Small black insects with web eating leaves

[darmon.gerard3]

S.O.S. These pests shown on picture are eating all of the chlorophylle on my plants (as well as all other domestic plants, by the way!!).

I would like to know
- what it is
- how to combat it in a way that does not make the plant become loaded with dangerous pesticides that would make it a health hazard to me!

Your help will be most appreciated.
G.D.

[rangerdanger]

You've got the scourge of gardeners--spider mites.

They are extremely difficult to get rid of, but you must or you'll never get buds.
There are a number of safe insecticides.
Neem oil, insecticidal soap, pyrethium are some. Be sure to use ones that are safe to be used on food crops up til day of harvest (check label).
You MUST get rid of them before flowering. You don't want to spray insecticides during flowering unless you like the taste of insecticides and dead mites & their eggs.

Bugs build up a resistence to insecticides very quickly. Get 2 kinds of insecticides. Use 1 kind on day 1, then the other kind on day 3, and keep alternating every other day for a min. of 2 weeks.

As a general rule, insecticides don't kill eggs. So if you just spray once or twice you may kill all the adults, but when the eggs hatch they're back in business.

P.S. spiders (like regular spiders)--good
spider mites--very very bad.

[darmon.gerard3]

Thanks a lot rangerdanger. This is very helpful.

In fact my plants are in full blossom so I guess it is too late for action. I'll harvest what I can harvest and fiercely fight these pests on the rest of my home plants to try to get rid of them.

G.D.

[rangerdanger]

There is only 1 way I know of to combat spider mites without insecticides.
If you can, take the plants and put them in the bathtub, or outside.
Spray them with water from a hose with a spray nozzle. The water should be very cold.
Do it every day.
This doesn't kill them, but it greatly slows their reproduction.
This should be done during the light on part of the light cycle, and you should let the plants dry for about 30 minutes before putting them back under the light.

Without spraying, you may not get any harvest at all. Spider mites reproduction rate is phenominal, esp during flowering. Soon you'll see their webs EVERYWHERE on your plants. Soon after that they will be covered with layer after layer of webs and become unsmokable.

After you harvest/ditch the plants, here's what you need to do:
Take ALL plants in the house and destroy them. Throw out all planters and equip. or wash with 1 cup bleach to a gal of water. Make sure there is no carpet in the grow space, remove everything, vacuum, wash down the room with the bleach/water, and get new soil.

Unless you take all of the above measures, you'll have the same problem over and over.