Spidermites! I’ve tried soaking the airplants overnight, washing with sulphur soap, dripping neem oil (bad idea!) Any other solutions besides using abamectin? I have dogs at home and try not to use toxic chemicals
Spidermites! I’ve tried soaking the airplants overnight, washing with sulphur soap, dripping neem oil (bad idea!) Any other solutions besides using abamectin? I have dogs at home and try not to use toxic chemicals
The first thing I would recommend is soaking the plants for 12 – 24 hours. Spider mites are still a living being and they are not able to survive underwater that long so you’d basically be drowning them out. This is one of the nice things about Tillandsia – you can submerge them for long periods of time to drown out any potential buggers.
MasterpieceMinimum42
Tillandsia breath and absorb water with the leaves, best is not to use too much nor too concentrated chemicals on the leaves. I’m not sure if diatomaceous earth works, maybe you can sprinkle the powder on your tillandsia and leave it for a few minutes, then come back and blow off and shake off the powder, keep your tillandsia dry while using the powder as the powder loses its effectiveness when the powder is wet.
parrotbirdtalks
I personally use dimethoate, 100% effective in nuking spider mites to oblivion, but quite toxic. A plant expert instead recommended pyrethrin. A quick Google search shows that pyrethrin is naturally derived from chrysanthemum flowers, and is also used in pet shampoos, so I would assume it is relatively safer for dogs… Anyway, pyrethrin is a possible alternative, but please do more research yourself.
Spider mites suck big time. All the best to your plants.
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The first thing I would recommend is soaking the plants for 12 – 24 hours. Spider mites are still a living being and they are not able to survive underwater that long so you’d basically be drowning them out. This is one of the nice things about Tillandsia – you can submerge them for long periods of time to drown out any potential buggers.
Tillandsia breath and absorb water with the leaves, best is not to use too much nor too concentrated chemicals on the leaves. I’m not sure if diatomaceous earth works, maybe you can sprinkle the powder on your tillandsia and leave it for a few minutes, then come back and blow off and shake off the powder, keep your tillandsia dry while using the powder as the powder loses its effectiveness when the powder is wet.
I personally use dimethoate, 100% effective in nuking spider mites to oblivion, but quite toxic. A plant expert instead recommended pyrethrin. A quick Google search shows that pyrethrin is naturally derived from chrysanthemum flowers, and is also used in pet shampoos, so I would assume it is relatively safer for dogs… Anyway, pyrethrin is a possible alternative, but please do more research yourself.
Spider mites suck big time. All the best to your plants.