They're only Cylamen Mites.

Hello all, I had planned for ages to sit down and spend time writing about this. Installments may be the way, we'll see.
This is going to be hasty. And dry.

Worst damage, 100% mite related:

I observed tight crowns on some violets. I acquired violets from a place or two and did not quarentine properly.
Don't worry, this story ends nicely and Bertram finally marries Helen.
I repotted these and they started to recover. Others didn't. During this whole story, I was too busy outdoors or being in a another state to pay close attention. I read and read and between drying out too much, salt buildup from coir (in some mixes) and buildup from fertilizer salt, I could not pinpoint the problem that was beginning to show up more and more. Retrospect- some plants were sufferening the odd soil problems. And something else...

Meanwhile, I had done a simple plant phytotoxicity test on a Noid to see if Acephate (Ortho systemic) was damaging to violets. Nope.

I talked to some folks at the Missouri BG Home gardening research center and they were certain it was mites. Gery of "Pat's Pets" in Missouri said something wise- spray for bugs to narrow down and troubleshoot. Brilliant man.
I learned more about soil needs.
I started some leaves in fresh, plain MG potting mix and had happy pups. No problem. This confiused the mite diagnosis in my head. But then they slowed down. The kicker was when one of my (originally healthy and vibrant) AVs from Jill (Critterologist) started to act wrong. Yep. Had to be mites.
For the record, I am completely certain that Jill was not the source of mites. Symptoms that I now know were 100% mite-related showed up before her plants arrived)

A few weeks ago, I started the endevour. Oh boy. I carried all of the silly fuzzball plants each Friday (day off) to the patio, and wearing latex gloves with Acephate hand-spray, set about covering every square inch of every plant. Every week. I thas been several sprayings and certain plants proved to me that it was mites. Pictures are coming on this.

Last Saturday night- no, Saturday from 3pm to 1am, I sprayed and repotted every African Violet I have into a 1:2 Perlite: Miracle Grow potting mix. I couldn’t get a better one than MG standard, but knew it would work. My aversion to perlite is a silly different story.

Picture: Potting day on the patio. That is a seat that looks remarkably like a bag of MG mix. All of my AVs and some other gessies, and Cyclamen. All of those outdoors plants had been taking the rest of my time.

I hope all of this helps someone avert their own disaster.

Anyhow: Non-AVs. I know for a fact that Columnara can get them. In fact, it is possible that the Columnara 'Sundowner' cutting I received was the vecotr of my Cyclamen mites. Oh, guessing from the name, (really observant fellow I am) I treated my Cyclamen too. They are seedlings I grew.
Streptocarpella saxorum and Sinningia tubiformis seemed never to exhibit signs of damage and grew normally. But they get treated, too.

I will continute to spray for a few more weeks, perhaps differently with any information I get from you fine folks on this thread.

I guess I'm not doing installments. Now is the time, I reckon.

After a spraying. First new decent leaves.

By the way, I spray every surface. Under leaves, every bit of crown and stem. The middle rosette gets doused.
Further improving, a week after the above photo.

This is fascinating. Horrifying, but great science. The rosette on teh left is so damaged, it stopped growin entirely, and the plant sent out a new, uninfested (slightly, actually, look at the downturned spoon-shape and more pointed tip.) rosette from the side. All of the badly infested ones are doing this.
Note leaf shape.

More later.
Kenton J.

Hi Kenton,

Wow!!! What a tragic story.....thank you so much for posting all the photos as well. God I hope and pray I never get them.

Joanne

Oh, Kenton, so sorry to hear about the mite thing. Very digusting! I hope you were successful in eliminating ALL the varmints and now your plants can grow back healthy for you. Keep a close watch on them though. Good investment is a strong magnifier or 30X loupe.

Any new plant I receive gets isolated and inspected roots and all with my lighted magnifier. I keep them far away from my collection.

A while back I had a bad experience with plants ordered from Selective Gardener. Everyone was raving about their new one called 'Annabelle'. I ordered two plants and both were completely infested with soil mealy bugs. There were white sticky masses between the petioles and the rootball looked like white confetti. Both plants hit the trash like greased lightening!!! All my plant collection was downstairs in my plant room and I opened the box upstairs in my kitchen. I must have washed my hands a dozen times and didn't go downstairs for a couple of days. Stuff like that makes me paranoid

I sincerely hope all will turn out well for you. Beautiful potting area I must say. Very nice patio and from what I can see surrounded by lovely plantings.

Thank you for sharing your experience....

Snow

Exactly. Now I'm gong back to candle-flaming my tools between plants.

it could have been worse. I've read of folks who tossed evreybody. I've also read that only "Avid" works.

Here go more pictures.

'Bluetail Fly' with moderate infestation.

A bunch with bad infestations. Babies, Semi minis and trailers seemed more prone.

Notes on the leaf shape in IDing the pest: Sometimes turned-down, spoon-like. They are a bit more pointed. VERY brittle to the touch, snap of with a slight touch. Sometimes completely hairless, (like picture) A few liek wasps are more hairy than usual. Leaves are ultimately stunted and the plant ceases growing at all.
After Things starting changing, I became rather good at Identifying the damage...

Picture from a month ago. I removed the leaves off of these and they are growing normal leaves now from side-rosettes, since the main rosettes are done.

Another interesting picture. A wasp type. The newer, more reddish leaves are not (or less?) infested. The greener-veined ones exhibit signs. Note the slight curl to the leaf on the right.

My main aim here, at the expense of nobody ever wanting to trade with me again, (!) is to provide pictures of the damage for those who don't know. In research, I found it hard to really find useful pictures that were definately the mite and not similar to husbandry problems.

With 'Traveling' Man' here, I assume that the mites are wither dead or supressed on the stunted and "frozen" old leaves, adn the new rosette is normal.
A very good picture for it.

The collection last month getting a spray-down.
This was truly labour-intensive.

After two or three weeks of treatment, it was funny how the first thing that some plants did was to bloom and say "thank you" if you want to look at it that way.

Now they are looking much better under nice warm lights upstairs. These are a lot of babies and mother leaves.
I am definately not discouraged now. At one time I had come to terms with destroying everything, but didn't get around to it!

This is very heartening.

This is VERY heartening! What a job! Good you documented this whole process which took a lot of effort. Your pictures and story would be valuable to submit to the AVSA magazine for an article.

Thank you so much, Kenton.

Snow

Now the questions for you newbies, experts and speculators:
Leaves that were damaged will persist. Thus, their existence does not betray bugs, scientifically. I shall remove leaves (as the plants grow) that even remotely look infested, and new leaves will grow to healthy normalcy. This does not prove that the mites do not exist in the material, merely that they are not damaging the plants to a noticable degree.

1. How shall I know that they are all dead, and that a discontinuance of acephate treament will not allow a reinfestation?

2. When or how will it be safe to share plants/leaves? I will absolutely not share anyting until I know quite scientifically that I harbour not a single cyclamen mite. Which, as I describe above, is complicated.

3. Does anyone know if the mite can survive away from the host plant, and if so, how long? I have gobs of seedlings and such under lights with the AVs with soil that have never been treated.

I am toying with the idea that: After all leaves with any signs of mite are long gone, and I've sprayed them three weeks running with no signs still, I will leave a single plant untreated (one that was more susceptable to it). Feedback please on this, anything is welcome.

Also, I will start the practice of quarentining non-AV plant material (except for seeds) that come into my growing area.

Thanks for reading all of this, I think it is important. If we can learn to recognise this beast, peopel and plants could benefit. Thanks for the suggestion for a loupe, I do have some high-magnifying power at my disposal. I will still look, although the more ostensible beasts are probably dead.

I want to note that I only discarded one plant in this whole ordeal. I thought it was not worth the trouble- undesirable noid anyhow. The rest of the collection, the entire thing, is alive and growing now. Thank the Lord my little pots full of winter sanity are alive!

Whew. My fingers hurt.
Kenton

Wow, great save!!

Needless to say, I was very relieved to hear that you didn't think my plants were the Typhoid Mary culprits!

I've had a few "suspect" plants, but with changes in lighting and water (switched to filtered water to avoid chlorine and cut back on fertilizer), they seem to be growing more normally again. A couple did lose their center crowns and have started suckering. I will continue to isolate these (including the suckers) until I'm sure they're all right.

We have had some outside (non-damaging) bugs find their way indoors this spring and summer, and that makes me think that there's a chance mites could have found their way inside, although I've seen no evidence of them. I do have a bottle of Avid, and I'm thinking all my plantlets will get a precautionary spray soon. I know there's a chance of some foliage damage, but I figure that's better than taking a risk of sending uncouth hitchhikers in my fall trade boxes.

And remember -- isolation of new plants is key!

Those pictures of quick new healthy growth on the treated plants are indeed heartening! YAY!!

Thanks
And No, I'm totally certain yours were not vectors. Gee whiz, Jill... ( I have picture proof two months before yours came) Every photo I have is dated.
Where've ya been? Or is that a topic I've missed in another thread?
K

Sorry, that's just one of my chief fears about trading, that somehow I'll send somebody a very unwanted pest despite all precautions!

I was up in Pittsburgh over the weekend. My brother and family joined us at my parents' home to help celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary! We had a great visit together, and I got in a lot of quality "Aunt Jill time" too!

Today I've been having a bit of trouble with migraines again, but still managing to get some harvesting/processing done. The migraines are unfortunately to be expected, but at least they're in a good cause... We're doing an IVF frozen embryo transfer on September 5, and I've started the meds for the cycle, hence the headaches. But we're very excited and hopeful about the transfer! If anyone is interested in details, there's a thread over in the prayer forum about our efforts to start our family....

So, that's where I've been, LOL.

If anyone does *not* want their apparantly healthy plantlets or leaf pots treated with Avid before I send them out, PLMK so I can put them to the side when I treat. I'll probably dunk them in the solution and then dab excess moisture from their crowns, as I think that will be quicker than trying to spray very thoroughly. (Again, I don't have any reason to think my AVs have mites, but with other insects that have found their way indoors this summer I don't want to take chances.)

http://www.steverd.com/violets/mites.htm

I googled cyclamen mites and have read up a little more on this topic. Many outdoor plants can harbor this pest.

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/ent/notes/O&T/flowers/note28/note28.html

Suggestions for your questions:

1) LOOK with 20-30X Magnification. They hate light and will scurry to get away and go under.

2) Wait to share until all new growth is clean and clear and all old junky leaves have been removed. Might have them inspected by County Extension to certify pest free. Also, keep looking yourself.

3) Constant awareness of cross contamination.

4) ISOLATE any new or suspicious plants.


All the best, Kenton! I wish you every success.

Snow

Jill,

I know you are aware but just to be sure, PLEASE BE CAREFUL with pesticides especially if you are planning to get pregnant. If you do decide to use them, use every precaution or ask your doctor first.

Sorry if I sound like a mother hen but just want you to be safe.

Snow

Thanks graciously, Snow. The links were useful (on the ohter host plants). All this time, I've written "cyclamen" mite when one of those above sources (I had read that) sound like Broad mite.
It's-a-bug-and-I-don't-like-it is the exact spieces as I'm concerned.
K

Indeed, Snow!
With any luck, Jill will relate to mother-hen syndrome.

LOL, indeed I relate.

I'm figuring on using mask and gloves, and I think dunking them will allow more control than spraying them. If I do go ahead with the Avid, I will do so in the next couple of weeks, before our Sept. 5 frozen embryo transfer date. You can be sure I will take no risk with those precious snow babies, or "babycicles" as some have referred to them.

You're right -- Avid is a serious pesticide, and not something to fool around with lightly.

Right, Kenton!
I don't think it makes much if any difference one way or the other. Would probably require an entomologist to Dx for sure. I did see where one of the articles said if broad mite, leaves will curl under. But remember reading others where it said cyclamen mite would cause leaf curl under as well. In any case both distort and deform the crown and would require the same treatment. Hopefully they are gone!!!

Snow

Jill,
I knew you would but just had to say it. I hope all goes well for you and that everything will work out for the best.

I pray you have Babycicle success!

Tah, I wrote "Cylamen" as the thread title. Cylamen? What is that?
I'll keep it "posted."

Your amzing Kenton Wonderful work !

Hey Kenton,
Sorry about your mites but I did enjoy your article. You're a very entertaining writer. I've been 'around that block' myself. I had read so much about mites and had been to meetings where that was the lesson that I was certain I would have them at some point. When the centers tightened up on a few plants I immediately pulled and started spraying. Thankfully, before I destroyed my whole collection, I read an article on Superthrive and the damage of long term use. Turns out, as soon as I cut out the Superthrive, my plants recovered. I'm glad you're having good results, you seem determined to beat the little critter.
Susan

This is going to be a very long reply so anyone not interested in cyclamen mites, please disregard...

I too had cyclamen mites this summer. I have actually had them a lot longer than that and coudn't figure out what was going on. One or two plants at a time would have grey centers and the flowers would be stunted. I couldn't see anything and would throw the plants out. At the same time, I would put down a new leaf or two. Quite often, the babies would show similar symptoms and I would throw them out.

I thought I might have root rot because I wick water and the pots seemed too heavy. No way could I have those dreaded mites because I am so careful to segregate everything new coming in and I keep the shelves very clean. They get cloraxed every couple of months which might have kept the mites down to a dull roar! I also use Marathon in the soil and Physan 20 in the wicking containers. Mites are not affected by either of those.

I added a lot more perlite to my mix and I was still occasionally throwing out the odd plant or two. Then when we had the hot spell this summer, many plants were showing the same symptoms at the same time! I immediately called our UW plant pathologist and asked if I could bring a couple of plants down for him to look at. I had the dreaded MITE big time! I did learn that if you cut off the center of the plant, the mites will leave and the rest of the plant will be good. Where the mites go, I have no idea. They only live for a couple of days. Just long enough to lay eggs.

I began the three week program of spraying the plants with Avid, including the couple that I had cut centers out of. No small task to say the least! Heavy duty rubber gloves, long sleeves and jeans, heavy duty mask. All in 95+ degree weather and very high humidty. I also have a rare balance disorder which wasn't happy with all this extra work.

I carried 300+ plants out to the garage as well as 150-200 leaf pots once a week and gave them a thorough dose of Avid - centers, soil, under the leaves. In that three weeks, I probably threw out 75 - 100 plants and leafpots that I didn't like the looks of. Hopefully, I have been mite-free for the past 5 weeks. I haven't had plants this good looking in a long time. You spray over three weeks because those mites lay eggs in short order which can hatch and lay more eggs.

Hopefully, I will never have cyclamen mites again!! If I ever do, I am tossing everything and starting over! I will NEVER go thru that spraying process again. I thought I was neat and clean before. Now I am paranoid about it. When I put leaves down, they get soaked for a few minutes in a pint of water with a couple of drops of clorax added. I only work on one shelf of plants so as not to spread anything. And the center of each plant gets checked carefully to see that no damage is happening. I am getting very psychotic about this!

The good thing about all of this is that my shelves are beautiful. The plants are not on top of each other. They are all disbudded right now. We have our state show and sale in two months and everything will be in bloom by then. I'll put pictures on the board at that time.

Nancy

Thanks so much for that Nancy. You and I sit (and have sat) in the same boat. We will both be pycho-paranoid together!

Do you have pictures? If not, did the plants look anything like the ones I posted? So you prayed three separate times at one week intervals?

And where is the best (cheapest, I'm a student and need to buy a load of painting supplies soon) source for Avid?
Kenton

Kenton, cheapest source is to Dmail me if you don't want to buy a big bottle of it. I bought an 8 oz. bottle last spring for about $100, which is probably 6 or 7 oz more than I need, LOL.

I'm thinking that with the advice here and Kenton's excellent before & after photos, this may be another good thread to link into our "sticky."

:-)

Kenton -
Critter is the cheapest source for Avid. I was fortunate that one of our club members already had it. Look at your message again! I "prayed" as well as sprayed three weeks in a row.

Sorry I don't have pictures. The centers of my plants were a bit grayer than yours and the leaves did not turn down. That looks like broad mites to me but I am not an expert. Either way, they are extremely damaging. After cutting or pinching out the centers of a couple of plants, I did not get new growth. Those plants are still sitting on a windowsill and it has been 4 months since I pinched them.

The entomologist told me that cyclamen mites are very slow movers and that you can't see them unless using a microscope. He even found some "good" mites on the plants that had cyclamen mites and they moved very quickly. Don't know where they came from either or what they were after.

Nancy - who is growing very healthy plants right now and hopes to win a few ribbons in October!

Good luck on that, will do Critter.

Here is a picture of episcia Pink Panther just to show you that my plants are helathy again. I have about 10 episcia varieties, 50 different streps, and another 12 types of minature sinningia. All had to be sprayed also. I did notice mite damage to a couple of episcia and threw them.
Nancy

A lot of places are only selling Avid by the quart, which makes it even more of a big deal to acquire. If anyone finds themselves in need of some, PLMK. I figure I can put a teaspoon of Avid (enough to make 4 gallons of solution) in a plastic eyedrop bottle and pop it into a BE for about $3. So that puts it in the realm of trading for seeds or cuttings -- much better than having to buy it on your own. :-)

Hi Nancy,

Your Pink Panther is gorgeous! I love Episcia's and Sinningia's too! Some of my favorite plants.

TFS!

Joanne

Joanne -
I really love the sinns too! I just started collecting them this year. It is very difficult to find a source for the more unusual ones.
Nancy

Hi Nancy,

I have purchased some seed off of ebay but haven't started them yet so hope they will still be okay.

Joanne