Neem Oil Question

hotshotisdashit said:

Ok. So do you think that neem/azamax will be enough to hold off these critters throughout my flower cycle? If not what do you recommend i use? I dont wanna foliar anything at any time. So i wanna use something that i can use as a soil drench. Have you ever tried sns as a soil drench?

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if the plants aren't that far into flower I HIGHLY recommend doing one thing first... and this is coming from a guy that gets mites almost every grow in the redwoods that I live in...
use plain water from a hose and physically spray the plants under a good amount of pressure (akin to the pressure in your shower, not too much as to damage the plant, but enough to blast the mite OFF) wash them thoroughly, don't be shy.. the plant will be limp from the weight of the water, but they'll perk up overnight, don't put them inside though... dry them outside..
do that first, wait a day, THEN you do whatever spray you want.
after the pure water spray, for shits and giggles, look under the leaves...
you'll see not much... it gets a LOT of the damn things off there quickly, and considering it's vitually impossible to get all the mites, it's a damn good start...it's also effective in blasting the webs off, which is good fr two reasons, one, who wants to smoke arachnid web? and two, it slows them down, for obvious reasons... sorta takes their "highway" away...
keep in mind, unless you are fortunate, battling mites isnt an eradication... it's control. (at least where i'm at)
you won't get em all unless you bust out the scary stuff..
And spray four times if its hot, or three if its cool.
every 48 hrs if its hot, or 72 hrs if its cool.
dipping is the best method by the way...
spraying sucks... a fogger is a good idea as well, but they usually are fairly strong blowing which can be an issue for young plants.
I have a blower for my big plants, and a hand sprayer for medium sized ones, and I use a 5 gal bucket for the juveniles that I can dip.
Good luck man.

Thanks Grease. Long time no heat from. Question... 1. What have you found that works best on them? 2. Have you ever (or anyone for that matter) tried sns 217? Once i switch to flower i wanna alternate between neem and another good product to do soil drenches.

hotshotisdashit said:

Thanks Grease. Long time no heat from. Question... 1. What have you found that works best on them? 2. Have you ever (or anyone for that matter) tried sns 217? Once i switch to flower i wanna alternate between neem and another good product to do soil drenches.

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I don't know of any soil drench that is effective for mites, but I also haven't used the gnarly stuff, so there may be one out there, I sure as shit know that neem oil in the soil doesn't do a damn thing to the mites, it's not systemic to that degree.
Ironically the most effective thing I do is the water spray, it gets probably about 95% of them or more, and most importantly it gets the eggs and webs off (sure I am spraying them somewhere but the whole damn forest is crawling with a myriad of different mites)
I like tea tree oil, lavender oil, and dr bronners lavender castile soap.
Those work really well for dips.
Spraying works too but not as well.
I've used "no spider mites" also (basicly just a surfactant and lavender oil)
mighty wash (didn't work for shit, and was $$)
azamax (hard to not burn them, and if i'm using a neem product, i'll use the real stuff)
various pyrethrin sprays (leaves residue and the mites eventually give you this--> ) Building tolerances.
In my experience it's key to get the eggs, first and foremost. The adults you can spray most off with the water, but the eggs can be tricky, that's why I like the oils, they kill the eggs, besides it sorta makes me happy to think of each of the eggs drying up and popping.
Fuckers...