No Pest Strip Questions....Spider Mites

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Originally Posted by lampost

Could you explain the methodology of how this is dangerous?

I've read studies that show that plants don't "take up" dichlorvos. So if you use it before buds form how is it going to contaminate the plant?

These are also used in large food storage warehouses. Keep reading!

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OK, how about this: ATSDR - Public Health Statement: Dichlorvos

My personal experience with dichlorvos involved shipping beneficial insects. For a period of time every shipment of predator mites died enroute, and it took awhile to locate the cause. Turns out a roll of paper towels had been stored near a "no pest" strip, and one paper towel wrapped around predator mites sealed in lengths of soda straws with corks on the ends was enough to kill the predator mites during shipment - I don't know how the vapors got inside the straw, but they did. Using a new roll of paper towels solved the problem.

Anything that toxic is something I want to stay away from. According to the link I provided above, dichlorvos is harmful to humans in sufficient doses (even lethal), and is a common contaminate in toxic waste dumps as well. Just working around the vapors is harmful when the levels are high enough (and what is it doing at lower levels?). Is this something you really want to experiment with your health over? In addition to the hazards of breathing the vapors, dichlorvos can also be absorbed through the skin, or eaten. Each method is harmful. I still can't recommend it, and again, "no pest" strips aren't approved for use with plants for consumption, either.

Using CO2 for killing mites is an intriguing idea, but I haven't tried it personally.

Thanks for posting that. These quotes were all taken from the source you provided:

"The main uses of dichlorvos are for insect control in food storage areas, greenhouses, and barns, and for parasite control in livestock. Dichlorvos is generally not used on outdoor crops. It is sometimes used for insect control in workplaces and the home. Veterinarians also use it to control parasites in pets."

"Experiments in greenhouses and food storage areas show that 90% of the applied dichlorvos disappeared in 3â??6 hours. The products of this breakdown are two chemicals called dimethyl phosphate and dichloroacetaldehyde. These chemicals are less harmful than dichlorvos and are not believed to cause health effects in people. "

"Dichlorvos is not stored, accumulated, or concentrated by plants, fish, animals, or people."

"A few studies have been done on people who have been exposed to dichlorvos in the air in their workplaces. When dichlorvos is used properly, air levels of 0.01â??0.03 ppm are achieved. This level kills most insects within one hour. In tests done with volunteers, exposure at about 20 times this level (0.23 ppm) for 2 hours a day for 4 days had no harmful effects. In a study in rats exposed to air with very high levels of dichlorvos (up to 34 ppm), all the animals died within 3 days. The rats showed similar signs of effects on the nervous system as in people that have been poisoned with dichlorvos. In general, harmful effects have not been seen in animals exposed to air levels of dichlorvos below 0.5 ppm. In a 2-year study in rats, breathing air every day with low-to-moderately high levels (0.006â??0.6 ppm) of dichlorvos had no effect on how long the rats lived or on their general health. "

"There is no evidence that exposure to dichlorvos increases the risk of cancer in people. Rats that breathed in air containing dichlorvos for 2 years had the same rate of cancer as rats that did not breathe in dichlorvos. However, a 2-year study in rats and mice force-fed dichlorvos showed an increase in certain forms of cancer. Rats had increased rates of cancer in the pancreas and also had more cases of leukemia than rats that had not been treated with dichlorvos. Female mice had a higher rate of a form of stomach cancer. "

"The U.S. OSHA has set a permissible exposure limit (PEL) of 1 mg/m³ (0.11 ppm) of dichlorvos for workplace air over a 10-hour workday. "

Obviously this is a dangerous chemical, but if used responsibly it can be very helpful and minimally harmful to you. It is inferred as a carcinogen, but it appears that ingestion is the primary ingestion route for causing cancer as shown in the rat study.

All incidents in that article are for people dealing with the concentrated, pure liquid dichlorvos... chemical factory workers, pesticide applicators, etc. The pest strips (when used properly) only put about 0.01 - 0.03 ppm in the air. However OSHA sets the permissible limit at 0.11 ppm for a 10-hour workday meaning, OSHA says it's OK for you to be exposed to 0.11 ppm for 10-hours a day, 5-days a week indefinitely!

Granted when you put these in a 5'x5' grow room, you're probably going to be exceeding the 0.01 - 0.03 ppm you get when used correctly (in an area of 1300 SF as indicated on the packaging of the No Pest Strip product). You're probably even going to exceed the OSHA limit too. Let's say it goes up to 0.5 ppm, you could still go in there for 2 hours a day and get the same exposure as the OSHA limit (assuming 2 hours @ 0.5ppm is equivalent to 10 hours @ 0.1ppm).

So, yeah you just need to limit your time in the growroom. And I agree that this is a dangerous chemical that needs to be respected, but I think people deserve facts about it. There are people who use these dangerously, throwing 2 of them in a grow cabinet in their bedroom or something!! You have to be careful. There are a lot scenarios where these would not be wise to use...

Even though it breaks down quickly I don't think they should be used too late in flowering if someone else will be smoking it. I've heard of people using these in their drying room!!! I think that's fuckin' retarded and wrong...

People definitely need to be carefuly, but spread facts not scare tactics.

I woke up last Saturday to find one of my babies (now a large multi branch), litterally DRIPPING with eggs and mites.

I've not seen ONE mite sence 4 hours later and all plants are in great shape again.

Here's how I did it.

First it was about 30 deg F on Saturday morning. I could see thousands of these little bastards on the one plant and a few on the one next to it. So, I misted the plant with just RO water then placed it out in the cold, outside. Then did the same to the lesser infested plant.

After two min of 30deg, I rushed the plant with it's stiff mites to the shower. I leaned each plant over the tub sideways and rinsed each plant with semi-cold water. While they drpped in the tub I cleaned the plants normal area with anti bacterial kitchen spray. After retuning the plants to the original spot I could still see a few young mites, but no webs or adults.

About two hours later my friend brought me some Shackley basic H soap. We made a watered down solution of this stuff and washed each plant with it just as I'd done with just water before. After this I could see no mites.

THEN,.. I did the same to my three in very early flower and cleaned that room (other then a few spots on a couple leaves I couldn't find any mites in this room, but better to be safe).

Then I moved the two clones that HAD mites into the flower room for the next stage.

I added the HotShot strip as people suggested. Then sealed the room the best I could with towels and duck tape. then I disolved 3lbs of dry ice in the room after lights out and allowed the temp in the room to drop to 64deg F(coldest I could get).

On Monday I found out my boss gave me the mites. He'd bought Neem oil the previous week for the issue but never mentioned it. Thus I hadn't taken precautions. So I took two tablesppons of his Neem oil and made this up to soak ALL of the plants.

Neem oil makes mites stupid. They forget to hatch, eat, molt, mate or lay eggs. Eventually killing them at all stages(takes about a week)! AND it's organic!

Now personally I've hunted each plant daily, sence Saturday. I can not find ANY bugs. Only sign I ever had bugs are the semi specled leaves.

I plan to continue to hunt for them, but the Neem should be the insurance against further critters.

Good luck