Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower's Bible

name Mycar®, kills spider mites.
    Sprays: Homemade sprays often lack the strength to kill infestations but work as a deterrent by repelling mites. Popular homemade sprays include Dr. Bonner’s Soap, garlic, hot pepper, citrus oil, and liquid seaweed combinations. If these sprays do not deter spider mites after four to five applications, switch to a stronger spray: neem oil, pyrethrum, horticultural oil, or nicotine sulfate, cinnamaldehyde.
    Insecticidal soap does a fair job of controlling mites. Usually two or three applications at five- to ten-day intervals will do the trick.
    Horticultural oil smothers eggs and can be mixed with pyrethrum and homemade sprays to improve extermination.
    Pyrethrum (aerosol) is the best natural miticide! Apply two to three applications at five- to ten-day intervals. Pyrethrum is the best control for spider mites. Spider mites should be gone after two or three applications at five- to ten-day intervals, providing sanitary preventative conditions are maintained. Eggs hatch in five to ten days. The second spraying will kill the newly hatched eggs and the remaining adults. The third and subsequent applications will kill any new spider mites, but mites soon develop a resistance to synthetic pyrethrum.
    Neem oil works great!
    Heavy-duty chemical miticides are available but are not recommended on plants that will be consumed by humans. If using any chemical miticide, be sure it is a contact poison and not systemic. Use StirrupM®, described below, to improve the spider mite kill rate. Cinnamaldehyde extracted from Cinnamonum zeylanicum kills mites. The synthetic hormone–sold under the brand name StirrupM® –attracts spider mites, and is used very successfully to enhance miticides.
Aphids
    Identify: Aphids, also called plant lice, are about the size of a pinhead. They are easy to spot with the naked eye, but use a 10X magnifying glass for positive identification. Aphids are found in all climates. Normally grayish to black, aphids can be green to pink-in any color, aphids attack plants. Most aphids have no wings, but those that do have wings that are about four times the size of their bodies. Aphids give birth to mainly live female larvae, without mating, and can pump out 3 to 100 hungry larvae every day. Each female reproduces between 40 and 100 offspring that start reproducing soon after birth. Aphids are most common indoors when they are plentiful outdoors. Install yellow sticky traps near base of several plants and near the tops of other plants to monitor invasions of winged aphids, often the first to enter the garden. As they feed, aphids exude sticky honeydew that attracts ants that feed on it. Ants like honeydew so much that they take the aphids hostage and make them produce honeydew. Look for columns of ants marching around plants, and you will find aphids.
----
Chemical Insecticides and Miticides

    *All trade names are not included. Check insecticides and miticides for chemical name.
----
     

Ants farm aphids. They move aphids to uninfected plants.
    Damage: Aphids suck the life-giving sap from foliage causing leaves to wilt and yellow. When infestation mounts, you may notice sticky honeydew excreted by aphids. They prefer to attack weak, stressed plants. Some species prefer succulent, new growth, and other aphids like older foliage or even flower buds. Look for them under leaves, huddled around branch nodes, and growing tips. This pest transports (vectors) bacterium, fungi, and viruses. Aphids vector more viruses than any other source. Destructive sooty mold also grows on honeydew. Any aphid control must also control ants, if they are present.
    Controls: Manually remove small numbers. Spot-spray small infestations, and control ants. Introduce predators if problem is persistent.
    Cultural and physical control: Manual removal is easy and works well to kill them. When affixed to foliage–sucking out fluid–aphids are unable to move and easy to crush with fingers or sponges dipped in an insecticidal solution.
    Biological: Lacewings, Chrysoperla species, are the most effective and available predators for aphids. Release one to 20 lacewings per plant, depending on infestation level, as soon as aphids appear. Repeat every month. Eggs take a few days to hatch into larvae that exterminate aphids. Call-midge, Aphidoletes aphidimyz, is available under the trade name Aphidend; parasitic wasp, Aphidius matricaria, is available commercially as Aphidpar.
    Ladybugs also work well to