Friday 20 November 2015

Problem Area - Plant Pests ... Two Spotted Mite!

Good Morning!
Welcome to my next post related to Problem Areas. Currently I am focusing on Pests!
What exactly is a Plant Pest? 
A Plant Pest gains it's nutritional requirements from the host plant it feeds upon. 
There are various ways which it can gain it's sustenance but broadly speaking it either eats or sucks a plant's sap.
It's a good idea to take note of a pests life cycle as they are more vulnerable at certain stages.

TWO SPOTTED MITE
The Two Spotted Mite is also most commonly known as the Glasshouse Red Spider Mite and is a rather common pest. They are mostly found is Glasshouses / Greenhouses and can be quite a troublesome pest to plants under cover. This is a pest that I personally had a problem with earlier in the year.

Photo from RHS.

A LITTLE BIOLOGY 
The life cycle of a Two Spotted Mite depends on the temperature and can be between 3 - 30 days. The females lay the eggs on the underside of leaves which then hatch into 6 legged larvae. The females can become adults in as little as 36 hours and lay 4 - 8 eggs a day! Their colouring is most commonly red but they can also be a straw / green colour, the red colouring appears when they are starved. The mites can over winter on plants and in the cracks / walls of Greenhouses. 

SYMPTOMS
As the photograph above shows one of the easiest ways to spot them is by their webs. The webs are formed when there is a large amount of the mites.
Damage to foliage on plants is also an indicator of the mites presence as they suck the sap from plants.  Yellow speckled foliage which then leads to shrivelling and death of the leaf is common sign that the mites are present.

Photo from Google.

CONTROL
If like me you like to garden Organically there are a few things you can do -
* Maintaining good plant hygiene by removing any affected foliage straight away
* Keeping Greenhouse structures clean

There is also Chemical control available.

I hope you have found this interesting and helpful if any of you come across this particular pest!
HAPPY GROWING!
XXX

2 comments:

  1. Who'd think that something so small could cause so much trouble?!
    Plants will have had a bit of a shock today as it was snowing earlier this evening and there they were thinking it was still Autumn?! Hugs, Lisa x

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    1. We've had some snow flurries too and 56mph winds last night! Walking to work at 6am wasn't much fun lol The cooler temperatures will help kill off some of these pesky pests! xxx

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