The last picture pretty well confirms that you probably have BROAD MITE.

Here are the symptoms of BROAD MITE.
1. Broad mite causes puckering, crinkling and curling of the leaves. They damage both foliage and flowers of AVs.

2. These pests may be found on the undersides of leaves as well as in young foliage in the center and may be present in flower buds.

3. Leaves that become affected become bronze in color. They may thicken, become brittle and appear deformed as they emerge.

4. Broad mite occasionally kills the growing center leaves. Their feeding causes deformed buds and new leaves.

5. Leaves infected by broad mite TURN DOWN while leaves infected by Cyclamen mite TURN UP.

Natural control is to lower infested plants into water held at 111 degrees F for 15 minutes.

Chemical control: Three treatments spaced five to seven days apart are necessary.

It is possible and quite common to have both cyclamen and broad mite at the same time.

Spray or dip the plants with any of these chemicals. Use one chemical for the first and last treatment, use a second chemical as the middle treatment. (This is to prevent mites from getting used to the chemicals and learning to avoid it.)

Dicofol (Kelthane) Affects flowers, harsh on plants
Bifenthrin (Talstar)
Avid (Abamectin
Pylon (chlorfenapyr)

If you have a small collection I suggest you throw away any affected plant and wash shelves very carefully.

The price of these chemicals can be expensive but you can get some at smaller quantity and smaller price from Cape Cod Violetry or from www.goosegardens.com

Fighting mites takes a long time.

To make very sure you have mites, take a few plants into a university horticultural station.

Nancy

I am having the same trouble. Mine look just like yours. So if you get help I will also. Thanks for asking this.
phil

Thank you, Nancy, for the advice. Perhaps for me it would be less costly to...throw away the affected plants. But how about the AV in the second picture?
Phil, I hope you can cure yours.

Ha Xuan

In the second picture you see very hairy leaves and leaves that are turning down.

This MIGHT be a case of root rot with the leaves turning down. But because of the excessive hairiness, I would say this plant has been attacked also by Broad mite. It is just not as advanced as the other plant. You can wait to see if the center will react as the other plant but Broad mite feeds on other parts of the plant as well as the center whereas Cyclamen mite feeds more often only in the center.

More than likely this plant has Broad mite as well. And as you say because of the high cost of treating and destroying these mites, it would probably be cheaper just to buy new plants.

Nancy

Nancy -

What would you recommend - if Xuan throws away the sick plants - is it possible to take leaves, desinfect the leaves somehow - and restart the plants?

Like soak in a Clorax solution 1:3 for 15 minutes - or 120F water - and hope the leaves will not cook? Or both?

Regards

Irina

Cyclamen and Broad mite are inside leaf tissue. Any leaf taken from an infected plant will care the insects. Leaf may root and produce babies, but the babies would soon start showing the symptoms of mite infestation.

The only way you could try to save a leaf is to take one that LOOKS healthy and give it a bath in any of the miticides mentioned above. It MIGHT kill the insects inside the leaves. But if it leaves just one egg that develops, the infection would be started all over again.

Only a miticide can kill mites.
Nancy

Hi I am also having trouble with broad mites.I was wondering if dipping in water at 111 for 15 minutes how would you be able to maintain this temperature?

Thanks

Dave

I think it was overwatered too. I recently overwatered a violet (in a ceramic pot...imagine that) It's the only one in a ceramic pot since the pots suck. If it has that mite thing...I think I may have that problem on one of my violets. which means i probably have it on all of them since i have the all bunched together. Great. i'll post pictures of the one i think may have a problem.

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g281/Lark_Pash/violets/100_1673.jpg

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g281/Lark_Pash/violets/100_1676.jpg

Those 2 images are of the same plant. Maybe it explains why it was a 75 percent off violet at lowes. I've known lowes to be bas about selling sick plants to people. like the dogwoods last weekend had the dogwood anthrax...and they were selling them!
I've had this violet for a good 2 or 3 months now. Does this mean my others have the bug if it has the broad mite? It's been near my others between moving and it was sitting with the others above my desk...leaves touching and all. My other plants are healthy and fine...

africanvioletlvr, if you copy the 'Tag' of your picture and paste it in your message you can load the picture right into your message. I FINALLY figured out how to do it, hope this helps! And good luck with your plants, I'm watching this post. Thanks! Christy

oh, I know how to get them on here, but I thought the picture may be a little too big for here. But, I'll see...

Here are the same images in the previous posts.
{{gwi:375986}}

{{gwi:375987}}

Just a follow up:

I tried the whole 111 degree water thing. This is a warning for those who do it: You are going to lose half the plant. I learned the hardway, but at the same time I had to do this to my violets (not just the one showing broad mite signs) I used to rotate my violets around and stuff so I know all of my large violets have been in close proximatey to the infected plant. The plants all survived the water "scalding." I think the water was more like 113 rather than 111. If I had left them in there for 15 minutes...eek. They would all be dead. I just let the hot water run over their leaves a few seconds each and stuff. So far, only my bad rescue Lowe's violet is showing broad mite signs. I have another with leaves shaped weird so I went ahead and have it in a quarantine location like the infected plant. I don't think it has mites though because it has always had a little crinkle to it's leaves. Pray for my violets! Eek!

I really do not want to start my collection over. I have some special violets I've had for 2 years now. Then again, if I have to I know where to get the same kinds again and I can get away with going violet happy without my mom complaining. Walmart currently has some really cute violets! :)

Question!!! How long does it take for a violet to show signs of broad mite? I've had my icky one for a good 3 months now. It looked the way it does when I got it, but I was unaware of violet diseases and such.