so his morning i found 1 spider mite on a spine of my bridgesii then just now i found 2 more near the top. how should i treat this? ive read about using neem oil and also spraying with alcohol... what do you guys recommend?

I used a product based on neem oil against spider mites with good success. But that wasn't on cacti.

what was the product?

This



Hehe.

As main ingridient it lists Azadirachtin A

Neem doesnt work . It makes the grass taste crap . It doesnt kill them it is said to make them less sexualy active and that it slows them down .

What happens when you use neem ? You breed super mites that are even harder to get rid of . I had them on plants ten years ago . Stopped growing a few years later and still have a few of them on my cacti .

They dont like it cold or windy or wet . I used to regularly go over them with a vacume cleaner and spray them with water . Now i ignore them .

Sure it does.



If one uses neem one should only use it during the vegitation stage.



It disturbs the insects ability to produce chitin. This makes it impossible for the larves to develop further into real mites.




In my experience this isn't what happens.

Peyote & mite thread: https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=51923

thanks guys! so at this point im not even sure if i really have spider mites. ive only found 4 small red bugs on one of my cacti and i havent seen anymore since i posted last, and i dont have any damage. i also misted all of my cacti with water last night and this morning.

if i find any more bugs ill mist with 91% IPA and water at a 50/50 mix. does that sound good?

Don't use neem, safer soap, or oil-based pesticides on cacti (they don't like it, especially the soap).

" Sure it does. "

Have you tryed it ? The product you pointed to seems to be a neem extract and not neem itself .

My statement is based on research = Several hunded years of growing experience between me and my near friends + i took the time to go to holland and speak to BIG growers and was told the same . They said if you have spider mites the only way to get rid of them is to build a tent over the grow garden and gas them for days when its hot ....... because they lay eggs and neem doesnt kill them . That means that you can " control " the mites but not get rid of them with neem .



I havent used the product that you mentioned . Have you any info links about it please ? I looked in wiki .

I've tried treating red spider mite infested T. peruvianus by misting with an essential oil blend dispersed in water with limited success. Spider mites don't like humidity; I had to mist all summer but have stopped misting for the winter and the little sods came back. You could try putting the cacti out in the rain if the weather's above freezing. I just gave up and sprayed the plants with thiacloprid (ahem). But I may yet stick the plants outside. Apparently, they might even like it.

so neem is effective against the bugs but not the eggs? and alcohol works for both? i found a momma spider and a couple little ones on my peruvian, should i leave them or remove them? the guy from sacredcactus.com says to leave spiders cause they eat spider mites

Useing " cannibal " spider mites to get rid of spider mites isnt a good idea . It doesnt work . They are bred useing spider mites as food = the ones that the " cannibals " dont find infect your plants and breed / could breed other mites that also dont get found .

That comes from my experience and that of friends ...... some of them own head and grow shops that used to sell them .

Try it and watch what happens . I spent hours doing it . All the ones i ever bought just walked away into the distance when freed .

Keep spraying - time it for the length of the reproductive cycle, ie catch them as they hatch out of the eggs and before they lay any more?

Think I've buggered it for the spiders for a bit with that neonicotinoid but they don't seem to have done anything up til now anyhow.

yes, in your op, you said you saw 1 mite and i choked (lol)
\ identify your pest before you begin any kind of treatment
a good 30x loop is a must

God.... Neem does work, but must be used properly. (pure oil neem is garbage, neem extracts and other Aza products are awesome)
i dont recommend any type of oil on cacti

the methanol/ denatured/ iso option is the safest bet (although i used neem oil extract on my entire garden many times in the past, i only use oil based products when i can shade the garden considerably for a few days to a week after application)

thats crazy...

Yes and yes. BUT because of you saying how nasty they are and me not remembering this nastyness I thought about it some more and found that I confused the pests. I used it against thirps not against spider mites.



Here's some info.

Lovely . Thanks . I like a good read for breakfast .

Three thoughts ---- >

They talk about limiting its use because of resistance build up = The pests become resistant to it .

They talk a lot about safety procedurs and that great care should be taken when useing it and when disposing of it and cleaning tools used .

They mention that it also kills some of the predator insects used to try to control pests .

Thank you Bayer chemical company for confirming what i said .


Because of those things my opinion is ---- > its not worth it to use chemicals on plants .... especialy plants that one wants to consume .

on a side note my cacti seem to enjoy being misted with water, they turn deeper shades of color after

I just spent nearly a year religiously spraying the cacti with a carefully formulated essential oil blend which appeared to be working. My windows, however, were suffering from limescale by the end of this time. I thought I could stop spraying for the winter but the infestation quickly reappeared, causing crusting of the growth zone (again). My poor cactus had been lovingly nurtured back to health for actually two years, struggling on in the face of this crusty adversity.

I had recently cleaned out my shed and found some thiacloprid spray so I just thought "f**k it, this will definitely work!" And it did, and I only used a tiny amount, twice. The concentration of active ingredient in the spray is 150 mg/L "in a ready-to-use aqueous solution".

I'm not proud of this and normally I never use chemical pesticides. Neonicotinoids are especially evil; I figured that one small instance of indoor use might not bring about global ecological collapse. I'll never know if my peruvianus mites would have evolved into a superintelligent, ultra-compassionate hyperbeing or something in a few million years' time but frankly they can for the moment bugger off. Good riddance!

Please forgive me for the 900 µg of thiacloprid I released onto my windowsill. Yes, it was crazy.


My cacti loved regular misting, too. One of my peruvianus/peruviani in a rather small pot grew nearly 2ft in 6 months at a diameter of 2.5".