[duke]

hi all well as the title suggests i have a spidermite infestation in my drobe and having only 4 week left of flower i do not want to introduce chemicals now as my grow is mostly used for medicinal cannabis oil and is used by my good lady tina and several friends and one of them a child(dravets syndrome)so me being a gardener for many years outside the cannabis bit i been racking my brains for non chemical weapons to use and remembered what my old polish friend used and so being as how a while back i bought some organic whole leaf tobacco which was rough as fuck to smoke and got relegated to the back of a cupboard i decided to use this to make a weapon of mass borg destruction!

so i have this morning crumbled up about half an oz of the tobacco in a bowl added hot water and simmered for 20 minutes strained and filtered using sieve then coffee filter,to this i have added castille organic soap as wetting agent this foul brew will be sprayed tonight 1 hour before lights on so as not to be soaking buds for to long.

i have used this on other plants before but not on weed so hoping it doesnt fuck them worse than the borg will and are,i realise its a risk but they are getting out of hand despite 2 previous spray of bugclear.

some other methods i have looked into seem a bit dodgey ie spraying 1-10 parts isopropyl and water,the old harker mectin which is ok but not in mid flower for me.also pepper spray made from chilis,

lowering light hours,its said that rsm are sensitive to changes in light and reducing flowering lights on to 10 hours will see them die naturally but even if this does work i think it would take to long,so nicotine my old friend its all up to you now!i will be back with results soon i hope,peace

[duke]

hi all well i know we dont like talk of magic mushrooms so please excuse this once and sure when you understand the context it will be ok,question what effect would magis have on borg/spidermites?as i do not take theem and we today found a few whilst walking the dogs i decided in my wisdom/madness to mix them in with the nicotine mix ,but how do you tell if a spidermite is tripping?answers please silly as you like,peace

[Ken Erbis]

In the past a lot of commercial growers I know have used biological control, predatory insects which feast on mites.  You can usually order them by post.  Another effective but chemical method that works instantly and is 100% effective is plant vitality plus but I dont think its sold in UK now, I had to order mine from Netherlands.  Ive tried tobacco and chilli in the past but as you know with mites unless you really zap them they keep coming back. Good luck with it Duke and good to see you talking about auxins and apical dominance in your other thread. Many people blindly do things but few know why or what effect it has on the plants. You clearly have your head screwed on the right way,

Regards

 

 

link to bio control of mites

https://greenmethods.com/persimilis/

Edited by Ken Erbis, 11 November 2015 - 04:33 PM.

[Ken Erbis]

I would add maybe look at brix levels. These are natural sugar levels in the plants and can be read with a refractometer. The mites cant stand plants with high brix levels but it is a relatively complex and little written way of organic growing. It does however work to produce high quality weed that never gets infested.

 

http://maximumyield....ng-up-the-brix/

Edited by Ken Erbis, 11 November 2015 - 05:08 PM.

[duke]

I would add maybe look at brix levels. These are natural sugar levels in the plants and can be read with a refractometer. The mites cant stand plants with high brix levels but it is a relatively complex and little written way of organic growing. It does however work to produce high quality weed that never gets infested.

 

http://maximumyield....ng-up-the-brix/

hi ken i have a brix meter and brix of 10 but never ever managed higher i tried upping nutes and testing again at same time of day and brix fell to 5,so i lowered nutes and done it again now back to 10 so i figure the plant is not heavy feeder and have stuck with 1.2 ec inc 0.40bg so far its still green and budding well but the mites now have got ridiculous!if they come out i took some macros of a few leaves removed from my scrog and sprayed them with the nicotine and soap mix and watched it on video dissolving there skin the first pics are before and last few 10 minutes later and on video nothing is moving.

will it work?well it cant do worse than the commercial spray and as rh is already high up to 82% spraying once if it only kills adults should help a bit i hope!

if you have any good info on raising brix without burning the plants i would be very interested,thanks for link i will have a read,right lets see if pics work this time,peace pics gone,give up!

[Ken Erbis]

Hi duke, theoretically one way of increasing the brix in a soil grow is possible but really needs thinking about before planting. I would think by adding carbon, possibly woodchip or sawdust. This has an effect of depleting the nitrogen, as opposed to increasing potasium levels , and should help bring down the n ratio. The effect would be a relative increased potasium ratio to nitrogen. On thing I find that can really boosts the brix is using some type of seaweed feed, or foliar spray. 10% brix is good and Im surprised the little bastards are happy on the plants. 

Another theoretical method would maybe have 1 low brix plant as a sacrificial. I hope my rambling makes sense to you. This late in the grow the carbon wouldnt make too much difference as it wont have time to decompose and eat up the N. If you get really stuck send me a safe address and I will post you a dose of  PV+ .  link below

 

 

http://www.grow-expe...plus-500ml.html

 

ps that bottle is concentrated and makes 10 litres

Edited by Ken Erbis, 11 November 2015 - 06:22 PM.

[Anonymiss]

* imagines that it might be cheaper, cleaner and easier to buy eCigarette nicotine than it is to extract it from tobacco *

[Ken Erbis]

Brix  and foliar spraying

 

http://www.highbrixg...-high-brix.html

[duke]

Hi duke, theoretically one way of increasing the brix in a soil grow is possible but really needs thinking about before planting. I would think by adding carbon, possibly woodchip or sawdust. This has an effect of depleting the nitrogen, as opposed to increasing potasium levels , and should help bring down the n ratio. The effect would be a relative increased potasium ratio to nitrogen. On thing I find that can really boosts the brix is using some type of seaweed feed, or foliar spray. 10% brix is good and Im surprised the little bastards are happy on the plants. 

Another theoretical method would maybe have 1 low brix plant as a sacrificial. I hope my rambling makes sense to you. This late in the grow the carbon wouldnt make too much difference as it wont have time to decompose and eat up the N. If you get really stuck send me a safe address and I will post you a dose of  PV+ .  link below

 

 

http://www.grow-expe...plus-500ml.html

 

ps that bottle is concentrated and makes 10 litres

im in coco ken if it makes any difference coco rtw daily feeds 2ml per ltr gp massive and 2ml per ltr dutch pro bloom for hard water total ec 1.2 inc .40bg im having a read of the brix link maybe i find something im missing,tbh i think the high brix is the only thing stopping them exploding in numbers earlier as normally they would be en masse and webbing but even under the scope there no visible webbs but i do have 2 huge osc fans on hurricane force and extraction on overdrive to keep conditions unfavourable but they superborg troopers these!sprayed me mix and fingers crossed,thanks muchly for your input,much appreciated here,peace

[duke]

* imagines that it might be cheaper, cleaner and easier to buy eCigarrete nicotine than it is to extract it from tobacco *

thanks missy but i would not trust what other ingredients are added to ecig and as its going to be for oil i used organic whole leaf tobacco and done it myself so i am as certain as i can be it will be safe as i would hate to hurt someone with an unknown,peace