High humidity to solve the spider mite problem. Fact or Fiction?

[seldomBLUE]

I recently discovered a few bugs in my grow. I remember reading somewhere that a high humidity level (80-90%) over a period of two to three days will kill those fracking bugs. Has anybody ever tried this method?

My understanding is that they (spider mites) absorb the excess moisture causing them to swell up and explode, or something like that. If exploding causes death then that's a good thing. My concern would be mold.

Anybody have an opinion?

seldomBLUE Reviewed by seldomBLUE on 03-29-2012. High humidity to solve the spider mite problem. Fact or Fiction? I recently discovered a few bugs in my grow. I remember reading somewhere that a high humidity level (80-90%) over a period of two to three days will kill those fracking bugs. Has anybody ever tried this method? My understanding is that they (spider mites) absorb the excess moisture causing them to swell up and explode, or something like that. If exploding causes death then that's a good thing. My concern would be mold. Anybody have an opinion? Rating: 5

[Volcano_Lover]

This is true is theory, I've read this but you could damage your crop especially in flower and it probably won't kill them all.

My advice from experience of dealing with mites on a few occasions and beating them. Get yourself a sulphur burner and use that in conjunction with daily spraying with a insecticide designed for spidermites that wont damage your plants. Do this for 1-2 weeks until they are all gone.

[seldomBLUE]

OFF TOPIC: I'm happy to report that i've just harvested my first hydro (2-1/2gal BB x 4) grow. Next time i'm trying a drip setup. Damn plants were going through a gallon every 2-3 days.

ON TOPIC: I designed a pot inverter for my soil grow plants after finding a slight infestation of those little farts in my flower room (2 soil @ 5wks, 3 hydro @ wks). Inverted my soil plants and sprayed my ass off. "Don't Bug Me" didn't do crap. Ivory soap is too much work. Stuck them back in the room and 2 days later tried another method. A "Pyrethrum TR" fogger. Heard nothing but good things about it, bought a few. I figure this must be the "Texas Two-Spotted Spider Mite". It's a totally different mite than the little "Planet Earth Two-Spotted Sissy Spider Mite" because pyrethrum didn't work either. I decided to run a little experiment since these plants were cloned off a single mother and she wasn't worth crap. The first buds were crap, figured these would be crap too so i didn't really care. I figured if it worked i'd be like, almost like, a bud prince or something like, maybe even an official bug bomber or spider mite buster. Here's exactly what i did.

At lights off i reduced the exhaust time to 15min every 1.5hr. After 36hrs the humid setteled at 80-92%. All i did there was skip an on cycle. Lights continued back on/off for the next on cycle w/ outdoor temp 55-60 w/ grow tempts 85-90deg and 70-80% during on cycle. With the lights off the temp stayed 65-70 but the humid 80-90%. I did this for 36 more hrs for total of 3 days. I then ran the exhaust 24hrs for about 2 day with humid down to 40%. I figured anything that didn't drown from the excess moisture would come from the cracks to dry out. I don't know if the drying helped but for fear of mold i did it anyway. Then i hit those suckers again for two days, high temp/high humid. When i was done there were no signs. Either they died or left. It was like they were never there. Except for the spotted leaves there were no signs they had been there. The bud survived and finished bug free.