Spider mites

Newly registered user here, but have several year growing experience. Spider mites, ugh! I live in the hot and dry desert southwest and have battled the bastards for years. Just when I think I won the war, there they are again. I even moved! Being desparate, about a month ago I purchased a couple No Pest Strips thinking at least they'll keep the gnats away. Well, I haven't seen a live mite in a couple of weeks. Wow! Thank you very much, Opie.

All's not perfect, though. I still see hundreds of eggs. Is the strip preventing the eggs from hatching? Did it kill the eggs? Or, please no, are there critters that I haven't spotted? Attached (I hope) is a pic taken thru a Radio Shack 60x-100x set at 60x. Kinda hard to see, but its the underside of a leaf, all the white dots are eggs.

Thanks

I WANT A LINK.. I want to order these and try them OUT!!

please
link ME

iloveyou

congrats on the victory MEADOW ...

OPIE!!! : )

Thanks for the congrats GK, but the praise goes to Opie for persistenly pointing this out.

I found mine at the checkout isle of the local Home DePot. Mine are in a dark blue package. It's called a Hot Shot No-Pest Strip. The back reads almost verbatim of Opie's package. I imagine several companies are marketing the same product. It's the ingredients that count:

18.6% Dichlororvos (2,2-dichlorovinyl dimethyl phoshate)
1.4% Related compounds
80.0% Inert ingredients

Now if I can get the pH of my rockwool slabs correct ....

HAIL OPIE!

: )

JDOG.. please keep me posted on how these strips work for you..

: )

TheMeadows: Your very welcome. I'm glad I could help at least one person.

Now won't more of you come over to our side please? It's real nice over here. Just sitting back, sipping Crown Royal, and watching our pest-free plants growing.

In answer to your question, I'll just be honest. I don't know for sure about eggs. I don't think it kills the unborn babies, but I am not sure. I just looked at the eggs with my pocket microscope and saw that many of them had hatchlings half out of the egg, dead in their tracks. This was about 10 hours after putting the strip in my 3' x 2 1/2' x 8' closet (the night before). I assume that the babies carry on as normal until they try to come out into the atmosphere that has the lethal toxins in it. How concentrated the toxins are in the air, probably determines how soon the hatchlings die after emerging from the eggs.

Whatever you use and whatever happens, you must break the life cycle. This means killing all the adults and babies, before the babies can grow up and lay more eggs. I think my mites hatched about 3 days after the eggs were laid, so assuming the toxins kill the adults in a day or so (more like a few minutes I think), then everything should be dead within 3 days.

jack frost:

2-4 times every two weeks... However, spider mite control will almost always take several treatments. This is because the spray will not kill eggs. Consequently, eggs will be hatching following your first treatment. To insure you kill all activity, treat once a week for 3-6 treatments.
What are you talking about? What spray? And you just need to do it once, or twice at the most, if they emerge from hybernation at the next light change from veg to bloom.

The best material for spider mite control is called CYFLUTHRIN
Yeah, I guess that "mite" be true, as long as you could find it in a strip, and it broke the life cycle in one week, and it is as toxic as 18.6% Dichlorvos (DDVP), and it cost the same or less.

Well i did quite a bit of reading on these no pest strips and the side effects if humans come in contact with them, Nasty things not to be used without care, but if one takes the proper care ie.. gloves ,mask, and not to inhale for long periods of time.Also plant matter is not effected by the vapour , (read 3 tests performed by seperate labs other then manufactures) and all said they do not effect plants in anyway.Also they are used to rid pet snakes of mites as well as other reptiles.I have been putting them in my room 3X5X5 with the start of an outbreak 1 plant infected , for the dark periods,soon as night time kicks in i shut down all ventalation in and out ,cover up openings but leave a small fan going to move the air around within the chamber, 10 hours into dark cycle i pull it out and put it in a zip lock bag ,let the vapour disapate for 2 hours and when lights come back on fire all air exchangers up
When i check the infected leaves those guys are dead their little children are dead and the egg count is redused greatly.
My question is i have been doing this for the last 7 days without seeing any new damage or anything alive but there are still eggs abound which are not effected by ANYTHING!! (even radiation! , read study where they shot radiation at spider mite eggs and they still hatched but did not live very long)
So as the little fuckers hatch the die within a few steps out of the egg, how long do ya think i need to keep going? I think it can take 3-14 days for them to hatch in hot dry conditions, how long did you treat for?

Pippz:
Glad to see another success story from using the pest strips. Zandor, do you still think that it's impossible for the strips to work?

I kept my strip in my closet one week, if memory serves. I didn't see any more movement after the first day. You just need to keep it in there until you are sure that all the eggs are finished hatching.

So do these strips actually work? Anyone tried it and worked for them besides Opie? Garden, did u get the chance to try it yet?

Oh btw, all this talk about mites makes me wonder, WHERE DO MITES COME FROM?