How do you treat spider mites on your marijuana plants?

Pests are invaders and your thriving cannabis farm is vulnerable to them, especially spider mites, which are common outdoors, and houseplants. Spider mites cause great damage to the cannabis plant, affecting its growth and potentially killing it. All cannabis growers need to become familiar with spider mites: identifying them, the injuries they cause, and how to treat them. How do you keep insects off your marijuana plants, especially outdoors?

What are spider mites?

Spider mites are not insects: they are called “arachnids” and are often referred to as spiders because they have eight legs and no antennae. You can’t miss their oval bodies and can wreak havoc on plants. Their high reproduction rates make them even more destructive as their eggs hatch after 3-5 days.

Why spider mites like cannabis plants

These mites are like weed plants because of the chlorophyll in them, which also enables photosynthesis. They bite the plant cell with their tiny teeth to extract the chlorophyll. Now imagine how millions of spiders can devastate a cannabis farm and the destruction they can inflict on plants.

The signs of spider mite infestation on weeds

Identifying their damage right away may not be easy, so constantly monitor your plants and perform routine leaf inspections. If you see tiny dots all over your plants, it is a sign of spider mite infestation. Since they live under the leaves of the weeds, you can look for them and their eggs under your plants.

You will know spider mites have a home on your plants when you find white lies between your leaves. The lines collect dirt and dust, making your plants look messy. You will mainly see these signs in the flowering parts of your plant. When a whole weed plant has been severely attacked by spider plants, the whole plant looks sickly, weak, and with changes in color.

How to treat spider mite infestations

There are numerous methods of preventing and treating spider mite infestations in cannabis plants. But the most effective methods are natural enemies that invade your farm or plants and feed on the spider mites. These are beneficial mites that can also lay eggs on your farm and when the eggs hatch they feed on the spider mites.

You can also protect your cannabis plant from spider mites by not bringing new plants outside from the cannabis grow room. Bringing in new plants is a surefire way to have lots of spider mites on your farm. So you have to introduce a new plant; Please keep them in quarantine for at least two weeks before you take them with you. Get yourself a microscope and check the signs discussed before bringing them into the grow room.

An effective way to treat your plants is to spray the plants with hard water and do so for three days (morning). The pressure of the water will get rid of the bugs and any tissue they leave behind. You will see the bugs down to the ground and watch them die. DIY organic cannabis soap can also help.

This is an easy way to get rid of spider mites. Get a handheld vacuum to vacuum the mites off the leaves. This may take a while, but it works effectively. Carefully vacuum the entire contents into an airtight plastic bag and place in the freezer. The cold kills the mites as they cannot survive at very high temperatures.

Ladybugs are a natural remedy for treating your cannabis plant for spider mites. They eat spider mites and can kill many of them in just one day. Instead of waiting for the ladybugs to come to your cannabis farm, you can buy them and purposely release them into your cannabis plant. You also want your cannabis farm to be a conducive environment for the ladybugs to lay eggs. The more ladybugs, the more protection you have over your cannabis plants.

Green lacewing are spider mite predators that also feed on the mites’ eggs. A fun fact about spider mites is that they can eat over 150 mites a week. It is common to use lacewings for insect control in farms, greenhouses, and home gardens. Although they can appear on your farm alone, you need to encourage them to stay on your farm longer. You can do this by stopping full spectrum pesticides on your farm as it will negatively affect the lacewing.

Another natural remedy and treatment for spider mites is big-eyed beetles, which feed on a wide variety of insect pests that harm plants. It is important that you can identify them so that you don’t assume they are harmful pests. You can easily spot them in the morning or in the evening; they have triangular heads with large eyes. They feed on spider mites, thrips, whiteflies and caterpillars.

Every marijuana grower’s nightmare is watching spider mites ravage their plants because spider mites can hatch millions of eggs on the farm in a matter of days. Even if you think you got rid of the spider mites, some of them may be lurking behind the plants, so don’t assume that after treatment, they will all be gone.

Always keep an eye on your plants and have the ladybugs close in case they recur. You can also visit the local garden center in your community to look for effective sprays to get rid of mites. Neem oil is also an effective solution: shake the cannabis plant to let the mites fall off and use the neem oil to kill the mites you see. You can also use horticultural oil, mite killer, or dormant oil. If all else fails, try this post-harvest bath to rid your cannabis plants of insects.

Bottom line

When you start growing cannabis, it is easy to get carried away with your flowering plants. Yes, it is good to admire your hard work, but remember to pay close attention to the appearance of your plants. The early detection of spider mites is one of the safest ways to protect your cannabis plant so that you have already mitigated all risks before intensive treatment.

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