mite problems... still. please help!

13 years ago

i now have three pots of my pepper plants (14/55 current survivors) in quarantine with mites. i used my jeweler's loupe because i thought that it was odd that these 2-spotted spider mites were nowhere near the actual plants, just on the soil. and i noticed that they don't really have the spots, it's more like, well, dirt or something on only a few of them.

the quarantined pots all share the same look to them. the dirt in the soil is mostly gone, the plants are obviously suffering with curling leaves, mottled spots and yellowing, with bronzing and what-not, and the mites leave only what looks like a wooden mulch behind. when i tried to catch a bunch for further inspection with my loupe, they dig into the wooden bits, which is where i assume they hide and lay eggs and such. no webbing whatsoever, no eggs, and not a single bug or egg or anything on the plants themselves. the roots though, when i sterilize to re-pot, are obviously damaged. these little buggers are a translucent white, and about 0.5mm long at best.

so far i've done tobacco juice, tobacco leaves sprinkled on the soil, 1:1 alcohol/h2o spritzes, NEEM, 1/4 cup bleach per gallon of water sterilizations for the plants, while using the same concentrations for the pots only doing those in hot water (and then of course doing a full rinse in plain water as well), sterilizing my soil in the microwave in batches ever since i got the batch that was infested with these critters to begin with (NEVER BUY MIRACLE GRO ORGANIC POTTING SOIL!) and nothing, i mean NOTHING, seems to make these buggers FULLY disappear.

every time i think they're gone for good, finally, they come back and start spreading again like plague. we bought some diatomaceous earth for an ant problem we have, but i'm not sure if that would help.

please guys, oh please oh please, please help us, and our chili babies!

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Comments (10)

gardendawgie
13 years ago
I think nothing will get rid of mites. You might try not growing for enough of years and then hope they are all dead and start over with sterile soil. mites are really impossible to get rid of.
User
13 years ago
They are very tough to eliminate. Like you, I tried several things but nothing really worked. When I stopped over wintering plants and started fresh in spring I was able to avoid them. A local nursery had a problem with them and bought something that cost several hundred dollars a gallon.

john
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Spider mites can kill plants. If you doubt it, just come and look at all my neighbors and our tomato plants (this year and last). All are almost totally defoliated now by the little @#(&!!. Spraying plants with forceful jets of water every day for days/weeks may work for a minor infestation (and I've used it for that myself), but if they have arrived en masse and have attacked several plants you will need to do more then spritz them with water (where they can fall to the ground and climb right back up again). And unlike our cooler cousins up north, in our looong hot summer climate spider mites have time to reproduce like rabbits, hatching every 3 days until a freeze. They are a force of nature, and whether you spray insecticides or not (and I normally never do), spider mites arrive every year in my garden in spring. A Godsend to me was the introduction of AVID in the 80's. It's active ingredient, Abamectin is a naturally occuring soil microorganism, and as such it's effectivness is limited to only certain " bad bugs", such as mites. There are 5 things that you need to be aware of when using AVID. (1) It works, (2)It is translaminar, which means that it penetrates the leaf surface and is inside the leaf was well as on the outside, (3)You are to use it only when you have an infestation, never as a preventative. Mites will build up a tolerance to it if over used making it useless. That btw, is a guarantee. (If you get past #4 here, then you should ask about the spray schedule)(4)It is expensive but (5) It works.
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The leaves curling down sounds like plain old overfertilization burning to me. The leaves curling up with yellowing and dark spots sounds like overwatering to me. how much fertilizer is in the soil and what is its pH
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The Forbid label had all sorts of warnings about human toxicity through inhalation, direct skin contact, etc. Birds are extremely sensitive to airborne particles and chemical fumes, even those that don't bother humans (fumes from teflon-coated nonstick pans, for example, can kill birds in a matter of minutes), and in general, it's pretty safe to assume that anything in the air that's harmful to humans will be more harmful to them. I didn't think it was worth the risk, even in a different room. Plus I'd have to worry about getting the overspray on my floor/wall/etc. What I did do is made about a half gallon of Forbid and, with my gloved fingers holding the soil/plant in the pot, dunked each of my plants (I have ~30, so not as many as a lot of people) upside down and swished them around for a few seconds. Saran wrap probably would have helped, but unfortunately I didn't think of it or see your comment in time, but just using my fingers worked relatively well. I did have one plant fall out of the pot and entirely into the miticide, but I fished it out quickly, and after letting it dry out overnight, I repotted it with apparently no harm done. Garbage bags covered with a layer of paper towels worked well to set the plants on while they all dried overnight in my bathroom, with the vent on to get rid of fumes. The miticide got a little dirty by the last few plants, due to some loose soil falling in, but I don't think it impacted its function any. I do need to figure out how to dispose of the leftover, though. However, that would have been a problem even if I had chosen to spray it, since I wasn't sure how much I needed, and it's not stable once mixed up, so I couldn't have saved it to reuse. I currently have it sealed in a cleaned milk jug while I figure out how to responsibly dispose of it. Thank you all for your help and advice while I figured this out! Hopefully this will be the last of the nasty mites!
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sarcazm
Original Author
13 years ago
this is not making me feel any better.

i just added a light dusting of DE to the quarantined pots, just in case.

here's hoping.

i refuse to lose our entire pepper crop that we have worked so hard on together because of a stupid bag of soil. i'll waterboard the damn plants if i have to, or sterilize them in the bleach solution again and make my own soil out of non-soil until this whole mite issue has blown over.

otherwise i'm fogging the room.

especially since now it looks like we have the smallest buds forming on the tallest plants, where flowers are about to bloom.

i shall overcome!
greenman28 NorCal 7b/8a
13 years ago
Yes, make your own soil!

One part organic (bark), and two parts inorganic (grit - pumice, perlite, Turface, gravel).

To sterilize the bark component (I use screened "Orchid Bark"), you can pour boiling
water into a bag of bark and seal it up. Or you can put the bark in a black bag, add
a bit of moisture, seal it, and leave it in the sun for a few weeks.

Josh
addaboy
13 years ago
A recipe for a home remedy to get rid of aphids
1 cup vegetable or white mineral oil
2 cups water
2 teaspoons dish soap (without bleach) or MurphyÃ¯Â¿Â½s soap
Spray this homemade aphid control mixture on the aphids every few days until the aphids recede. This home remedy to get rid of aphids will suffocate the aphids. Make sure that plants that are treated with this solution are kept out of direct sunlight as the oil may magnify the sunlight and burn the plants.
( I got this off the internet I used a little less oil,,,But it worked great I only had to do it once and I had a bad infestation. If you can wash all aphids & mites off first with water, be sure and do under leaves cause this is where most are going to be..I did afterwards use a lite dusting.The sun didn't seem to hurt using a little less oil.I actually used just a couple tablespoons in mine).
redtailforester
13 years ago
I spotted this when I was narrowing down suspects on a Holly in my front yard.

http://www.getridofthings.com/get-rid-of-spider-mites.htm
sarcazm
Original Author
13 years ago
thanks addaboy, but i don't have aphids, i have soil mites.

and redtail, i read that site. i've done everything this guy said so far, among other things. like, quarantines, the neem, the alcohol...

except miticides, because we do want to HARVEST these peppers one day, you know? and i'm not sure if you can use a miticide that would actually work and kill the buggers FOR GOOD without making your pepper crop inedible.

the only thing i am really pretty strictly opposed to is adding predator mites. i mean, yes, in theory it sounds wonderful. i even read scientific articles about them, and their life cycles, etc. but i have OCD. i garden strictly indoors in sterilized pots with sterile soil wearing latex gloves. ADDING bugs? i think that's outside my realm of psychologically okay.

do you know of a miticide that's super strong but won't harm potential peppers?
oregonwoodsmoke
13 years ago
Ivermectin will kill any sort of mites, but I don't know if anybody has a version to put onto plants. Maybe contact the company and ask?

It's made to kill worms and mites on cattle, livestock, and dogs.

I have no idea what the withdrawal period would be if you sprayed it on plants, but it is made to feed to animals, and they give it orally to people, too.

Maybe if you sprayed it on your peppers and ate the peppers, it would clear out any worms you might have?
redtailforester
13 years ago
If you look at the link I sent you, you will see something for predatory mites. Basically, introducing a beneficial insect to biologically control another. I've really been trying to avoid the "spray and pray" method with insecticides. Just a suggestion...
sarcazm
Original Author
13 years ago
oregonwoodsmoke, you crack me up.

i'm going to look into that.

has anyone every used this or anything similar?

http://www.amazon.com/Doktor-Doom-KnockOut-spray-16/dp/B002JU1QEI/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

mite problems... still. please help!

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mite problems... still. please help!

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