Ruud Kleinpaste: Mighty mites and garden pains

The tiniest critters can be the biggest pain in the you-know-what when it comes to your body and your garden. The mere fact that they are sooo small does not help to discover them in time.   That kind of goes for most of the members of the Order ACARI – a huge range of critters such as Bird mites, Follicle mites (we all have them in our eyelashes), chiggers, scabies mites, ticks and —of course— plant mites.   A week or two ago I discovered the very first Acari on Julie’s Frangipani bush in the glasshouse. Just a few innocent little acari, known as two-spotted spider mites with the elegant scientific name of Tetranychus urticae.   Literally a couple of days ago I discovered this:   Massive “spider webs” made from the smallest and softest silk on the planet. All strands very close together, keeping the inhabitants safe from whatever may be mite predators.  Spider mites are often a real pain in the warmer areas of the garden – especially the glasshouse, tunnel house, and very sheltered areas with warm sunlight. Their trouble-making is very simple: damage the tiny cells on leaves by rasping, and remove the moisture inside those plant cells.    That leaves the cells without their contents, and they simply dry out.   The most important stuff they grab is the green chlorophyll that’s inside those cells; those cells will be filled with air, thereby becoming bleached, light yellow and grey.   Spider mites use the massive silken constructions as easy runways to get from leaf to leaf and partner to partner.  Their numbers increase rapidly, and the damage follows…   Once you have had a close look at the leaves, the silk and the runways, you’ll find the little scrapers: 4 pairs of legs, a few dots on their body, and some movement.   Once you spot them it pays to have a go at controlling these vast colonies before they really cause severe damage.  Organic control can be achieved via Yates’ fatty acid spray (NatraSoap). That stuff works on tiny critters with a sensitive skin. An alternative: Neem Oil or Conqueror Oil.   Repeat sprays are recommended to catch the tiny babies after they come out of their eggs.   Biological Control is another way to reduce the population.  Phytoseiulus persimilis is available from BioForce Ltd, who sells the product Mite-E™. It’s a parasitic mite that eats the eggs of the spider mites and even the juveniles and adults of that pest.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.