when you say.. you never recall SEEING so many spider mites... i begin to wonder if they are spider mites.. as they usually cant be seen ... short of the sheet of paper test ...

before we go off an a mite tangent.. are you positive on the ID????

ken

I see the tiny moving red dots on the underside of leaves. But mainly I see their effects, the faded, stippled look on the leaves.

When my tomatoes get mites I use a "water wand" turned upside down with a spray nozzle on it and spray water upward from the underside of the plants, washing most of them off. Since they reproduce about every 4 days, I try to spray water again that often. After doing that three times or so you can rest for a week or two before having to repeat...mostly work, no chemicals.

Not familiar with the water-wand... How strong is it? I am concerned it would damage more delicate type leaves such as beans or squash leaves. But it sounds promising.

Where in the United States are you and what has your weather been like?
Spider Mites are seldom a real problem unless the weather is quite hot and dry. The single most bestest way to control Spider Mites is through environmental control, increasing the humidity and lowering the temperature around the plants. Spraying pesticides will also kill off the predators of Spider Mites therefore making the problem even worse.

Here is a link that might be useful: About Spider Mites

Im in North Texas. It hasn't been unusually hot for this time of year. Its been in the low to mid 80s this week but it was in the 70s last week. But it has been pretty dry. I've began spraying my plants with water the past few days, lets see if that helps. But I was really surprised to see them in April, because it had been in the 60s and 70s mostly at the end of April.

I don't remember where I got the name water wand - maybe that is the name another company calls it. This is a Dramm brand "36" Handi-Reach Handle." Often used to water hanging baskets. Makes it easy to spray upward from the base of a plant. You don't have to beat up the foliage to wash mites off, I use a fairly coarse stream of water.

Spider mites - like many of their namesakes - produce webs. Do you see any very fine webs? (Put your reading glasses on.)

Dennis

FWIW, I had several small infestations of spider mites in GA and had some success controlling them with a commercial insecticidal soap.

Please post pictures to help verify the underlying problem.

Spider mites aren't red during the growing season. Other kinds of non-plant damaging mites are.

Further, webs are a very late sign of mites, usually the day prior to leaf drop.

OK I'll do that this weekend. The reason I believe they are spidermites is because they are damaging the leaves. I can definitely see the stippled/faded look on the leaves where they are sucking them dry.

Ok, here is a picture of the bean plant's leaves. As you can see, they look sickly and yellow-spotted. In every case, when I turn over the affected leaves, they have these very tiny little red bugs, that I can barely see. But I can see they are moving.

Here is what the underside of the leaf looks like. Sorry it could not focus real well but if you look you can see the small red dots.

Now what you see is today. I've been spraying the plants with water every day. I've been treating with soapy water about twice a week. So it it helping control them. They were much worse a few weeks ago.

This post was edited by ccabal on Sat, May 24, 14 at 22:54