the cannabis growing community.
These ‘borg’ spider mites with two spots on their back can be almost impossible to get rid of! Read one grower’s journey to get rid of the “borg” spider mites in his grow room.
Spider mites often go unnoticed at first because they are so tiny that they look like spots to the naked eye. Male spider mites are about 1/50th of an inch long (.5mm) while females are slightly smaller at about 1/64″ (.4mm). It’s hard to imagine something that tiny, but the picture below might help give you an idea of how small they are:
Under a microscope, you can see they have four pairs of legs, no antennae and a body shaped like an oval.
When spider mites attack a particular spot and you see lots of speckles near each other, the leaves may start looking yellow or bronze. Badly attacked leaves often die prematurely.
Although it starts with speckles, this pest has certainly earned the “spider” part of its name from the distinctive silk webbing they spin on vegetation, leaves, and flowers once an infestation really sets in. Web-producing spider mites may completely coat the foliage and flowers with the fine silk, which collects dust and looks dirty.
With flowering plants, you may even see entire buds get covered in fine webbing from a bad spider mite infestation.
Spider mites have a life cycle that helps them re-populate quickly and effectively after much of their population has been destroyed.
Adult females begin the cycle by laying eggs, often on their host plants. In days or weeks, an egg will hatch and become a larva, which is the first stage of life. Larvae are round-bodied and have only three pairs of legs. The larvae feed for a few days, seek a sheltered spot to rest and then molt into the first nymphal stage. The first nymph now has four pairs of legs.
The first nymphs feed a few days, rest and molt into the second nymph. The second nymphs feed, rest and molt into the adult stage. Overall, it can take days or weeks for spider mites to go through their whole life cycle.
Here are adult spider mites with eggs
Image courtesy of Natalie Hummel, Louisiana State University AgCenter, Bugwood.org
Because of this variable growth process, it’s common to think that you’ve eradicated the spider mites in your grow room while they’re secretly building up numbers in one of their immature stages.
This is why it’s so important to keep treating your grow room after a spider mite infestation even if it appears that all the spider mites are gone. Just pretend they’re hiding and doing pushups, just building up their numbers for a second infestation. Treat your grow room like a war zone, and don’t allow the spider mites to build up any numbers and attack again!
Growers Need to Take Spider Mites Seriously… Or This Can Happen!
Solution: Early detection of spider mites is key!
Spider mites are tiny and can be detected only by a full and thorough leaf inspection (on both sides of the leaf). If you find Spider Mites or eggs you must act fast and hit them hard.
Spider mites can be very quick to take over your plant, and even quicker to develop a resistance to almost any method you use to get rid of them, which is why it’s generally recommended to use multiple methods of offense against a spider mite infestation.
If you have problems with spider mites, keep a constant and varied offense for the best chance at success.
It can help to identify how/where you got spider mites
If you already have an infestation, you will immediately want to start hitting them hard with something that will kill them on contact (several options are listed below). But….
First, what type of spider mite do you have?
- Tracked in from outside
- Vegetable garden
- Animals/pets
- From a plant other than marijuana
If you have some spider mites which got tracked in randomly from outside, it’s likely you’ve got a run-of-the-mill spider mite that should be easy to get rid of.
Although these guys are annoying as well, they almost seem nice compared to their cannabis-specialized counterparts.
Chances are you’ll be able to successfully use one of the less harsh home remedies to stop your infestation.
- From another marijuana garden
- Clones were infested with spider mites
- Tracked spider mites in from another marijuana garden
- Any time the spider mites were living on another marijuana plant before they got to your plants
If you got your spider mites from a cannabis clone or plant from another cannabis grower, chances are you’ve got the type of spider mite that is an expert at infesting cannabis plants.
The (often two-spotted) mites often seem to be the worst spider mite in this category!
These specialized spider mites are incredibly developed at living on marijuana plants, and may already be immune to many common spider mite remedies.
If you believe you got your spider mites from another marijuana grower, then don’t play games. Get serious and get rid of your mites NOW, before they adapt to your grow room and become unstoppable.
That was a beefy article...and it's not even over yet?
Keep reading if you want to learn how to completely eradicate the pests you just read about!
Wait, more pests?! 🤦♀️
(Caterpillars are no fun)
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Caterpillars!!! Argh!!! Sometimes the first sign of caterpillars, worms or cabbage loopers is just seeing chunks of your leaves missing. You may also see clumps of black/brown "dirt" on your leaves, which is caterpillar poop. Lastly, you may actually catch a caterpillar munching on your leaves! It makes me so angry to catch them in the act!
Signs of Caterpillar Damage - Leaves Are Missing Chunks
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Caterpillar Droppings on Leaves
Although spider mites can be difficult to get rid of... luckily the same is not true for caterpillars, inchworms and cabbage loopers! Caterpillars are actually pretty easy to stop!
A "BT" spray is a safe biological insecticide that contains the bacillus thuringiensis (BT) bacteria. This bacteria kills larvae and prevents caterpillars from being able to eat. This is one of the most effective ways to kill caterpillars,
and won't hurt most beneficial insects. It is completely non-toxic so it can be used up until the day of harvest. As a bonus, it also kills other cannabis pests like fungus gnats!
A Closeup of the "BT" Bacteria
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Who Runs This
Newsletter? |
Nebula Haze:
I'll be honest with you, when I first started growing, I struggled. Now, it is my
mission to make it easier for new growers to get started as well as help advanced growers get bigger, better yields with less time and money. We are updating and adding articles every single week and our goal is to eventually build a comprehensive growing resource so anyone and everyone can grow if they want to! If we all share the knowledge there's more buds in the world for everyone :) |
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Learn which seed sources are personally recommended by Nebula Haze |
Sirius Fourside:
Sirius Fourside is a hobbyist grower who has gained the bulk of his experience growing in water as a medium (deep water culture, bubbleponics).
"Growing cannabis can be a relaxing hobby in and of itself, but it also saves you money and keeps you from having to deal with shady characters. Cannabis is much easier to grow than people give it credit for, and growing in water
doesn't increase the difficulty much, if any. But whether you want to grow in water, coco, or a different medium, we'll show you how easy it can be!"
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