Ruud Kleinpaste: Mighty mites and garden pains

The tiniest critters can be the biggest pain in the you-know-what when it comes to your body and your garden. The mere fact that they are sooo small does not help to discover them in time.  

That kind of goes for most of the members of the Order ACARI – a huge range of critters such as Bird mites, Follicle mites (we all have them in our eyelashes), chiggers, scabies mites, ticks and —of course— plant mites.  

A week or two ago I discovered the very first Acari on Julie’s Frangipani bush in the glasshouse. Just a few innocent little acari, known as two-spotted spider mites with the elegant scientific name of Tetranychus urticae.  

Literally a couple of days ago I discovered this:  

Massive “spider webs” made from the smallest and softest silk on the planet. All strands very close together, keeping the inhabitants safe from whatever may be mite predators. 

Spider mites are often a real pain in the warmer areas of the garden – especially the glasshouse, tunnel house, and very sheltered areas with warm sunlight. Their trouble-making is very simple: damage the tiny cells on leaves by rasping, and remove the moisture inside those plant cells.   

That leaves the cells without their contents, and they simply dry out.  

The most important stuff they grab is the green chlorophyll that’s inside those cells; those cells will be filled with air, thereby becoming bleached, light yellow and grey.  

Spider mites use the massive silken constructions as easy runways to get from leaf to leaf and partner to partner. 

Their numbers increase rapidly, and the damage follows…  

Once you have had a close look at the leaves, the silk and the runways, you’ll find the little scrapers: 4 pairs of legs, a few dots on their body, and some movement.  

Once you spot them it pays to have a go at controlling these vast colonies before they really cause severe damage. 

Organic control can be achieved via Yates’ fatty acid spray (NatraSoap). That stuff works on tiny critters with a sensitive skin. An alternative: Neem Oil or Conqueror Oil.  

Repeat sprays are recommended to catch the tiny babies after they come out of their eggs.  

Biological Control is another way to reduce the population. 

Phytoseiulus persimilis is available from BioForce Ltd, who sells the product Mite-E™. It’s a parasitic mite that eats the eggs of the spider mites and even the juveniles and adults of that pest.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame podcast
from News Talks'd Be.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Climb passes our man in the garden this morning, counter Root.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Thank you Jack. I just want to take on about
your first child being born at the time when you're busy.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Oh yes, yeah, because my son.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Here in New Zealand was born in nineteen eighty seven
on the afternoon after I did an interview, my very
first interview on news Talks There'd Be with a guy
called Layton Smith. Wow.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Is that right?

Speaker 3 (00:39):
That was before he became one of those nonsense haters
of climate change. Anyway, it was hilarious. So I left
the studio, went to the hospital and there was Tristan
Wow being born. Yeah, so that you can fit it in, yeah,
put it that way.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah, well, yes, no, yeah, I trust me as much
as I love my work that that will be the
priority whenever it does happen. So the phone is very nice.
Notifications are on at the moment, and my wife can
be sure that I won't be screening her calls anytime soon.
So that's good.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
It's just so exciting.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well, anyway, we're turning our attention from here Lice and
Knit's two mites in the garden to mighty mites in
the garden this morning. We're really doing our very best
to make sure that no one is listening to the show.

Speaker 4 (01:28):
I will always get hessels from people, say, what did
you talk about follicorn mice for? Why did you write
that every person has eye lashes.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
With follicle mices?

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Oh yeah, it's really.

Speaker 4 (01:39):
I do this trick with kids. They love it though, anyway.
But the mic group is is. But this is the
point that my group is a really weird group. And
we've got in this case, spider mite. So I discovered
them a couple of weeks ago and I had a strayed.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Them this time. They are absolutely because it's warm and dry.
These are the pest you've got to be careful with
in glasshouses and tunnel houses, but also outside in your garden,
beans and things like that. And in our caseion frengy parny.

Speaker 4 (02:06):
So yeah, what does it look like, Well, it's all
in the stuff online. But I'll tell you what.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
If it looks like an incredibly dense website with the
tiniest millions of creatures walking through that website, it's probably
those spotted spider mites. So what do you do?

Speaker 4 (02:25):
Yeah, well, there's not what you can do apart from
basically spraying depends on what you've got the things on.
If it's something like tomatoes, or if it's something like edibles,
you can't use any made nasty chemicals, of course, But
what you can use is mean oil, and that's what
I would recommend. Other side of the leaves, top side

(02:49):
of the leaves, left and right side of the leaves,
the actual web itself.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
And if you do that two, three, four times five
days apart, you can get on top of it. I
just thought i'd mentioned it.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, very good, Okay, thank you. You'll be pleased to
know that I think our garden has set an all
time record for the number of passion vine hoppers and
fluffy buns. I just, I mean, just while we're speaking
of insect control. Oh my goodness, ye unbelievable the summer, Rude, unbelievable,
how many I've got? So maybe I can hit you

(03:23):
up again about that sometime soon. I know you've always
got tips on trying to control them. Thank you very much, sir.
Rude climb past in the garden and photos of those
incredible intricate webs are up on the news, talks, HE'DB
website so for everything from our show, newstalkshedb, dot co,
dot mzed forward slash Jack.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to Newstalks dB from nine am Saturday, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio