No. Spider mites are just tiny little specks on the underside of the leaves.

Anna,

If Susan sees this, I am sure she can ID it. She's the butterfly (and, hence, milkweed) whiz.

It could be a milkweed aphid or maybe a nymph of a milkweed beetle, but I don't see them on our milkweed here, so I couldn't begin to say if it IS one, only that it could be.

The pest I have that your photo most resembles is the nymph of the Leaf-footed Bug.

Look at the photo of such a nymph in the link. Does yours look like that? If not, wait for Susan to see this and she'll tell you what kind of milkweed pest it is.

A spider mite would literally be as small as the dot over the letter "i" here on this page. They're so little, it is often hard to know if you're looking a spider mites or specks of dirt on the backs of leaves.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful:

Could that picture be one of the first stages of the squash bug? I sent a picture similar to that with a collection of a number of those bugs, and I think someone, possibly you, Dawn, identified them as squash bugs. (I don't even try to remember the stages. bit this was one of the first stages)

Sammy

Dawn--thanks. I guess I've never seen spider mites, but I've seen these red things a lot...and they're solid red, so not really like the Leaf-footed bug. Shoot. Now I'll have to figure out what spider mites are...my problem pest right now is white fly.

Anna

Anna, do you ever grow marigolds? Sometimes when you see them in a nursery before they are pulled, you can see how dried out the leaves are. They are very prone to spider mites, and watering won't help them at all. If you envision that damage on another plant, that is what spider mites do. We have some little magnifying glasses around to use if we want to see the spider mites.

I have heard the greatest complaints about spider mites from people who use pesticides, especially insecticides.

Sammy

Anna,

I plant marigolds every year as a 'trap crop' near my tomatoes and beans to attract spider mites. They usually have mites on them by May if we get really hot weather in May, which we did this year. Once they are just covered in spider mites, but before the mites venture off to other plants, I pull up the marigolds, put them in a plastic bag, seal it shut and dispose of it with the household trash. That's what a trap crop is for....to entice them to gather there on it so they'll leave your other plants alone.

In a cooler, wetter spring/summer I might not have spider mites show up in large numbers until July and usually they just are not a problem. In a year when they show up in May on the marigolds, I know to watch my other plants very closely for them. I don't know if the beneficial insects wipe them out later in the summer, or if I trap enough on the marigolds that I am getting rid of them before the population can skyrocket, but either way, if I have marigolds covered by them in May or early June and I get rid of those marigolds, I generally don't have trouble with them later in the year. I'm not saying they aren't around because they're always around, but just that the population doesn't increase to high numbers and get out of control.

The reason people who use broad-spectrum pesticides have more trouble, in general, with spider mites than people who don't use those pesticides is because they are wiping out the beneficial insects that usually help keep the spider mite populations in check. One of the main predators of spider mites is a predatory mite (Phytoseiulus persimilis is the one they sell commercially, but I think there's a few others in different places) so folks who spray with a miticide may kill the initial round of spider mites, but some always survive. Because beneficial insects bounce back more slowly, the bad spider mite population resurges very strongly before the beneficial mite population does.

I learned long ago from my dad that using carbaryl causes the spider mite population to explode because it kills the beneficials. Now, they've actually done research studies that show that it happens but I learned it from watching my Dad spray with something like Sevin when I was a kid in the 1960s or 1970s and then seeing his spider mite population skyrocket and kill his plants, which wasn't exactly his goal when he sprayed the plants.

I've linked a page from Planet Natural that has lots of good spider mite info on it. I use their pages as references all the time because they are so helpful, but usually I can find the recommended products locally. If I can't, I do order them from PN. I generally don't do anything for mites other than pull and bag my trap crop if needed and spray the undersides of the plant foliage, if needed, with a strong stream of water. I don't like using any pesticide and just won't spray with anything, not even Neem, but lots of folks use it.

I ordered Semaspore from Planet Natural this year for grasshoppers, although it is too early to tell how much using it has helped. I have millions of grasshoppers in the pastures around me, and I'm wishing I'd ordered a 50-lb bag instead of a 1-lb. cannister. Usually the Semaspore or Nolo Bait helps keep hopper populations manageable if I put it out in April or May, but there are so many in the fields it is making me nervous. I haven't seen this many grasshoppers since the early 2000s. Sometimes I can find Nolo Bait locally (with local meaning Denton, Dallas or Fort Worth) but the hatch was so large this year, I figured all the usual places would be sold out, so I just ordered it. If the Semaspore doesn't work, my garden is in trouble because every time you take a step, a dozen hoppers fly up into the air. I'd rather fight spider mites than grasshoppers any day because the hoppers just keep a'coming.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Spider Mite Page at Planet Natural

It's kinda funny in a way. I've never used pesticides except for fire ant mound treatment and the occasional wasp spray. (Although, this year I should have stock in mosquito repellent). I will, however, admit to having used Bayer systemic rose treatment on one of my roses this year. I love it so much I just couldn't bear seeing it die off from black spot.

My guineas keep the bugs down around the house and garden, but the pastures are loaded with grasshoppers. I noticed a hundred or so swallows down at the pond eating bugs yesterday, and we have plenty of bats.

Slug treatment has always been: flashlight, salt, kid under the age of 16. Works pretty well.

I like the idea of trap crops. I've only had one bad time of bugs, and that's with the beetles that attack my cucumbers. Grrr. I spent a lot of time picking those things off.

Dawn, thanks for your reply to this thread and especially the link to Planet Natural, I added it to my favorites right away!

I've linked a page from Planet Natural that has lots of good spider mite info on it. I use their pages as references all the time because they are so helpful, but usually I can find the recommended products locally. If I can't, I do order them from PN. I generally don't do anything for mites other than pull and bag my trap crop if needed and spray the undersides of the plant foliage, if needed, with a strong stream of water. I don't like using any pesticide and just won't spray with anything, not even Neem, but lots of folks use it.

Picked my first 4th of July yesterday,first yellow and zucchini probably by this weekend. My favorites, BetterBoy and Superfantastic are still about 2 weeks off! WooHoo!

Anna,

Every fall somebody (maybe a federal agency, I can't remember) does a grass hopper count and forecasts grasshooper population numbers for the following year. This helps farmers and ranchers plan ahead for spring, and schedule orders of pesticides and ramp up for serious spraying or whatever.

In the western states like Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Nebraska and a few others, the forecast for this year is for a massive grasshopper outbreak. Most of Oklahoma did not have a large outbreak forecast, but I'm seeing a lot of them nevertheless, although the main hatch seemed to hit very late...about late May instead of late March.

The problem with grasshoppers is that if I see a lot of small ones and put out Nolo Bait or Semaspore to control them, it is likely to work just fine and will wipe out most of what I'm seeing. But, with hoppers being migratory, more move in from elsewhere all summer long and often they are in the later instars, so that Nolo Bait and Semaspore are not very effective with them.

I put out Semaspore and within a week was seeing significantly fewer. This week, though, I bet we have more than 2 dozen per square yard, so I need to do something else and do it quick. They are destroying the leaves on my beans, catnip, lemon balm and now have started in on the peppers. I guess I'll make some canning jar traps with alfalfa tea and see how many I catch that way.

J, You're welcome and congrats on the harvest! Spider mites are perplexing critters. For me, a trap crop of marigolds has proven to be very effective. It is interesting to note that the marigolds in the big garden were simply covered with spider mites but there's not a single one in Maddies' Peter Rabbit Garden about 100 feet away. Her garden is new this year, so maybe the mites haven't found it yet.

I also get lots and lots of mites on an ornamental plant--tall verbena (Verbena bonariensis) that I grow to attract beneficial insects. This year, I've moved a lot of the verbena just outside the garden itself instead of having it in the flower border that surrounds the garden. Since the tall verbenas are so appealing to spider mites, maybe they'll lure them away from the garden. The mites generally don't kill the tall verbena, but once the foliage has that whitish stippling all over, I just cut the plant back almost to the ground and it resprouts and puts out new growth like mad. Sometimes the mites find it again and sometimes they don't, but as long as they're on the tall verbena, they're not bothering garden plants as much.

Last week I saw mite damage on a few bean leaves, and just picked off those leaves and disposed of them much as I do when I have bean leaves with bean rust.

I've also been able to reduce the level of spider mites I see by being careful not to put too much nitrogen into my garden in the form of organic matter in the soil or in the form of fertilizer. Nitrogen is good (and necessary) but too much nitrogen turns veggies plants into lures for bugs.

And I never use broad-spectrum pesticides although all the old farmers and old ranchers here insist I 'cannot' garden organically in the midst of our post oak savannah ecosystem. (I ignore them and garden organically anyway!)

If I had spider mites and couldn't get enough beneficials to come here and eat them or couldn't repel them from the plants with massive blasts of water to the undersides of plant foliage, I'd probably use neem on the undersides of leaves, or one of the other solutions found at Planet Natural.

I don't necessarily order a lot from Planet Natural (why pay for shipping if you don't have to?), although I will order from them if I cannot find an equivalent item locally. However, I use their website all the time. Their pages on the various pests are so informative and they always offer several options to either repel or control pests.

I love marigolds and am not crazy about losing them to spider mites, but one flat of marigolds planted from 6-packs in early April serves as a great trap crop for mites and probably helps my garden avoid more severe damage further down the road.

I've never had a huge infestation of spider mites like my dad did, but if that ever happens here, I'll just order the very costly predator mites. They're so expensive, I cannot imagine using them routinely, but for one of those "worst spider mite years ever", they could save the entire garden from damage or plant death.

All my tomatoes are ripening now (but I'm way down south and plant pretty early) so it is about to be salsa time and that's one of my favorite times of the year. With any luck at all, I'll be making salsa once every couple of weeks from now through October.

Today I worked in the garden very early but had to keep coming back inside periodically to cool off. The humidity and heat index are just awful. I guess this afternoon I'll start working on processing the 27 lbs. of plums I picked yesterday. By the time I'm dehydrated and jellied/jammed all the plums, it will be time to pick more plums or tomatoes.

The squash crop is in about its 3rd or 4th week of 'heavy' harvest time, and I've now lost two plants (one zucchini, one yellow crookneck) to squash bugs or borers. I just yank them out and toss them on the compost pile and start seeds of new ones.

Cucumber beetles are a constant problem here. You don't even have to grow cukes to have them because they like practically every other plant a person grows.

This is the worst bug year I've seen here, but I have faith that the beneficials and a few carefully selected organic pesticides will help me keep their levels under control.

Dawn

I hadn't seen one Japanese beetle until today and they are everywhere. I was in my garden and glanced over the fence to a neighbors grapevine and saw dozens. I started to check my own things and they are on the grapevine, the berry plants and even the tomatoes. I have already started my routine of walking around with a jar of soapy water and knocking them in it, but I can't possibly get them all.

I've seen one or two, which is about as many as I ever see at once. The ones I found had drowned in one of the 5-gallon buckets I had set out to catch rain running off the roof of the garage because I knew more rain would fall than my rainbarrel would hold...and it did. The rainbarrel filled up and so did every bucket I set out, so I caught about 150 gallons and could have caught several hundred more gallons if I'd had more buckets.

Anyway, I use the same concoction to trap June bugs, which we have lots of here although usually more in May than June, and Japanese beetles. I drop a few handfuls of alfalfa into a five-gallon bucket partially filled with water. You can use any alfalfa you have....hay, rabbit pellets, etc. I fill the bucket about 2/3's full of water and let the 'alfalfa tea' steep in the sun for a few days. Every morning I skim the dead June bugs or Japanese beetles off the surface. They seem to have a fatal attraction to it. I can use one bucket of alfalfa tea endlessly, although it can get stinky after a while. Or, you can pour it into canning jars and place them around the garden to catch the beetles. You have so many there that it might not catch them all, but it works for me.

Of, if you've got a shop vac or dustbuster, take it out to the garden and vacuum them up.

Dawn,
This could possibly be part of my problem,

"I've also been able to reduce the level of spider mites I see by being careful not to put too much nitrogen into my garden in the form of organic matter in the soil or in the form of fertilizer. Nitrogen is good (and necessary) but too much nitrogen turns veggies plants into lures for bugs."

While I only mix in Osmocote, when transplanting, then usually a dose of MG around July 1, I have been using my grass clippings and shreaded leaves for mulch since I bought my place back in 1981. This is how I've been able to raise the level of the garden up 4-5 inches above the surrounding yard and have such rich loose soil. As far as pesticides, I usually have to give my transplants a drink of Sevin for flea beetles, then Red Spider spray for the mites. I control squash bugs somewhat with DE, and only use Malathion on the pecan trees when the web worms show up. Peggy always plants marigolds in the flower beds and I guess I've just never paid close enough attention to notice red spider on them. Next year I'll plant some in the garden and hopefully they will self sow along with the morning glory tower I planted in there several years ago.

We had another round of thunderstorms Mon. night and that increased our total rainfall to 8 or 9 inches. Yesterday most everything looked OK, even lots of blooms on the Superfantastics, but this morning several plants are droopy and wilted looking from too much water, especially one Homestead plant that had standing water in the bucket the longest. I've planted in buckets for years and that is the only drawback but only when we have a very wet spring. The plus is when watering the rest of the time, I only have to top off the bucket and there is no runoff. I usually only have to water every 3-4 days through the summer except when temps reach over 100.
With as much rain as we had I know I can expect some cracks and catfacing on tomatoes yet to ripen and also expect some blossem-end rot on the ones that set fruit in the next few days. The only things I can tell that have enjoyed so much rain is the yard, elephant ears and the banana trees. Even the impatients are droopy and waterlogged!

Hey, everyone. I'm sorry, Anna, but I can't see the "bug" you're trying to ID, but you say it is red???

Milkweeds are pretty specific in the bugs that are attracted to them, so much so that many of them are commonly referred to as "milkweed bug", "milkweed beetle", and, the ubiquitous orange or yellow milkweed aphid, aka Oleander aphid.

If you could point out to me where the bug is - my eyesight is getting pretty bad - I might be able to ID it. The milkweed bug is very similar in shape, size, and coloration, to the Box Elder bug, but you find them eating the seedpods and flowers of milkweed. The milkweed beetle is like an overblown ladybug, but its color ranges from tannish brown to orange to red, with black spots. They lay clusters of yellow eggs on the back of milkweed leaves. When the eggs hatch, they are at the "nymph" stage and are reddish in color. Milkweed beetles can ravage foliage of milkweed very quickly. I hand pick them and squash them.

Oleander aphids are orange, and will quickly increase in number. While most say they do not really damage the plants, they are unsightly, and eventually create a black mold on stems, leaves, and flowers which, IMHO, impacts the plant health. I usually dispense of many by a hard spray of water, or if I'm patient, often Ladybugs and/or their larvae will swoop in to consume a lot of them.

These three (3) bugs are generally the only pests of milkweed that I find.

I attached a link that has images of many milkweed pests, including the ones I mentioned. I have only encountered the 3 pests that I mention, but I will surely run into others if I continue to grow various milkweed species.

Look particularly at the "Seed Bugs" - "Large Milkweed Beetle", and the "Leaf Bugs" - "Milkweed Leaf Beetle". Further down on the page is a photo of the Milkweed or Oleander Aphids under Hymenopterans.

I forgot to mention another caterpillar specific to milkweed, and that is the Milkweed Tussock Moth, or Milkweed Tiger Moth, found under Arctiidae on the attached link. While I've never seen it called a tiger moth, I get these on my milkweed in some years and not in others. I call them the "fur balls" of milkweed because they are so unique.

Hope this helps.

Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: Texas Insects on Milkweed

That could be nymph of a box elder bug, they don't do much harm though there are TONS where I live...