Betina,

according to irina 's post on 11/14 in your last post. It seems it's ok to propagate from the sucker. However, I 'm not sure if we still have to watch out the new generation of mites if they come back again? It has been a month after I dunked all AV. All AVs look normal right now.

elsa

I still have my centers distorted, but nothing going worse. I am thinking that if you root them in a covered container - they either grow out of it or not. I agree with Aegis - they do not look that bad. The growth points were injected by mite poison...the mites may be gone, but poison is still there.

Now post factum I am thinking that taking the outer leaves off, dunking them in alcohol and rooting them would save us some headache.

Elsa, that's what I understood too. I'm slowly eliminating the weakest plants & hoping to save or grow a few babies

aegis, i am leery about these suckers as the seem to have some deformities. I went ahead & planted a few to see what happens.

I did take a few of the outer leaves & dunked in alcohol. I'm trying every method I can to attempt to save 1 from the violet my Granmie gave me. The others are replaceable if they don't make it

The sucker grow from the center of sky azure also look like deformed. There are 3 leaves on the sucker. One of the leaves is deformed and the edge is very hard. The other 2 leaves look better. There are suckers from the center and also the side of Ian minuet and they look ok. Anyway, I'm rooting the center sucker for sky azure and the side sucker from Ian minuet. Will keep you all posted for my experiment.

Elsa

Betina,

I wonder how is your mite infested sucker look like right now. I am growing a sucker that grew from the center of a infested plant. It is growing slow and still very small. It seems slower than those propagated from leaves.

All the above suckers I replanted didn't take. I don't know how do describe the feeling of the base of the suckers except as "woody" but that isn't accurate. All of these suckers' leaves were deformed & crunchy. So my first batch of suckers went in the trash. I do have a 2nd batch of suckers that have some roots starting to grow. I am terrible at labeling so I'm not sure when I planted them. I treated all of my plants since many had symptoms. I can now tell which plants were affected but I don't know if the successful suckers came from a mite plant. Overall, the forbid killed those mites!! I am weeding out the ugly plants that were obviously affected & focusing on the better ones. I may lose 2-3 varieties, but they are replaceable. I should end up with several of my important violet-- NOID "grammie". LL Spring Cardinal also survived & recovered. The remaining violets are in a grow out phase & I'll prob decide their fate within the next month. I also have babies from 4 leaves I dropped with the initial infestation. They seem to be doing well-- not deformed so hopefully they are free & clear of mites! Sorry to ramble on & on, and I don't really have a definite answer of the success with the mitey suckers. Lol. Here is a pic of my many "grammie" variety in the growing out phase. :)

Betina,

Thanks for the detail update. The leaves of the sucker (from the center of infested plant) is curl downward which is unlike other normal babies. The sucker which grew from the side of the plant is a little better. However, both are growing in snail pace. I think I will dispose them if they do not improve in a month.

I propagated 2 leaves from 2 infested plants, those babies are doing fine and normal.

Are those plant in the picture in 4 inch pots? What size of jar that your are using?

Thanks

Elsa

The jars are 8 oz. quilted jelly jars. The pots are 2 ½ inch from violetshowcase on eBay. They fit perfectly in the jars.

Are the new leaves emerging normal from the infested curling suckers? Or too slow to tell if they are still curling down? I believe the better suckers I have were from the side also, not the center.

The center is quiet crowded. I'm waiting for the new set of leaves to grow bigger in order to determine if it is deformed.

Mine are getting better. Lets say - mites are very poisonous to AVs - you kill the mites - but the area where they were feeding - center - still carries some residual poison. So the center will stay stunted for some time until the plant will grow out of it. I had 2 young plants of the same variety that caught mites. After treatment - one went out of stunt and lokks good - the second just kept growing the distorted center.. - I got tired - and chucked it. The outside leaves were all looking very healthy, so I could start from them.

Having been through trying to grow back violets that were mite damaged, if it happens to me again - Heaven Forbid! [pun intended] - I will take the best leaves, wash them thoroughly, treat them and restart the plants. It is so time consuming to try to grow mite damaged violets back into a decent plant as sometimes the new growth has a hard time making it up through all those deformed leaves at the center - if there is any center left. And if the center was destroyed, the resulting suckers there are not easy to turn into good plants - side suckers maybe, but not the center ones, IME.

And then there's the constant reminder of the episode for the next year or so, every time one looks at those poor deformed plants. And the worry that one has missed a single mite and could have to go through it all over again. No, next time I'd rather cut my losses and start over from scratch...or leaf, as the case may be.

Looking back....I think I'll do it your way when I pick pests next time. You try to do your best... but going to AVSA Convention is DANGEROUS. I picked mites in Raleigh and I picked them in Albuquerque.

I finally discarded the center sucker. I waited for 2 months since I removed from the infested av, the 2 sets of new leaves were stiff and hard. So, I lost my patience.