Latest / Hydroponics Daily / HACK! Grow Your Own Predatory Mites: Slash Your Pest Control Costs

Transcript

HACK! Grow Your Own Predatory Mites: Slash Your Pest Control Costs · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything
• 0:05
  soilless cultivation. I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:08
  Russell Sharp, the founder of Utrema Limited, and we manufacture novel fertilisers,
• 0:14
  interesting biostimulants, and organic biopesticides.
• 0:17
  However, today I'm going to talk about a method you can use to vastly reduce
• 0:22
  the amount of pesticides you use, whether they're organic biopesticides or normal pesticides.
• 0:28
  And I'm going to talk massively reduce your bills for biological control.
• 0:33
  This is a really good episode so stay tuned. This is going to help small growers,
• 0:38
  medium growers and large-scale growers but there is a fair amount to understand so let's get into it.
• 0:45
  So today's episode is a hack. It's a way of not growing your own biological
• 0:52
  control but certainly, well, sort of.
• 0:56
  So what I'm going to tell you today is when you buy biological controls
• 1:00
  particularly or exclusively predatory mites
• 1:04
  there's a way to culture these so
• 1:07
  that you can keep them multiplying and
• 1:11
  growing and reproducing and so you don't need to keep on buying more and more
• 1:17
  from the same manufacturer so what is is you you buy the species you want in
• 1:24
  so you choose the particular type of predatory mite you want.
• 1:28
  Now that will depend on your crop, it will depend on where the pest is, and it will determine.
• 1:35
  By the environmental conditions and lots of other factors.
• 1:42
  So you have to make sure you choose the right predatory mite because some predatory
• 1:46
  mites only eat certain pests, some only live in the soil, some only live on
• 1:52
  leaves, some will only hunt on flowers,
• 1:55
  some will only grow at a certain temperature or humidity and so make sure you
• 2:02
  get the right predatory mites.
• 2:04
  Now there are a few that live in the soil and eat fungus gnats and root aphids.
• 2:09
  There are some that live on the leaves and will eat thrips, aphids.
• 2:15
  Mainly spider mites, other types of mite pests.
• 2:18
  There's things called swirsky mites that eat a number of different pests and
• 2:23
  there's some that will only exclusively feed on one type of pest.
• 2:26
  And so you really want to make sure that you get the right
• 2:29
  one now what you may not realize
• 2:31
  is when you buy predatory mites they
• 2:35
  come on a grown medium and they'll be
• 2:38
  they aren't feeding on that bran or
• 2:41
  that pollen that's in there what they're actually feeding on
• 2:44
  is the flower mites or other types of
• 2:47
  detritivore mites another species of
• 2:50
  mite is in there and they're eating that other species of
• 2:53
  mite normally and so you can
• 2:55
  use this to your advantage because you
• 2:59
  can feed you can start growing these detritivore mites
• 3:03
  that live on things like bran or
• 3:06
  pollen or other types of plant material and then just use that as a sort of
• 3:12
  like feedstock for your predatory mites so i've done this in the past and bought
• 3:17
  predatory mites once and then not had to buy any more throughout the whole of
• 3:22
  the year and had no pest and disease problems in my greenhouse.
• 3:26
  So it's a fantastic way of doing it. So what you do is you go to a animal feed
• 3:31
  store and you buy a bag of bran.
• 3:35
  Now, it might.
• 3:37
  You might only be able to get a 25 kilo bag, but it's not going to cost you that much money.
• 3:42
  It's probably only going to cost you about 20 pounds, 20 dollars, 20 euros.
• 3:46
  So you are buying a big bag, but it's not going to be too expensive.
• 3:50
  It's certainly cheaper than the predatory mites that you've already bought.
• 3:55
  And you want to store that somewhere very, very dry and nowhere near your grow
• 4:02
  room, certainly nowhere near your predatory mites.
• 4:04
  Take a scoop full put it in
• 4:07
  a sealed container so depending on
• 4:09
  how how many mounts you want think about
• 4:12
  how big the the container of predation
• 4:16
  mites was that you bought so you might want to buy you might
• 4:18
  want to contain that's four times the size of that you don't
• 4:21
  need to worry about air holes or anything like that because you're going to be opening it
• 4:24
  up and checking on it every now and again so put
• 4:27
  it in there and then take it to your grow room or your
• 4:30
  facility add a good dollop
• 4:33
  of the predatory mites from the the container
• 4:36
  that you've purchased on the internet or from a supplier and
• 4:39
  then just put the lid on seal it right on what it
• 4:42
  is and then the container that you bought from this of
• 4:46
  predatory mites just apply them in your
• 4:48
  grill room as you would normally shake them around on the plants so about maybe
• 4:52
  20 percent has gone into this container with the bran and what will happen is
• 4:57
  you might want to add a tiny bit of moisture in there as well so it doesn't
• 5:01
  get too dry and then the flower mites that are in there.
• 5:07
  The sacrificial mites, they'll start to feed on the bran and as they do that
• 5:11
  they'll grow and they'll multiply very very quickly especially if you keep them
• 5:15
  warm and then the predatory mites will feed on them as you grow as you go and
• 5:20
  so you'll have both species increasing in number and then once you start to.
• 5:25
  See a change in the brand now if you've got a dissecting microscope
• 5:29
  or a hand lens you can monitor this very easily but
• 5:32
  if you've not then you can just wait for it to you can sort of
• 5:35
  see the decomposition as long as it's not fungal growth don't
• 5:38
  get don't want it too wet and you want it very nice
• 5:41
  and dry you'll start to see them moving and you
• 5:44
  can massively increase the the population of
• 5:47
  the periturimates you can keep it going add some fresh brand to
• 5:50
  a new container and do it and then again you can
• 5:53
  add the the bran the the one
• 5:56
  that's grown really well add about 80 to your grow room
• 5:59
  and then take 20 and restock and reseed fresh
• 6:02
  bran now the reason you don't want to take the whole bag of bran and
• 6:05
  put it in your grow room or your greenhouse or wherever it is you're growing
• 6:08
  is because the whole 20 kilos will get infested with
• 6:12
  the flower mites and you'll you'll just
• 6:15
  get it all decomposing and rotting and degrading composting
• 6:19
  almost at once which means you'll have loads of predatory mites
• 6:22
  but you'll might be overcome with flower mites and predatory mites on your produce
• 6:27
  and and in your grow rooms you might start itching because there will be mites
• 6:30
  everywhere if you're not careful and they'll be all over your surfaces and things
• 6:34
  like this so you don't want that you also don't want to do this in your house
• 6:39
  if you've got a grow room in your house.
• 6:40
  You don't want to keep this bran anywhere near where you might be storing pasta
• 6:45
  or flour or rice because these mites will eat that.
• 6:49
  And so you need to be careful not to do this in a situation where you've got
• 6:52
  a food store because they'll infest the carbohydrate-based dry food.
• 6:58
  These are the same mites that you get in flour, flour mites that become a real problem.
• 7:03
  So do that. The reason I say go to an animal feed store and buy the bran as
• 7:08
  well is because the brand there is not treated with any preservatives.
• 7:12
  And if you say you bought a brand for.
• 7:16
  Like for breakfast cereal for example that bran
• 7:19
  in my experience you won't get flower mites
• 7:22
  growing on it because of the preservatives used and it's a scary thought
• 7:25
  that you know these that these mites will not touch food that is made for human
• 7:30
  consumption they'll only eat foods that's designed for animal feed i've tried
• 7:36
  growing these sacrificial mites on loads and loads of different feedstocks and I found.
• 7:45
  Pollen and bran were the best by far. You can harvest pollen from the wild.
• 7:50
  So like there's a company called Copperts and they do bulrush pollen,
• 7:56
  but I think bran is just as good.
• 7:58
  But what else you could do is you can, if you're using predatory mites for fungus
• 8:04
  gnats or any sort of root-based pest, then you can mix the bran in with cocoa and they'll feed.
• 8:11
  And then the predatory mites will, wool that are
• 8:14
  used to being in soil or compost they will
• 8:18
  they will grow nicely in that so
• 8:21
  it has to be a bit more moist but you don't want to be to the point where
• 8:24
  it's starting to get fungal decomposition you want it to
• 8:27
  be the point where it's the predatory mite the
• 8:30
  sorry the the detritivore mites the flower
• 8:33
  mites eating the bran and then the soil dwelling
• 8:36
  mites are eating them so that one's a bit more difficult but it
• 8:39
  is still possible and i've done it many a time i
• 8:42
  had no issues with fungus gnats when i've done that so talking
• 8:46
  myself out of you purchasing biopesticides from
• 8:50
  utreema.co.uk but hopefully this shows that
• 8:53
  you can trust my word when it comes to what is a good product to use and what's
• 8:58
  not a good product to use and know that got your interests as a grower and i
• 9:03
  put that first always put that first at utreema whether you're a farmer a horticulturalist
• 9:09
  or a hydroponic grower, whether it's small or large.
• 9:12
  And as I say, this technique can be used for any sort of grower.
• 9:15
  You could use this for large-scale farming or just houseplants or anything really.
• 9:21
  The reason why biocontrol is not used on large-scale farms and large-scale crops
• 9:26
  is because it's just too expensive.
• 9:29
  The companies that are selling these products, these biocontrol agents,
• 9:32
  they charge a serious amount for horticulturalists and,
• 9:38
  hydroponic growers and greenhouse growers to use
• 9:41
  these products so they can't just put a really really low price for
• 9:45
  farmers to use them in broad acre but you could in theory
• 9:47
  use this method to you know a farmer could do
• 9:50
  100 kilos of bran and control all
• 9:53
  their mite pests in an orchard or on a if they
• 9:56
  have a a issue on a field crop
• 10:00
  with mites or thrips or aphids or anything like that they
• 10:03
  could do they could do this so let me know if you want to try it let me know
• 10:06
  if you've done anything similar in the past i think this is a brilliant hack
• 10:10
  one of the best hacks in hydroponics to be honest that means that you don't
• 10:14
  have to keep on going back and buying more predatory mites you're probably infringing
• 10:18
  somebody's patent somewhere but.
• 10:22
  If you are, good luck for them to try and prove that you are,
• 10:27
  because you're not selling these products.
• 10:29
  And at the end of the day, they've got to prove that you are infringing it.
• 10:33
  You don't have to tell them anything.
• 10:35
  And so I wouldn't worry. These are billion dollar plus companies,
• 10:39
  anyone involved in biocontrol.
• 10:41
  And there aren't many small scale companies. They're all leveraged.
• 10:46
  They're all publicly traded companies, I think, all of them. So yeah,
• 10:49
  I don't think anyone would be losing sleep if you did a small-scale batch
• 10:52
  production of beneficial mites so let
• 10:56
  me know if you think this is a good idea or a bad idea i've used in the past and think
• 10:59
  it's a brilliant idea and i thought i'd share it with you as well
• 11:01
  all right if you've got any tips as well if you've tried it and
• 11:04
  um you've got any other ways of growing beneficial insects
• 11:08
  and i'd love to know i've tried to grow ladybirds larvae
• 11:13
  in the past using similar methods and lace wings
• 11:17
  and but they're very very difficult anything that
• 11:20
  has a complicated life cycle really difficult anything that
• 11:23
  pupates really difficult mites are
• 11:26
  dead easy because they lay eggs and they hatch into a mite and they just grow
• 11:31
  into a bigger mite they might add an extra pair of legs here now and again but
• 11:35
  they're very very simple compared to something like a ladybird which you only
• 11:39
  have to look at and it dies and i've said before i think ladybirds are rubbish
• 11:43
  as biocontrol agents and if you want to prove me wrong, let me know.
• 11:46
  That's been Hydroponics Daily for today, a brilliant hack for vastly reducing
• 11:51
  your biocontrol and your pest control costs in hydroponics.
• 11:55
  If you found this useful, and if, you know, I think this is a cracking hack,
• 11:59
  please leave a Apple podcast review because it helps the podcast tremendously.
• 12:04
  And if you want more brilliant hacks like this, then you want me to keep going
• 12:07
  with the podcast passed into 2026, then please do leave an Apple podcast review.
• 12:11
  If you're not an Apple podcast, don't bother leaving a review. It doesn't help.
• 12:14
  Just make sure you follow the podcast and check out utreema.co.uk because
• 12:18
  we've got a load of amazing products and most of
• 12:20
  them are completely compatible with beneficial insects and
• 12:23
  applying them or certainly can be applied right before
• 12:27
  you apply beneficial insects and to
• 12:30
  things like lime sulfur we sell which is an
• 12:33
  organic sterilizing agent which can but the
• 12:35
  beauty of it is there's no residual action so it just
• 12:38
  breaks down into plant nutrients and then
• 12:41
  you can apply beneficials the next day whereas most
• 12:44
  fungicides or insecticides you need
• 12:47
  to have like a cooling off period for weeks and weeks and weeks because more
• 12:51
  often than not beneficial mites are more susceptible to insecticides and miticides
• 12:57
  than the actual pest mite so um or pest insect all right that's enough for me
• 13:03
  today hope you like this episode and i'll see you again tomorrow goodbye.