This spider sort of things has attacked all my plants and seedlings. All of them are in clay pots on my terrace and the temps has gone 90F here. they are all in shade though. there is also some black spots on the leaves as well. can someone help me what is this and how can i get rid of them ? moving to sun or shade will help? here are the pics:
If you flip the leaves over, do you see really tiny brownish or reddish dots on the underside? If so it's spider mites. If you've got a bad infestation of them you can sometimes see webbing. But if you don't see the dots on the underside, then the webbing is probably from spiders and spiders don't eat plants (in fact they may be helping you out eating the things that are eating the plants). If it is spider mites, the first thing I would do is give all the plants a good bath, making sure to clean off the undersides of the leaves as much as possible. Then once they've had the bath, get an insecticide that lists spider mites (neem and insecticidal soap are two things that I use that kill them, but there are plenty of others too) and treat the plant with that, again making sure to get the undersides of the leaves. You'll most likely need to repeat this treatment a few times over the next couple weeks to make sure they're really gone and won't come back.
I can't see any black spots in your picture so I can't help you on what those might be--maybe something fungal, but it's impossible to say without seeing them. If it is fungal and if the plant can handle more sun than it's in now, giving it more sun might help but make sure you adjust it gradually to the higher sun levels or else it can get sunburned. Being careful when you water so that you don't splash water back up onto the leaves can help control fungal issues too.
Well! From the picture--i would say you have a seriously infested plant with Spider Mites.
The black spots may be their excetions that drip on the leaves and turn sooty.
ALL sucking insects will do this--as plant juices contain a lot of "sugar" which the bugs cannot digest--so they excrete the rest. It is sticky (sweet) and you will see them on all the lower leaves below the infested ones.
Also--Spiser Mites tend to favor dry and distressed plants. make sure you water regularly and provide good humidity. Mist with a water bottle if needed.....
A total bath in some water with a few drops of dish soap in it will clean them up. May need to repeat a couple of times.....You can put a plastic bag around the pot to hold the soil in and dunk the WHOLE plant in the water/soap solution. Rinse well afterward.
Gita
