cht@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU (Chester Liu) (05/08/86)
Distress!!!
There are many (100's?) tiny (<1mm) spiders crawling all over
my houseplants. Whenever I apply a chemical spray, the majority
die on the plant that I spray it on, but others soon grow and
migrate to replace their dead comrades. Am I witnessing abiogenesis?
The spiders either eat, suck, and/or poison the leaves. After a
while, the leaves become spotted, turn dry, and eventually die.
The spiders are brownish.
Please recommend a solution (organic, chemical, etc.) that
is safe for indoors. Help me stop this epidemic of epic
proportions!
Chester Liu
...ihnp4!mit-eddie!cht
jcp@osiris.UUCP (Jody Patilla) (05/09/86)
> There are many (100's?) tiny (<1mm) spiders crawling all over > my houseplants. Whenever I apply a chemical spray, the majority > die on the plant that I spray it on, but others soon grow and > migrate to replace their dead comrades. Am I witnessing abiogenesis? > The spiders either eat, suck, and/or poison the leaves. After a > while, the leaves become spotted, turn dry, and eventually die. > The spiders are brownish. Sounds like you, buckeroo, have spider mites, the scourge of the indoor gardener. There are several things you can do. One, mites are encouraged by dry conditions, so increase the humidity around your plants (set them in bowls of stones with water) and mist them frequently. Second, wash tehm daily in the kitchen sink and use your sprayer attachment if you have it - the force of the water blows the mites off down the drain. You have to get down into the crevices of the plant to get everything. Finally, get some Safer's Insecticidal Soap. It's perfectly safe and it works well. -- jcpatilla ..{seismo,allegra}!umcp-cs!aplcen!osiris!jcp "There is no way to peace; peace is the way."
grass@uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU (05/13/86)
<> >There are many (100's?) tiny (<1mm) spiders crawling all over >my houseplants. Whenever I apply a chemical spray, the majority These little critters are "spider mites", and they are a MAJOR houseplant problem. If you have just one or two plants affected, I'd suggest you isolate them from all your other plants, and then maybe you can keep the mites from spreading. If it were me, and only a few plants were affected, I would get rid of the infected plants. I've had to resort to this for a few plants that had white fly. It saved my other plants and got rid of the flies. Spider mites reproduce very quickly. Your spray may kill most of the adults, but not the eggs. That means as soon as you've killed a batch of adults, there are eggs just about ready to hatch a new batch. You have described very well how they kill plants. Any book on houseplants will give suggestions on how to deal with these. It ain't easy. - Judy Grass, University of Illinois - Urbana {ihnp4,pur-ee,convex}!uiucdcs!grass grass%uiuc.arpa