There are many different types of ways to help relieve your garden of mites and other types of nasty pests that like to take over your garden. One method involves isolating the infected plants, but that is not always possible for some growers. Another way is by retaining humidity and moisture, as this will help drown the mites and remove them from the plants. Another method involves spraying infected plants with a 1 to 1 ratio of isopropyl alcohol and water, but this can be harmful to cannabis plants if not done at the right ratio and not rinsed well enough. Along with isopropyl and water, growers turn to pesticides and miticides in order to get rid of mites and other pests. These can be harmful to your plants, like in the same way as isopropyl and water and they are not always effective in ridding of all mites and their eggs.
Since these most popular methods seem to have their ups and downs, some growers turn to a more natural way of clearing mites from gardens is by using predatory mites. Predatory mites are natural enemies that not bite people and they feed on other insects. They do not feed on plants like spider mites and other pests do. The predatory mites are used to control the mites that are causing problems for your garden by feeding off of them. Predatory mites are completely legal and can be ordered by mail or even on Amazon, making them very easily accessible.
Pesticides and other miticides can be very costly, and can end up hurting your garden more than helping it. An average retail price of gallon of miticide can run all the way up to $400, while you can order 2,000 predatory mites off of Amazon for about $40. There is a rule of thumb that there should be 1 to 2 predatory mites released per infected leaf, 20 – 30 predatory mites for medium sized plant. One predatory mite can consume and destroy about 5 to 10 mites. Overall the predatory mites will save you money in the long run by not having to spend money on pesticides.
The small downside to predatory mites is that they do not attack insects like aphids, whiteflies, mealybugs or scale. Since predatory mites do not eat these, another type of pesticide or miticide will need to be used, but those will also kill predatory mites. Predatory mites and miticides/pesticides cannot work together.
Predatory mites are essentially spider mite’s carnivorous cousins. They are more active than spider mites and also have longer legs. They work the best in gardens that are indoors or in greenhouses. Once the predatory mites are released into the garden, they will take the undersides of the leaves where the spider mites live. The female predatory mites will lay eggs that are double the size of spider mite eggs. Predatory mites will continue to increase in amount as long as there is prey to consume. Once they have destroyed the spider mite population, the predatory mites will move on or starve and die. The most common types of predatory mites that are used to kill and control spider mites are Metaseiulus Occidentalis, Phytoseiulus Persimilis, and Phystoseiulus Longpipes.