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How To Properly Apply Predatory Mites To Plants. Using Grub Grenade In The Garden & Indoors
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Apr 27, 2022
Appling predatory mites correctly are key to seeing success. In this gardening, in Canada video, we look at how to apply beneficial mites to your plants the right way. We will be talking about applying predatory mites to areas that are a part of the plant highway. Predatory mites are valuable in both indoor and outdoor plant areas. If you want to grab some predatory mites - https://geni.us/ZCSl0 For more info on predatory mites check out the blog post - https://gardeningincanada.net/predatory-mites/ Predatory mites simply put are mites that eat various different pest species. The eating of these pests can take place at various different times in their life stages. Breaking the pest cycle of reproduction is the key to stopping the pass from continuing in the home. What do predatory mites eat? Fungus gnats Spider mites Symphylans Pupating thrips Root weevils Sow bugs & pill bugs Root aphids Root mealys Bulb mite Springtails Nematodes
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0:00
Hello plant people how are you guys doing today if you're new around here my name is Ashley and
0:03
I'm a soil scientist on this channel I'd like to take that science and apply it to all things plants
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and in today's video we're talking about beneficial mites yes the highly requested predatory mites
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that quite honestly take care of a huge majority of all your house plant or indoor gardening pests
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So let's jump into exactly what these are, what brand I use, why they work and some precautions
0:33
pros, cons, that sort of thing. So if you want to grab some of the predatory mites that I use, I will leave an Amazon affiliate
0:41
link down below. You guys can grab some. There is several different quantity sizes and that's actually the main way in which
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they sell these is through Amazon because they do need to be fresh
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so they can't just they're not shelf stable you know you don't want them sitting in packages on
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shelves that's the key to this so if you see it in stores which initially when I found this brown
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it was at a store but typically speaking if you find live biologicals such as mites at a store
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it's unlikely there is as many viable species or viable mites within that package so just something
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to be aware of if you can get it fresh off of amazon for example you are much better off what
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exactly are predatory mites or beneficial mites they are mites that eat other bugs that essentially
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suck on plant sap or affect the upper foliage of a plant and in the absence of the prey they do die
1:44
However, the chances of you totally eliminating all the prey species that they like to feed on
1:51
is pretty much zero. So there is a likelihood that these will last in your home for a few months. And
2:00
I have noticed them lasting on my plants for a while, just to say the least. But I do have a lot
2:05
of plants to take care of, meaning they got lots of food to eat from. If you are able to give them
2:10
an environment in which they can survive, then they will actually reproduce and you will have
2:16
multiple generations of these. So if you like them, then just feed them. Make sure you bring in lots
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of new houseplants on a regular basis and keep their food supply up. I'm sure that will be a
2:28
problem for any of you. So how do they work? They will eat the issue bug or the pest in different
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stages of life so it can eat eggs larvae and adult pests and so it depends on what life stage
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they're in or what life stage the spider-man has access to those pests at will determine whether
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or not it's eaten and what stage in which it's eaten these can be used in combination with the
2:55
beneficial nematodes however i do warn they eat nematodes too so if you can cycle beneficial
3:04
nematodes and then also mites it may be in your best interest just to be on the safe side i'm not
3:10
saying that they're going to eat your nematodes or decimate your population in nematodes it's just a
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preventative measure so i have a list here of all of the bugs that these guys eat they eat eat
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fungus nuts spider mites uh cephalions pupating thrips root weevils sow bugs pill bugs root f
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aphids root mealy bugs bulb mites springtails nematodes verroia mite red mite pharaohic mite
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shore flies and rose midge so not a tiny list they are quite long and depending on the species you get
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They will have an appetite for different things. The brand I use, that is what it attacks
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But we'll get into the differences in types of mites a little bit later on
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So you can see them. I'm just going to come out and straight away say that you will see the bugs
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They look like mites. So you are physically going to see these on your plants
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Now before you get grossed out keep in mind your plants naturally have bugs on them And most of the time if you have an issue that you treating you already have the bugs in the house so don shy away from them they they a mite they the same size as a regular spider mite the nematodes I talked
4:31
about in other videos obviously are invisible you can't see them with your
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naked eye these guys you definitely can tell whether or not they're hanging out
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so you're probably wondering why would you use this over top of chemicals and
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And the reality is that when you use beneficial predators prey on your harmful bugs, what
4:54
ends up happening is you have a little mini ecosystem in your home
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And therefore, you are able to maintain those pests at all stages in life
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And a lot of pesticides will claim, including neem or dish soap, will claim that using a
5:15
spray will take care of the pest regardless of life stage so eggs larvae adults it'll take care
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of all of them that's not the case because i mean you'd have to do a pretty pretty liberal spray of
5:28
the entire plant so what predatory anything does when it's beneficial is it breaks that life cycle
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up of the issue bug so if we can break the life cycle in any of the stages and eliminate
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that stage then you don't have the next generation and that's what beneficial
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bugs do another thing that I've never touched on when I've talked about
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beneficial bugs but in reality is the reason why I do it bugs adapt pests
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adapt and we see this all the time in the greenhouse industry in farming you
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name it on large scale scenarios bugs begin to have resistance to pesticides
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that is a reality so if you're using pesticides all the time such as neem
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and you're noticing it works really well the first couple of times or for the
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first few years of your plant hobby and then you notice it starts losing its
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effectiveness and you're probably thinking maybe you just got a bad batch a meme over and over over again it's not the case you may be getting resistance to
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bugs and so when it comes to prevention which anyone with a large plant
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collection or a plant collection of value is going to do preventative
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maintenance I'm sure many of you do this you will do things with your plants to
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ensure that the pests never take root regardless of signs or symptoms and if
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you're using pesticides and neem bath soap bath whatever the case is you are
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potentially causing mutant bugs so that when your plant is heavily affected or
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heavily infested you have nothing stronger to go to it's kind of like pain
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management when you are in pain you try to manage it with the least intense
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drugs as possible so that in the event that you need the good stuff it'll work
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and so this is the same thing except for with pests and that is the main reason
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why I use predatory anything is I'd like to stay away from the kind of
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chemicals and reserve those for scenarios where I absolutely positively need them I'm gonna totally butcher the names of the main types of mites I
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I totally apologize but the first one is considered a ferocious predator so these
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are used in the event that you have an infection or a spider-maid issue for
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example that is on the verge of killing your plant this is when you would
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implore these guys and they eat up their entire source of food and then they're
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pretty much done because they're so hungry and so fast at doing their job
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they don't have anything to live off of after so you won't expect a ton of
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generations out of these guys they're kind of a one-and-done and these are the
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phytocelius persimilius I butchered that I sorry but that is what we talking about when we talking about a ferocious one mite that would be them so the second
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option or the other side or the other scale would be something that's very
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slow at eating its population of pests and this would be used in a home
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scenario for preventative maintenance or a greenhouse scenario for preventative maintenance you'd sprinkle them on they take a while to get through their food
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and therefore you can get multiple generations out of just one application
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because they're not eating up all their food source so they're happy they're living they're well and these guys are called the neo celus neo celius
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californicus so they eat slowly and they survive a little bit longer but with the
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product that I got which is the grub grenade they use a kind of in the middle
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version of this the variety that being grub grenade uses is stratiopalate be up
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laps skin the mick it is something Latin sorry I haven't been possessed
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lately I'm not great at my Latin he wave this is what the the pot shot version of
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the grub grenade looks like and so their variety that they use is aggressive when
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applied in a higher volume I mean something that could survive in your home
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long term if you just wanted to use it for maintenance now how much you need is
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going to be based on the infection you have or how much space you have your
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plants planted all over so when I'm talking about this I'm talking about the
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plant highway I will show you what I mean by that so behind me here we have a
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small portion of my plant collection but a portion of it nonetheless and so in
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here you can see the plants are cramped in pretty tightly this is what I mean
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by the bug highway the little bug freeway wherever your plants are touching so where this beautiful
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butterfly singonium is touching this aloe vera or where this um what are burl marks is touching
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this singonium or where this poor monstera peru is jammed inside of this mess of everything that's
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here that is a bug highway as well as up here we have you know my Maranta's
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touching my philodendron and I mean I got a squam touching and my bro marks
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that apparently is everywhere but that's a bug highway anywhere where these plants
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are connecting I would consider one block now if we were to go somewhere else
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in my house such as just turning around and looking behind so we have this aloe
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Kisha there my elephant ear there and actually have some up on the window there as well
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Those are their own separate bug highways, so I don't consider them a part of this bug highway
12:04
So when I'm talking about treatment, we're looking at the space Here as one treatment and then we're looking at the space over there as a separate treatment
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Here we have an example of a bug highway. We have an Advensonia right beside a Raffidophora tetrasperma, and I have a poor micans given to me by one of the followers here on the channel actually, kind of trailing in that area
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And so if I look at the volume I'm dealing with, I'm dealing with probably about four square feet
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max, maximum. And that's where grub grenade comes in. If I was dealing with an active infestation of
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any of the pests that the grub grenade treats, I'm going to put a higher dosage of the grub grenade
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in my pots but because I'm doing this for maintenance I'm not going to do that
12:58
much of an application so for every it comes out to every one milliliter is 25 mites so if you use an entire teaspoon on this area you are going to have 125 mites for this place initially you have to keep in mind the mites are
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in different life stages within this package you can see some moving around
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you can see some that are still an egg well you can't see those ones but
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there's one in egg form so even if you don't see anything yet just give it some
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time and it will hatch so when you're doing a preventative application of the grub grenade
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they recommend 25 mites per one square foot so that area behind me where i had the aden sodia
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and the raft of flora that's approximately about four well it's less than four square feet i would
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say it's probably like two square feet total you could do two milliliters as a preventative
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maintenance now I have a Wilbur here that it's gone a little bit of a mite
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issue and it's mild given but it's still there and I would consider that act my
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one runner is gonna whack you guys in the face I would still consider that
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active enough to warrant a little bit of an upgrade and how much I decide to
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apply to this plant so if you're in the throes of an active demo it's a hundred
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mites per square foot and so that equals almost a full teaspoon so if you put a
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full teaspoon per square foot area then you will be covered when it comes to
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fighting an active issue the application for this is actually much simpler than
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than that of the nematodes the nematodes you have to keep moist and i recommend you know putting them
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like a paper towel over top of them or misting them on a regular basis just long enough to get
15:02
them going with the actual mites it's much easier you just have to sprinkle them in the pot and you
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don't even have to sprinkle them evenly or properly you can literally just dump it all in one corner
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because they are mobile so they're gonna cruise through an area so long as you have the bug
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highway if you have the bug highway they're gonna hop plant to plant to plant but when you have a
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a breakage in the highway you know you're still working on filling that highway in am i right am
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i right that's when you would obviously do two separate applications because they're mobile
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but they're not that mobile. So with everything all in all the obvious do not do with these is
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don't use pesticides with them after you put them on that would be very very dumb
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And then obviously if you can rinse your plant or do an overhead watering and really blast the
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the plant tissue before applying that would be ideal because if you choose to blast them later
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on you're gonna blast these guys off too so make sure you do all your prep work before application
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and then you should be good to go so use them as an active active prevention you guys I'm assuming
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if you put your plants outdoors you're gonna start noticing uh spider mites overwintering in your
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home about now maybe you've already noticed them but they're gonna start showing up here in the
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next couple of weeks because they're ready to go now that they're indoors with you but yeah if you
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guys want to grab some of this stuff uh please do i will leave a link down below it's pretty awesome
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it's literally just uh vermiculite is what's in there um with some mighty friends so i'm actually
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gonna do this wilbur right now because i know me and i'm gonna forget um i'm gonna not measure
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because I never measure anything my brain won't allow it and yeah I want to
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thank you guys so much for watching if you enjoyed this video be sure to let me know in the comments down below give this video a thumbs up hit that subscribe
17:13
button and as always leave me some recommendations of what you want to see
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in the next video and I will talk to you guys next time
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Thank you
#Biological Sciences
#Pest Control