uhoh, SPIDER MITES! what is your fave miticide?
 

Hi All,

Bad news! I have just discovered my first spider mite infestation! They are tiny, smear easily, and have infected at least two of my mini-cattleyas.

So, time to get some info - what are your current favorite miticides? The only thing I have in the house right now is physan20 but I don't think that will work against it. Any ideas what I should buy? I'm happy to go the chemical route, just let me know what I should be getting to deal with them...

Thanks!!!

It is essentially impossible to eradicate spider mites from a collection. You can only control them. They are native to Eurasia. They are naturalized outdoors in most of the US. They will return to your collection eventually.

Because of this I do not use highly toxic pesticides; less toxic controls exist.

Spraying all surfaces of all plants with either 70% alcohol, or dish soap solution (1 teaspoon/5ml in 1 quart/liter of water) works well to control them. These do not kill eggs so spraying must be repeated 3-4 times at intervals shorter than their generation time - perhaps every 4-5 days.

Just spraying the plants with water from a spray bottle works equally well, but people just will not believe this.

i use neem oil and it knocks them down quickly. repeat every couple of weeks for 3 or 4 rounds of treatment and you should see dramatic reduction in their numbers. Regularly wetting your plants, as ES mentioned above, will inhibit their numbers as they thrive in hot, dry conditions.

Fascinating, since I have been fearing that I'm keeping them too cold/wet currently! I'm in Boston, we turned on the steam heat about a month ago, but then I immediately got the humidifiers going and they are all on humidity trays and my trackers on the shelves say that it is generally 60-70F and humidity 50-60%! I guess things have dipped a few times too dry (into the 40s) which is maybe why I'm seeing them more now. I'll get more aggressive with the water spraying and add in some soap/oil (I mist nearly daily). Thanks!

Maybe you can take a look at pest control using entomopathogenic fungi.

They're parasitic fungi that kill insects, and since the spores stay in the media, their effect is long lasting.

Here several products are available, they're considered organic and environmentally safe; not sure what the US regulation is.