Quote:
Originally Posted by PeteMoss
Hi,
So I "accidentally" noticed some moving dust particles on my cavendish. I tried to take some pictures, it was reallllly hard to see but imanaged to get a couple good ones. These look like the two spotted spider mites i believe? I had to zoom in as far as i could on the picture i could and then screen cap that to even recognize these moving dust particles were even some type of bug at all.
Banana Gallery - IMG_8088
Banana Gallery - IMG_8089
I have 4 bananas and ALL of them have them, and I have a few 1 gallon sized washingtonia palms that i haven't noticed the moving dust on, but i did see some webbing on them. I have 40+ washingtonia seedlings that i keep checking a few of and luckily there's no sign of them on the seedlings yet. I've been using a castile soap solution spray up until today i got a spinosad spray and a pyrethrin (spelling?) spray to alternate each week until I get rid of them. I've read a few posts on bananas.org, palmtalk.org, and houzz which is where i got these ideas from.
I also came across the suggestion of Anti-Stress 2000 a few times and ordered form amazon, which is an anti-dessicant and coats the plant in a polymer so it doesn't lose as much water as normal. From the threads I've read this stuff is incredible. keeps the plant form losing water, helps it in all sorts of ways and even allows it to become slightly more cold hardy, etc. The kicker for me was that it apparently kills the spider mites on contact, and the barrier it creates deters them from returning. According to a houzz thread about using it on brugs it lasted for 3 months and no sign of mites anywhere the whole time, AND the plants were much more robust.
The catch, most these threads I read are from 2007,'08, and '09. Has anyone had success with this anti-stress 2000 (aka anti-stress 550) stuff recently?
Are these actually spider mites? The castile soap seems to kill them off for a day, and i see new crawling dust, but without the black spots. I'm assuming these are newly hatched mites as the spots apparently appear as they age.
I also wanted to ask what it is about the outdoors that allegedly prevents spider mites. I've read they're an issue with indoor plants in the winter when its dry. I have no AC and it's summer in the 80's F, so i leave the windows open all day and i imagine as humid inside as it is outside here in Connecticut.
My last question is about using predatory mites (sorry, i wrote more than i thought i would). If I use the predatory mites, will they also be affected by spinosad and my other methods of control? Are predatory mites overkill for a windowsill garden in my apartment?
Thanks all! |
It looks like they've got the dreaded two spotted spider mite.
It sounds like your plants are indoors?
Are they still a managable size that you could bring them to the shower and rinse them?
When I've had indoor infestations in the past what worked best for me was aggresively spraying the plants in the shower, (yay for detachable shower head!) focusing on the leaf undersides+nooks and crannies where they like to hide and lay their eggs. Smaller plants I used the sink.
I did this every other evening for as long as it took( a couple of weeks or so), and this included inspecting the leaves and immediatly wiping away anything circumspect that showed up.
The eggs take about a week to hatch, and some will be in the soil, so even if you get rid of the adults and eggs on the leaves, be prepared for wave 2! The trick is to get rid of them before those ones can lay eggs...or there will be wave 3...and 4..and... yeah they're a major pain the A_ _ to get rid of.
If you want to be extra thorough, you're gonna have to wipe off all the surfaces your plants have been hanging out on.
As far as being outdoors prevents them? I have found it to be the opposite!
My indoor plants have ONLY gotten infested back when i was less careful...Brought in plants for the winter that had them *from outside*--
Or when I would buy from stores and didn't know to check. (I'm looking at YOU Wal-Mart. )
The reason it "seems" they show up indoors is outside they are are better controlled by natural predators, rain, the hose. Sometimes they simply wander off to different plants far away.
Indoors there is none of this, so they multiply and spread like wildfire.
..... And it's usually not until the infestation is very bad that they get noticed.
Good luck to you!