Russet Mite Killing Guide
This guide is intended for home growers at a small scale. If you’re a larger facility with an infestation please consult professional services.
One day you check on your garden and notice that the growth of your plants are not looking right. You think that there must be a nutrient deficiency so you change your nutrient intake, but the issue is still occurring. Now your growth is looking worse and you’re wondering what’s wrong. You look at your plants and you can’t see any bugs. Well if you use a digital USB microscope and zoom in 200x you’ll most likely see the following:
Russet Mites
If you see little brown rice shaped bugs then you have a russet mite infestation and you will be in for a fight. Once you identify the bug you have to ask yourself. Are the plants you have worth fighting for or are you okay starting from scratch? Now a days genetics are plentiful and of high quality so the odds of you finding a great plant are much higher compared to 10 years ago. If you’re okay starting from scratch then do the following:
- Cut down all your plants
- Either burn them or throw them in your trash just don’t let the material stay on your property
- Clean your tents/grow room so no vegetative material can be found. This is their food source so you don’t want to leave anything around that they can survive on
- Leave your tent/grow room empty for 3-4 weeks. This will ensure any bugs left behind will die off because their food source has been removed.
- Once time has passed you can start growing in your space again.
If you have genetics that you want to keep then follow the guide below.
Items Needed:
- Micronized Sulfur (I use bonide brand, 2tbsp per gallon)
- Sprayer (I use a $100 electric paint sprayer)
- Purecrop1
- Cheap USB digital microscope for checking for bugs.
- Kill all flowering plants (I burned them all but you could also put them in trash bags and throw them away)
- Selected only the plants I wanted to save from the vegging area and killed off the rest.
- For the plants I wanted to save I stripped all branches and leaves until there was only a couple leaves left on the plant at the top. Burn or trash all this stripped material too.
- I then sprayed Purecrop1 on the plants from the top all the way down the trunk and also the soil and coating the underside of the leaves. Spray Purecrop1 at a dilution of 1oz per gallon, once a day for a week. Only spray when the lights are off and the temperature is not over 90 degrees.
- After one week switch to spraying once every other day and monitor to make sure the plants are not getting burned.
- When your plants are large enough to take clones from do so. Dip each clone into sulfur for 30 seconds and swirl it around. Keep your clones in a separate room away from the vegging plants.
- Once your clones are ready to be rooted dunk them one more time in sulfur for 30 seconds and then plant them. Monitor your clones and check them for russets every day or so.
- When you know your clones are healthy and growing well, kill off the plants in your veg room.
- After your veg and flower room are empty, clean them and make sure you don’t have any plant material laying around.
- Leave those rooms empty for 3 to 4 weeks. Russets need plant material to feed on and if you take away their food source they’ll all die out.
- After the 3-4 week timeframe has passed. Confirm you don’t see russets on your clones and if they’re clean then you can bring them back into your grow rooms and start a new.
- To prevent them in the future you can spray with Purecrop1 once a week.
The key to fighting russet mites is diligence. It won’t be easy but if you can get in the habit of spraying then you will stand a higher chance of success. If you do decide to start over look over our strain or clone catalog and contact me at legend.farm@protonmail.com with any questions. Good Luck!