Spider mites and my findings (long)

patrick620 · Post by **patrick620** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 5:25 am

I wanted to share some of what I've learned thus far about spider mites and their control or, ideally, their eradication. First off, I will tell you what I've used to deal with them. I mist my plants two or three times a day (now) and have constant air movement, via fans. I have used insecticidal soap, Kelthane, malathion, alcohol/dishsoap, diazinon, mixtures of all, attempted drownings by submersion, amputation, quarantine, plant disposal, rap music, (maybe if I played the movie "Grease" over and over) and nearly a flame thrower. Needless to say, all of my efforts towards complete eradication have fell short. I have researched but never used Neem oil and I also have been looking at Bayer 3 in 1 http://yardlover.indigofiles.com/316244.pdf I have seen those high dollar miticides on ebay and other sites but cant afford that stuff. It occured to me that considering that spider mites are not insects but members of the arachnid family, along with spiders and ticks, http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7405.html that there may be other options to control them. First I thought about RID, which is used for head lice on humans. I started researching product labels and MSDS's for all of the high dollar miticides http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/MG001 http://www.cdms.net/LabelsMsds/LMDefaul ... nuf=18&t=2
and discovered the active ingredient in Floramite e.g. is in a class of chemicals call carbomates. Let me back up a bit......A few days ago I got to digging around in the shed and found some old bottles of various brands of pet flea and tick shampoo. Bottom line is that the active ingredients in these shampoo's contain insecticides (Pyrethrins) along with several other coumpounds, one of them being in the group of carbomates. Hence flea AND tick control. I'm hopeful that I may have some positive results with with these pet soaps. If anyone has anything to contribute to this, please jump on in. I'll take all the help I can get. I will post more on this as the results become clear. Happy New Year to everyone.

Patrick

lucky1 · Post by **lucky1** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 7:38 pm

Patrick, pet flea and tick shampoo! Great idea!

My house is full of palms, and is now a haven for fungus gnats.
Not many have been caught on those yellow sticky papers.
Another poster has mealy bugs on his palms.

I'll put the flea and tick shampoo in my misting bottle!
Even if I don't kill the fungus gnats, it'll likely work on spider mites, if there are any.
Thanks for the tip!

Let us know your results.
Barb

oppalm · Post by **oppalm** » Mon Jan 05, 2009 7:32 am

nice research. I hope that helps. Please let us know the results of your experiment.

I don't have time for research I am too busy eating cookies and cakes and left over gravy from the holidays.

lucky1 · Post by **lucky1** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 11:28 am

Husband thought fungus gnats were fruit flies, so he threw out all the fruit

I hadn't given it enough time ... these sticky things do work!
Safer's "Sticky Stiks"

Barb

oppalm · Post by **oppalm** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 7:13 pm

Patrick any updates on your experiment here.? By the way, I know where you can buy some MH lights cheap.

patrick620 · Post by **patrick620** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 7:37 pm

Well, here's how it went.... The spray made the plants smell like "wet dog" for one thing. That faded away after a couple of days. My bananas didnt like the spray at all. It put brown spots on the leaves. The plumeria liked it even less. It ruined the leaves on it. At that point I stripped all of the leaves off of the plumeria and continued to watch the banans for mites. I didnt see any but the plant didnt look too good. A couple of days after that, I noticed a large infestation of mites on my large banana upstars all by itself, no other plants around it. At that point I considered all of the tomatos and peppers I will be starting indoors in a month or so and remembered how the last time I did it, they got infested with mites so I decided to trash every plant that had the mites. Soooo, I never got to really wait it out and see if the spray took care of them. I would say it helped, but I just didnt want to risk a continued problem so I did what I knew would work and that was complete removal of the infected plants. I guess you could say that the mites won the battle. On a better note(crosses fingers) I havent seen any more of them. I check every day on my palms and other house plants. They dont bother my cacti and succulents at all. Hopefully I wont see anymore of them.

Cheap MH lights, huh? I have one 400W MH at pressent. How cheap and where are they? PM me if you want to.

Patrick

oppalm · Post by **oppalm** » Sun Jan 25, 2009 9:13 am

very sorry about the cheap attempt at humor. I was making reference to your previous post listing the HPS lights on craigslist. typed it incorectly. thats what I get for trying to be too cute. Please accept my apologies and I will refrain from any more attempts at humor for the next 15 minutes.

patrick620 · Post by **patrick620** » Sun Jan 25, 2009 6:00 pm

I guess it went over my head, Kent. I love a good bit of humor, so always feel free

But, yes, I thought you were serious about the lights. I always seem to be on the lookout for high powered lights, stereo equipment, etc. whether I need them or not. I thought about posting some pics, in the off topic area, of all the vintage audio equipment I've accumulated as of late. Take care, neighbor.

PalmsNorth.com

Spider mites and my findings (long)

Spider mites and my findings (long)

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