It is hard to argue with either of these two ladies. They both know their stuff. I don't know if the type of mite, cyclamen or broad would make any difference. I have read that you can enclose a rooting leaf in a plastic bag for many months & the mites would starve. This may work if you have only a few varieties to save. I only know my experiences with mites.

Many years ago, I was struck with cyclamen mite. I treated with Kelthane, which was still legal at the time. The chemical was hard on the plants & one had to treat three times about five days apart. I believe the treatment worked on some, but I eventually threw many out.

Broad mites infected my plants some ten years ago. I think these critters are worse than cyclamen mite because they will often inhabit outer leaves. Mites have to cross the outer leaves to reach the tender center anyway. With broad mites, centers may not always turn grey, but crown leaves will be hard to the touch & the edges generally roll under. Mites are not always detected because these symptoms often look like too much light or fertilizer problems. I fought them for years using various treatments. I took leaves, washing them with hot water & various insect sprays. The mites always came back because they are spiders not insects and only a miticide like Forbid will kill them. After exhausting other methods, I purchased some Forbid off Ebay & treated my entire collection and that took care of them.

Do continue on with your leaves & perhaps place them in individual baggies until the new crowns look clean. Its a long road, I know! Best of luck, Terri

Thanks, Terri. This is a huge amount of work and I am wondering if it is even worth it to do. After the cyclamen mite culling I have leaves from only 5 varieties left that I really want to keep, but if it means fighting an endless war I might just toss them all out and restart again. Insects are the most successful species on earth, aren't they? I started spraying with a mixture of water, neem, and Dr. Bronner's soap yesterday and I noticed the Ness Satin Rose leaf turned a little brown, but it cleared up a little this morning. Hopefully it was just dirt. I kind of have to avoid chemical pesticides because I try to maintain a natural/organic lifestyle as much as possible. If you read the stories of pesticides before EPA regulation, it's really frightening (Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" book convinced me to go organic).

I'm going to keep spraying my homemade neem mix every week and pray for the best. I also did a drench and haven't seen any damage to the leaves so far. If the roots absorb the neem mix without any bad reactions that might drive the mites away if they hate the smell/taste of neem or sterilize them. That would fix everything. Fingers crossed! - Jane

Hey Jane,
if you do decide to get rid of your leaves and want to start over with a fresh clean slate, I could share some plant material. I don't have a huge number of semis or minis (especially now that I got rid of a few varieties recently)—but it would certainly be a way for you to try and experiment with different methods of propagating your leaves. I think you're in the NYC area (I'm in Brooklyn)... so I think it'd be a good way of learning what works best for you without having to worry about spending too much money getting leaves that you might lose.
Anyway, let me know if you're interested.

You can see what some of my plants look like here:
http://jonboyny.wordpress.com

Jimmy

I've battled mites.

That Mites will not survive on rooting leaves is a pretty good bet.

I haven't read anything from an authority which indicates that mites remain inside plant tissues. Nature operates in, typically, consistent ways, and mites are an EXTERNAL plant manifestation, rather than INTERNAL.

Your leaf starts should be fine.

Where collectors have continuing problems after treatment/discarding of mite infested plant material is a result of inconsistency, rather than mites managing to survive inside plant tissues.

When I was battling (Broad) mites, I had over one hundred plants, and I only treated (for awhile) as plants showed symptoms. But that allowed the problem to continue to spread through the collection, as mites had, obviously, spread to plants which weren't showing symptoms yet.

The only way to successfully battle mites is to treat/discard ANY plants which MIGHT have been exposed to mites. It is only when I reached this point of awareness that I began to get a handle on my situation.