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Re: Spider Mites

I'm with the other two good folks who voted for aphids
rather than spider mites.

There are at least two species of aphids that attack
English ivy including one called, conveniently, the
IVY APHID (Aphis hederae).  

The Ivy Aphid is dark purplish black or olive green or
brownish black and it atacks the tender growing tips
of the plant.

Aphid life cycles can be complicated but to simplify
it, I would say that from egg to adult, it takes 3-4
weeks.  On indoor plants (where there is no
"weather"), there is overlap of "broods" and in many
cases there aren't even any eggs -- the critters are
live-bearing.

Because of the overlap in visible adults to
non-visible eggs or tiniest young, it's difficult --
IMPOSSIBLE? -- to control the little monsters with a
single application of anything.  I've found that what
works best on these kinds of things (including real
spiders mites and scale and mealybug and other aphid
relatives) is to make several applications (maybe 4-5)
every 3-4 days apart.

By the way, true spider mites ("red spiders") are VERY
small (barely visible unless you collect a few adults
on a piece of white paper and you see them moving; the
average length of a female is 0.42mm!) and do lay
eggs.  Eggs hatch in about 3 days from being layed and
the young mature in 10-12 days and adults live 2-3
weeks during the summer.  Indoors, these numbers would
change for the worse (for you).  

Although the commonest species of spider mite does,
indeed, cause "webbing", not all "spider" mites do
that.  They all, however, do cause stippling,
spotting, etc. on foliage, flowers, and fruits.

Joe
--- Suzanne Pierot <suzanne@hvi.net> wrote:
> I am doing an article about spider mites (on ivy)
> and urgently need some
> help.  A reader has little black thingamajigs no
> bigger than a grain of
> cracked pepper that cluster on the tips of the 
> stems of the new growth.
> Could these be the eggs of spider mites? Although
> she washes her plant every
> other day in cold water, these little black things
> come back. There is no
> webbing underneath the leaves as you would expect to
> see from mites and
> there is no typical mite damage to the plant
> (probably from all the
> washing).  In fact her plant is thriving.
> 
> Although she has not observed any mites on the
> plant, she sometimes  finds
> live gray spider mites in the plant saucer.  Could 
> the black thingamajigs
> be the eggs of the spider mites?  Do spider mites
> lay eggs?   Are they
> black?  If they do lay eggs how long does it take to
> go from egg to mite?
> What is the life cycle of a mite?
> If anyone can answer these questions or has any tips
> on how to cope with
> mites I'd be mighty grateful.
> Suzanne Pierot,
> American Ivy Society
> 
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=====
Joe Seals
Santa Maria, California --
where the weather is always perfect
and my garden always has something blooming
and birds galore

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