Thread: No Pest Strip Questions....Spider Mites

Okay.... All my lady bigs are dead for the year....so....

I looked for a good way to get rid of Spider Mites. I found a thread on "No Pest Strips" from Hot Shot. However, it did not cover some concerns I had... So I am going to post here as well because this is indoor growing and I am likely to get more looks here.

So here are a couple of questions I have not seen covered in this thread.

1. How close to harvest would you do this? (or not do this)
I am likely 3-6 weeks from harvest.

2. Do you need to rinse or wash the plant/bud or anything in the room after use?

3. How do you get the eggs off the plant/bud so you can smoke?

4. If you enter the room after putting it up... should you shower and or remove and clean clothing?

Thanks

I've used them for years, no problems, no bugs ... I hang one in the same room as my grow cabinet ... no need to place it right next to your plants, just in the same room will be good enough ... I remove them two weeks before harvest, as there will be NO bugs in the room ... wash your hands after handling anything like that, but no special worries ... it's poisonous to bugs, but harmless to humans IF used according to the directions ... YES, you should READ the directions ... that alone will scare a lot of our people away ! ... you will doubtless hear dire warnings from tree-hugging environmentalists, but use some common sense ... don't taste it, don't bake it into a cake, and don't put a nipple on it, for feeding to your infants ... mmmm, probably shouldn't smoke it, either ... they work well ... as to removing the bugs and eggs from your plants, well, no really 'good' way to do it ... (just try not to think of what all you've smoked in the past, when you bought pot off the street, the bugs will probably seem tame, compared to your imagination) ...

If you smoke bugs that have been eating ripe cannabis, do you get high? If so, hmmm, maybe there's an untapped market here! Get your phatty phatty cannabugs here! Hell, it might even be legal!

try to pick out the bugs that only run in circles, those should be the most potent ones ...

oops double post

Hey Reaper... long time no talk!

Thanks once again for the advice. Obviously trying something for the first time... and knowing very little on it, it is great to hear from someone else who does it.

I didnt know if it was like a bomb in such, (I know you dont set it off) but if the vapors put a layer of poison on everything in the room.

I will toss it up tomorrow... having trouble smelling right now because of a sinus infection... so I want to start it in the morning instead of during the over night hours...lol

Funny as always brother, thanks again for the advice.

I STARTED USING THE HOT SHOT STRIPS THIS YEAR.

KILLED EVERY ONE OF THE DIRTY LIL' BASTARDS

I HAVE EM IN MY BABY FRIDGE, MY VEG ROOMS AND MY FLOWER ROOM.

FELT BAD FOR THE LADYBUGS THAT WERE STILL ALIVE WHEN I STARTED USING THEM. KILLED EM DEAD TOO.

OPPIE YUTTS IS THE ONE TO PRAISE FOR THE START OF THE NO PEST STRIPS.

THOSE THINGS WILL SAVE US LOTS OF TIME AND EXPENSE AND HASSLE.

GOOD LUCK

So you are able to go in and water... etc and breathe etc?

My update,

I put the strip in. I cannot attest to the mites just yet... but the gnats are mocking me. I put it in at about 10am, and at 6pm they were still laughing and having a pretty good time at my expense. I shut eveything down, even the filter, we will see the activity in the morning.

Second update.

As of this morning, there are still Gnats flying around... but I only saw a couple of them. I will check the little bastard mites a little later and post an update.

After more than 48 hours, mites and gnats all living happily and doing their best to kill my baby.

I went in this afternoon to find more webs than ever... not to mention, mites VERY much alive and scurrying around doing their worst. 5 dead leaves.

I opened a second "No pest" strip and hung it in the room on the other side of my baby.

Hopefully I wont poison the whole damned house with this thing.

Can anyone tell me if they have had luck with these?

My first worry was that I was going to make everyone sick with this thing... but it is not even killing little bugs, in doubling up, am I risking making myself sick? Is it piossible that this first one was a dud?

Anyone?

IT MUST CONTAIN PYRYNTHIAN (SP?)

HOT SHOT MAKES THE ONES I USE

I as well am using the ones by Hot Shot.

I now have had 2 in place for 24 hours now.

The first has been in place for 72, I added a second 24 hours ago because there was no affect with just the one.

I still have both flying gnats and mites. This is the most unbelievable thing I have experienced. Usually when I get advice on this board, it works... this time I am affraid that is not the case.

I am having a hard time understanding why/how these things are able to live and prceed to be destructive and breed with 2 of these things hanging there. I even have all the ventilation shut down, and all the dorrways blocked with blankets, to ensure the poison stays in place.

I go in for just several minutes and I can taste the poison... how the fuck are these things still alive?

wow, that is strange ... mine have never been so strong I could smell them, (but my sense of smell isnt that good, anyway) ... I've used them ever since the SHELL NO-Pest Strip was taken off the market years ago ... I used them, but I guess they were too toxic, or something ... ??? ... never had bugs, either ... just one in the same room should do the trick ... let us know what happens after a couple of days with the strip ... good luck ...

Well, my 4ft by 3.5 foot beauty had to be killed.

After that many days and the infestation not being helped, I had to kill her. She probably would have given between 2 & 3oz of dried cured bud.

What could I do... I still needed at least 3-6 weeks and she was being killed before my eyes.

I cut her down and moved everything outdoors.
When she dries, I will burn her, and throw out everything.

I will try again in a year or so... after I know there are no more mites.

FUCK!

HEY GUYS, AFTER READING THE POSTS,i CALLED THE MANFACTURER AND THEY SAID DO NOT USE IN ROOMS WHERE THE PRODUCT WILL BE INGESTED OR INHALED. ANY COMMENTS??

Originally Posted by mtncouple

HEY GUYS, AFTER READING THE POSTS,i CALLED THE MANFACTURER AND THEY SAID DO NOT USE IN ROOMS WHERE THE PRODUCT WILL BE INGESTED OR INHALED. ANY COMMENTS??

You definitely want to limit your time in the room.

I just put mine in for 1 week and during that week I accessed the room as little as possible. I only went down for waterings!

You must turn off all ventilation and seal the room up as well as possible. Seemed to do the trick for me... we'll see if they ever return!

I had mine in the basement and I think the poison, Dichlorvos, is heavier than air so it will stay in the basement. I've heard of people using these recklessly... like sleeping 5 ft from a closet with one in it! I definitely wouldn't do that. These things are supposedly good for 1300SF, so it's going to do a little bit of dispersion in your house. Just try to be as careful as possible.

Hey guys, I've been seeing these "no pest" strips mentioned here for some time, and I agree, these things are highly unsafe around plants for human consumption. Frankly, I think it's immoral to even be recommending them for this purpose. The label clearly shows these are not to be used in any areas food is kept in. That's because anything that permeates the air with enough poison to kill pests is enough to poison your food, too. Is this really something anyone should be recommending for a plant that's inhaled? I submit not. No manufacturer endorses this use for no pest strips, and no one here should, either.

Sorry guys, pick another organic method for control of spider mites. My personal favorite is predator mites, although I see plenty of people are using neem oil, too.

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!

read up on co2 bombing, you'll see there are different opinions on the subject but there are people claiming that they use co2 as their main line of defense and it does work. I found a post where a grower recommended turning the hps lights off, and just running a normal light about 4 hours into the light cycle, bomb the room, ventilate, and repeat in 4-5 days.

I just eradicated mine with 10,000ppm's. Now I wouldn't recommend doing this unless you have access to a co2 meter. The sentinel i have only reads up to 2000ppm so I removed it from the room and put it in the basement to make sure there isn't enough co2 leaking out to harm anything. I used a co2 calculator to figure out how much co2 I needed which was around 30 minutes at 20cfm. Make sure to ventilate it well.

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!

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 3–6 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 0.01–0.03 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 (0.006–0.6 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