Mites(various) and essential oils

nannymouse

nannymouse

Well-known member
This article focuses on skin mites, but also other mites, farther down the article.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

In vitro activity of ten essential oils against Sarcoptes scabiei

The development of alternative approaches in ectoparasite management is currently required. Essential oils have been demonstrated to exhibit fumigant and topical toxicity to a number of arthropods. The aim of the present study was to assess the potential ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 
The entire basis of my IPM protocols are essential oils. The basis for my essential oil mixes is rosemary oil which (for whatever reason escapes me at the moment) is hell on spider mites.

The quality of the essential oils is paramount, but that doesn't mean you have to spend top dollar. The Wal Mart oils in my experience are crap but I typically get the Radha? brand from Amazon and they work just fine.

I typically make three mixes with the base oil of each being rosemary. There are many other essential oils I utilize in different proportions in the mix including but not limited to lavender, geraniol, clove, cinnamon, eucalyptus, peppermint, clove, citronella and others.

Here is the base recipe

#1​
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#2​
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#3​
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ml​
tsp​
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ml​
tsp​
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ml​
tsp​
rosemary​
20​
4​
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rosemary​
20​
4​
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rosemary​
20​
4​
lavendar​
15​
3​
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geraniol​
15​
3​
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eucalyptus​
15​
3​
cinnamon​
10​
2​
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lavendar​
10​
2​
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lavendar​
10​
2​
eucalyptus​
10​
2​
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clove​
10​
2​
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citronella​
10​
2​
peppermint​
5​
1​
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peppermint​
5​
1​
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peppermint​
5​
1​

to make the spray I use a gallon of hot water and add

1 TBSP Essential Oil Mix (rotate the mixes each time you spray)
1 TBSP Canola/Vegetable/Olive Oil
3-5 drops of Dr Bronner Soap

agitate extensively to emulsify and spray immediately. Keep the unused portion in a cool, dark place and use within a month, discard after that and mix fresh.


I usually spray this once or twice a week depending on pest pressure and once a month I substitute Neem oil for the canola oil since it acts as a growth regulator. If the bugs get really bad, I will start to add in spinosad, then the next time pyretherin.

Spray the underside of the leaves (this is where the little bastards live) and make usre you get full coverage from the top to the bottom of the plant.

Remember these sprays will burn your plants if they are sprayed and then exposed to the light so if indoors, spray just after lights out and if outside spray at sunup or just before sundown.

This will not kill all the bugs but will do an amazing job of keeping them in check. I use these sprays in flower up until the week before harvest.

They wash away in the rain and quickly degrade in the light but their main form of damage is suffocation due to the oil coverage.

The rosemary oil has something in it that will degrade mite eggs so they hatch out at a reduced rate.

It's labor intensive but it's the best way I've found to harvest pesticide free flower in a place where the bugs rule the world.
 
I think that the only oil that i don't have handy is eucalyptus. I avoided that because it supposedly can raise blood pressure, if i remember right. I suppose that it might only be 'dangerous' if breathing a lot of the vapors, but i don't know.

There are a lot of different types of eucalyptus, some folks swear by the lemon eucalyptus, but i wouldn't know.
 
Another fantastic use for these essential oil mixes is that you can just take the spray bottle and mist the air, or you can put a few drops in one of those cheap essential oil diffusers and it really helps to mask the weed smell when you are trimming or drying in a space where you may not have a carbon scrubber.

It also helps to cover the smell outside if I spray twice a week. It doesn't stand out like a dryer sheet and its not a super thick cloying smell like jasmine or gardenia. If you're concerned about spraying the plants too much, spray the ground around the plants and it does the same thing.
 
I had stopped using neem, and now have gone back to using it on the peppers and houseplants in the problem corner of the house. It's the only thing that keeps the aphids under control, in that corner, that i've found(WTF is it with aphids there? Cannot get rid of them). I feel better NOT using it, but some folks seem to tolerate it better than others. I'm hoping that when the weather is good enough to put the peppers outside, that the neem won't carry over to the new growth.

Maybe i just need to close off that room, and give it a blast with ozone. Thinking the witches are living in the walls of my 'new' house. Probably imported the little bastards when the house was moved in.
 
nannymouse said:
I had stopped using neem, and now have gone back to using it on the peppers and houseplants in the problem corner of the house. It's the only thing that keeps the aphids under control, in that corner, that i've found(WTF is it with aphids there? Cannot get rid of them). I feel better NOT using it, but some folks seem to tolerate it better than others. I'm hoping that when the weather is good enough to put the peppers outside, that the neem won't carry over to the new growth.

Maybe i just need to close off that room, and give it a blast with ozone. Thinking the witches are living in the walls of my 'new' house. Probably imported the little bastards when the house was moved in.
Click to expand...
I grew and bred peppers for a number of years trying to make a blend between a White Habanero and a Scotch Bonnet, WH's have a searing heat with no flavour and the SB are hot, but have a nice flavour. I haven't grown peppers for quite a while, but there is one certainty with them, if you are growing peppers of any sort, you are going to attract aphids... and I got to the point, that I would never have them in the house.

There would be ONE instance where I would start one in the house (probably better to start 3, all a week apart), and that would be if/when I saw aphids on another house plant. I'd put the pepper beside the other plant and see if they would all migrate to the pepper... then after a week or so, I'd either throw the pepper in the trash, or take it outdoors again.

Allowing ants to harvest or perform aphid-husbandry, does little to control their populations IMHO.
 
Oh, yes, it would be a perfect trap plant for aphids, at least in this grow zone. Peppers are some of my favorite house plants. One of my fave peppers is the Lemon Drop. I almost have to keep it as a houseplant, here, as it takes a long time to get those peppers 'ripe' (they get sort of translucent when ripe), if they are solid yellow...not done, yet. And they tend to droop, so look good as a hanging plant, not strong enough stems to hold up well, in the wind that we get. Makes great 'hot' lemonaide, with it's citrus flavor. I like to put several plants along the outer edge of a LARGE container, then maybe an upright pepper in the center...those hot Hungariean peppers are stout and look good, or some black huns.
 
From what I can gather, I am a stones' throw away from you nannymouse, so we pretty much share the same growing conditions. I haven't ever thought about making hot lemonade... that's a great idea!

The peppers that I have grown are all much more frost tolerant than say, tomatoes, so perhaps a small tent in the fall of the year would get your peppers to ripen outdoors and avoid the need to have them inside?

"IF" I had to keep them indoors, I would try that trick that I used for thrips control... provided that you have a small shop vacuum, you'd be away... I'll add the info here..

"Before I moved to soil growing, I had problems with thrips via the commercial "grow mediums". The last and most effective way (and safest way ) that I "controlled them" was by taking the clay balls used in hydro systems and putting them in a pail with a lid. I then dumped in a copious amount of diatomaceous earth, I then rolled the pail around dusting the clay balls with the powder. (Wear a mask when doing this... the D/E is a mild throat irritant) I also placed a copious amount of diatomaceous earth around the stem of the plant… some pests will want to climb from the soil surface up the stem of the plant. I placed a layer of these balls on the top of my pots right after watering the plants. This makes the bugs crawl over the diatomaceous earth any time they move above the soil surface. It worked quite well, with the exception that I would have to vacuum them off of the soil surface, screen them to remove the excess dirt, and then re-dust them before re-use. I also cut sticky traps to the appropriate size and laid them on the top of the dusted balls as well. (A few balls stick to the sticky traps, but not many.) A cheap wet/dry shop vacuum is a handy tool in the grow, and an item that I’d purchase before many other “trinkets”. Typically, the dusted balls would last through more than one watering. This approach was effective at knocking the hell out of their numbers. If you are near harvest and you are struggling to make it through to the end, you might wish to try this method... it's fairly cheap, and certainly a safer choice than some others"

If you were to try this though, I'd recommend planting the pepper lower down in the pot, so you could put 1 1/2" - 2" of clay balls over the soil. When the plant is young, this could be a bit of a PITA, but as the plant's main stem lignifies and the pepper gets larger, it wouldn't be an issue... however, aphids LOVE young pepper plants more than anything else, from what I've seen, so easy pest management is key. Using a pot that waters from the bottom, would avoid the steady maintenance of the D/E and clay balls, and if you had a long-necked funnel, you could work it between the clay balls and water from the top periodically too.
 
For watering tiny plants, those little plastic sucker doodads that come with the pH kit, works very well. As they get older, about a liter or guart container size, i use a turkey baster. So high tech, here. I do like the expanded clay balls idea. Have big bags of d.e. that we use around the outdoor perimeter of the house. Maybe if i used the d.e. more often, i wouldn't have a bug problem on that corner of the house. Then again, i do think that they are in the walls.

Did any of you read about using kaolin clay. I know that clay sounds like it would clog the plant leaves and take away their ability to do gas exchange, but the kaolin dries in a 'crystaline' way, that creates many many microscopic cracks. It isn't like the more 'pasty' clays. Apple orchards are using it to prevent sun scald. Maybe just using it as a spray in the surface of the soil, or just for veg stage, if using for weed.
 
According to a quick scan of a "Wikipedia" page, the aphids overwinter in trees, and then move about in the spring (fly). So, depending on the species, I don't think some species even tough the soil, they go straight for the new foliage.

However, this "might me" the answer to your "where are they coming from" question... is a tree growing on that corner of the house or property and not on the others?
 
I automatically assume that you are collecting them from somewhere else and bringing them home on your clothing, or in a "new to you" plant purchase. (This is why I don't visit large plant stores in the winter.)

But, you know your habits and environment the best, and it isn't out of the possibilities that they aren't using the house as a winter haven... it only takes one female (and most of them are) to infect a space with desirable plants in it, because the baby aphids can be born pregnant and aphids don't always require a male to be present to have viable offspring... some species can have dozens of generations in one season, you seem to have aphids from the houdinasurpisacuss species... they are a particularly determined household pest.
 
Not to butt in, enjoying the convo! I have had success with controlling corn aphids with some rabid lady bugs. I haven’t yet run into them inside, and corn aphids look a different color (blue/green) but they munched them down to a manageable level for me! Be sure not to introduce any collected by careless or destructive methods since you might introduce other issues I’ve read. I let out beneficial bugs in the house regularly to handle everything that might be hiding from me.
 
gcomputer said:
Not to butt in, enjoying the convo! I have had success with controlling corn aphids with some rabid lady bugs. I haven’t yet run into them inside, and corn aphids look a different color (blue/green) but they munched them down to a manageable level for me! Be sure not to introduce any collected by careless or destructive methods since you might introduce other issues I’ve read. I let out beneficial bugs in the house regularly to handle everything that might be hiding from me.
Click to expand...
The problem with lady bugs is that they don't eradicate "every last one", and the one left over aphid can repopulate the area in short order. Lady bugs in a larvae stage will chomp down far more dietary delights than an adult will... and seeing that the adults are quite mobile, they will fly away to a more desirable location once the food source becomes challenging to seek out. And, unlike Randy from the trailer Park Boys, I suspect that they don't always want to eat cheeseburgers and the desire for a more varied diet draws them away.

If they are indeed coming from the house itself, I can't think of anything that would work to get rid of them... the one thing that "I" might consider doing in this situation would be to remove all the house plants from the house and grow a hand full of pepper plants for one winter and douse them heartily with a systemic agent in hopes of irradiating the entire lot... then toss out the pepper plants and see what happened the next year.

Having said that, I don't think it would work. (But it did for a thrip infestation I had to deal with once.)
 
Barefrog said:
What about Horticulture oil

Anyone use that ?

Bare
Click to expand...
Bare,
I used to specifically buy Southern Ag Horticultural oil and then I tried canola oil and couldn't tell any difference.

I doubt that other than maybe viscosity there's much difference.

But in my experience, regular spraying is much more important than the oil that you are spraying. Bugs can become resistant to systemics, but they can't become resistant to being suffocated by the oil.

Just my 2 cents.
 
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