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The Dreaded Red Spider Mite

I shall now type something that just goes to show, you may stop lots of stuff with great ventilation, but dryness encourages OTHER beasties. I planted a peach to train as a fan on my southern end of the GH last year. Good old thompson & morgan firstly sent me one with very few laterals on the bottom 2 foot of the plant, after I moaned, they refunded me, but I still planted and am attempting to slowly bend the branches down.

Now last year, I grew loads of toms, took a while to ripen but the GH was packed. The peach developed quite a nasty outbreak of red spider, no other plants affected thankfully. This leads me to believe T&M provided me a plant already infested, as if it had come through the ventilation it would have been hitting toms first. I kept spraying the peach with misted water several times a day, then used some form of bug killer after the toms had finished, I then used a pest candle end of the year, then after cleaning the gh this year used another candle. This morning I found webbing on the growing tips, it's back. Just ordered Phytosieulus persimilis, and a follow up for 2 weeks later, hoping this will clear it up.

I ordered from ladybirdplantcare. Quite reasonable for 2 seperate deliveries 2 weeks apart, £23.90. I shall post updates on here if I remember. I really want rid of RSM, makes me paranoid about everything in my greenhouse at the minute. I've cleared all leaves dropped, and all my other plants are up the other end, misting a few times a day with a hand sprayer til my phytos arrive. Anyone think of anything else I can do to slow them down or help contain the outbreak?

Thanks in advance

Posts

  • BrummieBenBrummieBen Posts: 460

    Okay they are here, Right the fatty acid spray seems to have slowed the spidermite down. I'm now going to clear all the bad leaves, then prune to the fan shape (roughly!) Then I'm introducing these guys:

    http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2814/9032309171_68a9d482e3_z.jpg



    20130613_153121_1 by BrummieBen, on Flickr

     

    http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7282/9034535226_1f51c2abac_z.jpg



    20130613_153111 by BrummieBen, on Flickr

    We'll see how they do. They told me if you see webbing the mites are going to out breed so whack them with the fatty acids, leave a week then introduce the goodies.

    I'll try to keep this thread updated. I've also been told that once the leaves are damaged, that's it, best to trim them off, the way to tell if the predators are working is to see the infestation not getting any worse. I have a follow up batch for 2 -3 weeks time. So we'll see.

  • BrummieBenBrummieBen Posts: 460

    Yeah I've reduced the leaves by about 70% just down to the new shoots growing, cut everything out that won't be needed for my fan shape. Going to start feeding with general liquid feed to the roots once a week. Just hope I'm not too late, I wasn't hoping for fruit this year as I wanted the tree to fill out and get the basic shape sorted. Oh well, as my dad would say, 'it's got two chances' !

  • BrummieBenBrummieBen Posts: 460
    Verdun wrote (see)

    At last a gardener with patience to train his tree properly and be prepared to wait for the fruit to come once the tree is ready to,provide it.

    Just makes sense to sort the shape firstly, in the longterm it'll mean better fruit, healthy tree and probably much better harvests year on year.

  • BrummieBenBrummieBen Posts: 460

    Patience is the key, Lord knows how many times I've said that under my breath!! Esp last few days when this lovely gusting wind has seen fit to flatten and break sunflowers and dahlias grrrr. They are just under a foot so would have put support in next few days.. Always the way, anyways, I have to devise a better way of distributing the critters, like most bugs they want to go up, the pee tube they give you is next to useless. I'm thinking along the lines of making some paper pyramids or cones that touch the leaves of the plant. Have a type of gutter around base so they rush up and onto leaves at base of plant. Trying to sprinkle on the plant was a real pain tbh, sure some paper option is the way ahead.

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