I have them bad. Since it will be time to take them in for the winter soon. I thought I would try to kill the mites using the hot water treatments.
I plan to cut them off at ground level, remove all leaves and put them in our bathtub with hot water for 20 minutes. When do I have to repeat this or will it kill the eggs too.
Also, I have some seedlings that have the mites too. Can they be treated using the hot water method too?
Please advise.
Broad Mite Question
I couldn't find any info on the eggs, but if a second dunking has to be made, I would say 7 days from the first dunking since that's the number of days between re-spraying if you used a pesticide.
I'm not sure what would happen to the seedlings. You could try it on one of the seedlings to see what happens.
The hot water bath will kill all stages of the mites. The planting pot/container has to be dunked also in order to kill hidden mites, eggs, larvaes and nymphs.
MMMMM Broad mitesarea bit of a mystery to me... in dealing with them.. Ihavethem it would seem onsome plants... but after spraying ahoast of [ mystery one ]
a plant touching this one...is seemingly compleatly free of them after a year together... [mystery two ]
on the one that might be effected...they don't seem to effect the health.. or flowering .. or energy it has ... [ mystery three..]
now I'm going by the plant having crikled leaves...so maybe it is a nutritional thing... but all are fed the same.. and treated much the same in other ways.. perhaps something in the soil in that particular pot.. asall the pots are amix of stuff.. currently put in andfrom decades past perhaps.. but te ones planted out in the ground in my local park are the same... one has it.. and the adjacent ones don't..
well none of these will be over wintered... and we'll see if I've already passed it to others with out it showing up...
I'm thinking I'd get a microscope to do some closer study on these pests.. 100x power should show these babies up.. and icouldspraythemandwatch them... this might not help the research any... but would make me feel better ...
OH.. how hot is the hot water dunk for the pot and stems.. and for how long should they stay under water
Thanks
This message was edited Oct 1, 2009 8:12 AM
Gordon,
I really believe the crinkled leaves signify a nutritional problem rather than broadmites. Remember I posted a thread about 3 of my Brugs. I would have sworn they had broadmites. Not only were the leaves crinkled, but thickened and distorted. I checked the leaves thoroughly and couldn't find any pests. Avid didn't seem to have any effect. I don't get broadmites generally. I think I'm the only Brug owner for tens of miles all around and several miles from the nearest neighbor with a garden of any sort. I gave mine a shot of epsom salts, Super Thrive and a complete fertilizer. They eventurally came out of it. If it happens again this fall, I'm going to replace the soil completely on those that are affected.