Spider Mites?

[pins&needles13]

I go into my greenhouse and I find my Frailea grahliana with what looks like mite damage. If this is mites could anyone recommend a good miticide?

F.grahliana

DSC_0378.JPG (80.46 KiB) Viewed 1232 times

F.grahliana

DSC_0379.JPG (75.52 KiB) Viewed 1232 times

[iann]

It does look like mite damage, but really you should look for the mites themselves. No point spraying if they're gone, and not helpful if the problem is actually something else. Look for tiny specks on the shady side of the stem. A magnifier is really needed.

[pins&needles13]

I looked it over and I saw red dots a little bigger than the end of a needle moving around.

[pins&needles13]

I have a systemic insecticide. Would that kill red spider mites?

[iann]

I have a systemic insecticide. Would that kill red spider mites?

Does it says "mites" on the label? If not then it probably won't kill them.

If your pinpricks are red then they probably aren't eating your cactus. Pest mites are not brightly coloured, about the shade of a terracotta pot at most, with a translucent appearance.

[greenknight]

Yes, mites that are visibly red and are moving around are likely predatory mites that are feeding on the pest mites - http://www.eduwebs.org/bugs/predatory_mites.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; .

[pins&needles13]

I don't think that they are predatory mites. The damage appeared in a week from last Sunday. I 'm pretty sure it's spider mites.

[iann]

I don't think that they are predatory mites. The damage appeared in a week from last Sunday. I 'm pretty sure it's spider mites.

Mites don't work that fast. I can virtually guarantee you that these plants don't have spider mites. They *might* have flat mites, or might have had them in the past, but they didn't do this damage in a week unless the plants are absolutely covered. You may have noticed it as the plants expanded after taking on water, or it might have appeared more slowly and you just spotted it. In any case, the advice remains the same: identify a pest before you start randomly spraying stuff about. Spraying plants that don't have pests, or spraying with the wrong chemical for the pest that is present, will do more harm than good.

So get a magnifier, or a camera with a good macro mode, and find out what the red specks are, and who knows maybe what else is lurking around the base of your plant.