Hi friends, posting this after I contracted russet mites and spent months chasing my tail trying to figure what was wrong and treat an unknown problem. this had folks stumped for weeks, so i just wanna put a photos of the progression out there for all to see. won’t be hard to spot once you know what it looks like. looking back, i could have spotted this DAY ONE and prevented all of this.
first sign could be leaves tacoing or wrinkling up. some look just like regular heat or light stress with just the jagged edges curling up every so slightly.
other initial signs are new, yellow growth. this part really SUCKS cuz it totally mimics things that can happen with Ph swings and iron or Mg deficiency. this had me chasing my tail for WEEKS and buying water all over town and trying to figure out what was wrong.
yellowing, dying leaves at the bottom of the plant:
middle stage: “intervenal chlorosis” and yellowing around the edges on upper leaves:
you’re pretty much effed stage: alien-like curling of the leaves:
Russet mites are NOT detectable with the naked eye. I checked my plants with a loupe early on and didn’t see them. You need at least a 60x and finally found them with 100x. you’ll see translucent oblong disgusting bodies, their carcasses, or what I found… EGGS that look a whole lot like resin or trichomes but they have little white dots on them. they also mostly seemed to be hanging out on top of the leaves.
Treatment:
i have to tell you i just bagged everything up and threw it out and am “resetting” the tents which has meant a ton of bleach and tears. I’m going to heat the tents to 115 and then let them sit for 3 weeks. i’m also treating the few house plants I have.
If you want to try and save your grow, these are suggestions that were made to me, and the many industry pros that i talked to said you need a multi pronged attack since these bugs have developed resistance over time. i got mine through an infected clone that had already been treated with azamax out of precaution (it was not known at the time mites were present). but honestly every single one of them told me to torch everything and not risk perpetuating the problem. i finally listened and bagged it up.
HEAT - get your space up to 115 degrees for 20 minutes and turn the humidity up.
CO2 - i’ve read in several places that 200ppm of CO2 gas into a sealed garbage bag can kill them. i dont know exactly how to make this happen, but it was also suggested to use dry ice. I don’t know what the PPM would be from dry ice and how long they’d need to be in there.
Non-toxic treatments - isopropyl alcohol, Nuke’em, neem, green cleaner, sulfur spray (you can bomb them but only if you’re not in a living space), spinosad (captain jacks)
Helpful links:
