With multiple losses, you need to check with neighbors up wind to see if they have a rose in their (often back) yards that hasn't bloomed lately. Somewhere nearby is a source for the mites. Your spring last year might have been drier than other years; that seems to encourage the mites to spread and in the southeast it happend in spring and fall, when temperatures are 70-ish to low 80s. The problem with coming up with a miticide that kills one specific species of eriophyid mite is that studies have shown that a miticide that works on one species may not be at all effective on another mite in the same genus. To the best of my knowledge, Bayer isn't looking at effectiveness against any eriophyids.

I had a problem with spider mites when I was growing my baby cuttings inside on a window, but the moment I planted them outside, the mites were gone. When I had them inside, I would take them to the sink every day and spray them the leaves with water, and that seemed to get rid of them. Maybe you could hose them down every morning. I've also heard that preying mantis were good for eliminating spider mites. Also, are you positive that it's mites? Maude

Khalid wrote in another thread: "Then I stopped spraying even any organic matter. I gave more calcium to my roses which made the soft branches and leaves harder thus making it relatively unattractive for the pests. This reduced the affected bushes / leaves to a good extent." Agree with Khalid, folks in rainy climate lime their soil, either in late fall or early spring, depending on how many inches of rain they get. Rain is acidic at pH 5.6, as the pH drops, less calcium and potassium are available. The best lime to use is Espoma Garden Lime (sold at Walmart for $10 per 5 lb.). It has 20% calcium and 10% magnesium ... both are essential in keeping leaves thick so pests cannot invade. From the above chart, around pH 5.6 (rain water), less molybdenum, less magnesium, less calcium are available. Next nutrients that are less: phosphorus, potassium, and nitrogen. I already posted in Organic Rose my experiment that I did with 2 identical Thai basil: I lowered the pH of one with acidic cracked corn (pH 4), plus gypsum (17% sulfur) .. that Thai basil' leaves became pale, plus THINNER due to less calcium and magnesium available. Then I saw blackspots on a Thai basil for the 1st time !! The other basil I planted in my alkaline clay (pH near 8), and it's twice taller plus really thick & glossy leaves (more available nitrogen, potassium, sulfur, calcium, and magnesium). But leaves were just a bit pale due to less iron at high pH, so I gave it blood meal, has chelated iron, and leaves became dark green. I once planted a bok-choy vegetable next to my patio with a limestone base, so the soil is very alkaline, pH 8. The leaves were dark-green, but its so tough that I boiled it for one hour, and it's STILL so fibrous that my teeth can't handle, let alone some tiny pests like aphids, rose slugs, or midge. Rose slugs (sawfly larvae) are very rare in my alkaline clay, unless I lower the pH with my experiments: Put acidic cracked corn (pH 4) in potting soil, and roses got rose-slugs from THINNER LEAVES in acidic rain (calcium, magnesium, and potassium drops when pH drops). Mirandy rose got a big-fat rose-slug on it for the 1st time. Why? It's next to a tree, and the tree robs the soil of calcium, magnesium, and potassium. Plus tree roots secret acid, so the soil became even more acidic with rain (pH of rain is 5.6). Used molasses, plus vinegar, plus sulfate of potash (21% sulfur), plus gypsum (17% sulfur) ... such acidic solution made leaves thinner, plus the stinky molasses really attract sawfly which give birth to rose-slugs. CONCLUSION: The best solution for pests is to raise soil pH by using dolomitic lime such as Espoma Garden lime (20% calcium and 10% magnesium). My soil is dolomitic clay, so I don't have midge, rose-slugs (sawfly larvae), nor aphids, unless I use acidic fertilizer. When there's tons of acidic rain, I throw pea-gravel on top of roses that like it alkaline, pea-gravel has many alkaline minerals to make leaves thick, glossy, and to prevent pests.

The big book on Eriophyid Mites has no straight answers in it. One of the depressing parts is testing of miticides on specific species of the many different genera of eriophyids. There is a figure that summarizes %kill of a specific miticide applied to a specific mite....and none were 100% effective. Further, one of Henry's last week links mentioned an accession time of one hour for the mite to spread the virus to a rose. This is work done at Arkansas and is quality in the testing for presence/absence of the RRv. So.....for a miticide to work, it would have to work fast, in under an hour. BUT, the miticides that are systemic don't translocate all that fast within a plant...much less in a rose. Information on translocation times are hard to come by and I haven't seen speed touted by any sellers of miticides. And a mite is more likely to go to succulent new growth. One Positive: the mites' populations are not high year round. Two population studies done in Iowa and southern Indiana show massive population surges in early fall. When I talked to the guys at Arkasas, we agreed that in warmer climates, there is probably an early summer surge as well. Hopefully some of the work being done now will expand on this. Ann