Does this look like broad mites damage

Justpeppers · Aug 10, 2019

I've been having some problems with new leaf damage and deformation. From what I can find I may have broad mites. It started on a few plants and has moved to others as well. I've been treating for a week with neem oil and topped the damage off. These are some pics of some remaining damage before I cut it off today

Today I looked at a damaged leaf under my microscope but cant seem to find anything

If anyone can verify what's going on here I would appreciate it. It's late in the season and hate to top my peppers anymore if I don't need to. I already had to butcher one of my dragons breath plants

acs1 · Aug 12, 2019

Well,,, might be the very start, maybe. Or something else. Or nothing at all. Hard to tell for me with your pics. A detailed closeup of new growth areas might be more revealing,,, maybe.

My pic below is a broad might infestation I had a while ago. Neem cured it with 1 spray.

Seems the more I learn around here the more only 1 real answer for 90% of all that ails a Chile, as long as its got good basics,, is pests. Mostly soft bodied sucker leaf eater types. The best answer is neem, or your choice of pest sprays. But with neem really doesn't matter what exact soft bodied sucker pest it is, neem does it. Seems its the cheapest most user friendly supposedly 'organic answer.

If there ever was a super power nutrient, it would be neem, lol. Seriously, a routine spray every so often really couldn't hurt and potentially could cure all your evils. And once you spray it takes most pests out of the equation if the problem still is there. So in a way it is a troubleshooting tool also...

Read here of the very few members saying neem doesn't work for them. Well it stopped a broad mite infestation, spider mites, aphids, and white flies dead in their tracks for me. Thats with both cold pressed and clarified neem oil.
I do believe there is an art to spraying and mixing your spray solution. I just go exactly by the bottle instructions, use warm water, double check my measurements for accuracy since neem is used at a very weak 1-2% solution. I soak drench the plant, under every leaf, twice, paying attention to new growth areas also and the stems and the soil around the stem, etc..
If neem is not mixed right and the shit shaken out of it constantly even while spraying, you're wasting your time imo.... I repeat, neem must be uniformly mixed/emulsified correctly, or it is not effective in a 1-2% weak solution...

jmo

Justpeppers · Aug 12, 2019

Thank you for your detailed response. I've been using neem oil on a weekly basis now so I hoping my problems will not persist. I've been making sure to get the bottoms of the leaves and the entire plant. I guess I just needed some reassurance I'm doing the right thing. The plants do seem to be doing better.

Doelman · Aug 12, 2019

ok well it's too late now but... you severely overreacted by chopping off all the growth tips. Mites aren't like some kind of toxin where if you don't amputate immediately the entire plant is going to die. You've severely reduced your yield for the year. There aren't many situations where cutting off parts of the plant is going to cure something.

Justpeppers · Aug 12, 2019

Doelman said:
ok well it's too late now but... you severely overreacted by chopping off all the growth tips. Mites aren't like some kind of toxin where if you don't amputate immediately the entire plant is going to die. You've severely reduced your yield for the year. There aren't many situations where cutting off parts of the plant is going to cure something.

I'm not too worried about it, we have like 3 more months of grow season. It's already coming back with new growth that looks healthy. I don't have pics of this plant before I topped it but it was really bad. It had not grown in a few weeks and had no pods. From what I read from this site most would treat with neem oil and top off the infected part of the plant. If it was mites I didn't want it to spread to my other plants that had no signs, so I cut off anything that was damaged.

solid7 · Aug 12, 2019

Doelman said:
ok well it's too late now but... you severely overreacted by chopping off all the growth tips. Mites aren't like some kind of toxin where if you don't amputate immediately the entire plant is going to die. You've severely reduced your yield for the year. There aren't many situations where cutting off parts of the plant is going to cure something.

Not sure which reply that was directed at, but if it's acs1, that's a bit harsh. First off, broad mites absolutely DO inject a toxin into the plant, and the recovery at the affected area can be quite lengthy. Secondly, he is in South Florida. Define "season". Thirdly, plants grow up. Straight for a light source. Given long growing length, and the setback from mite damage, absolutely nothing was done wrong. New nodes will form, with no residual toxin. Can't speak for every place, but down here, that's one of the very best courses of action. I lose more time from the mite damage than from a foliage regrow.

solid7 · Aug 12, 2019

If the reply was to the OP topping the plant, then yes, maybe a bit premature. It doesn't even look like broad mite damage there, and "season" is a much more concrete term in Kansas.
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OP - that looks more like a nutrient issue to me, than broadmites. Check back in when your new growth resumes, and post pics.

acs1 · Aug 12, 2019

Done a little research for the last month on broad mites, out of necessity. Unfortunately I know more about those little sukers than I care to...

Solid7 is 100% correct. Broad Mites do leave a toxin that deforms new growth.

For lack of a better term, broad mites toxic 'saliva' stays around for a while after the mites are dead and gone. This toxin continues to deform new growth for a while afterwards...

The old deformed mite damaged growth will never recover and become nice. Its also full of their toxin even slowing down things more. However all new growth after the mites and their toxin is gone will be nice new growth.

I've tried it both ways and find topping off only the damaged areas at the correct point will quickly produce new growth if all the basics are right and you got enough season for it, just as Doelman pointed out....

Once you spray them they come out of hiding to cluster together and die trying to get away from the neem making them easy to find on flowers and underside of leafs like these dead guys in my pic. They also turn black or dark tan/brown when dead making them even easier to find from their clear light tanish normal color
In case your looking in your scope again, these are the ones I've found after neem @ 90x magnification. Not sure but think they are some sub species of the every day run of the mill broad mite, just a little different than the pics I've seen of the northern Broad mite.

If a couple days after a spray, and you cant find something in your scope that looks like my below pic, then you didn't have broad mites. So neem is also a troubleshooting technique...LOL

JMO

Doelman · Aug 13, 2019

solid7 said:
If the reply was to the OP topping the plant, then yes, maybe a bit premature. It doesn't even look like broad mite damage there, and "season" is a much more concrete term in Kansas.
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OP - that looks more like a nutrient issue to me, than broadmites. Check back in when your new growth resumes, and post pics.

Yes, it was to OP. From what I understand, the damage they do is very localized, if you get rid of the mites their toxin isn't going to spread to the rest of the plant. Sure, if the damage is like what ACS posted you may top off if you have enough growing season but like you glanced over, OP only has a few months left. If OP had broadmites, which I agree I'm skeptical of, neem would kill them and the visible "damage" would be far far less detrimental than topping.

solid7 · Aug 13, 2019

Doelman said:
Yes, it was to OP. From what I understand, the damage they do is very localized, if you get rid of the mites their toxin isn't going to spread to the rest of the plant. Sure, if the damage is like what ACS posted you may top off if you have enough growing season but like you glanced over, OP only has a few months left. If OP had broadmites, which I agree I'm skeptical of, neem would kill them and the visible "damage" would be far far less detrimental than topping.

sirex · Aug 13, 2019

Am I the only one who has had broad mites that neem didn't even bat an eye at much less touch?

solid7 · Aug 13, 2019

sirex said:
Am I the only one who has had broad mites that neem didn't even bat an eye at much less touch?

Apparently not. But the use (and misuse) of Neem is a big subject. There are lots of variables. I hear some people saying not to use cold pressed. That's all that I use. Much of the time, people say they use Neem, but then post a picture of a bottle product from a big box store. The way I use Neem, and the way that I've seen cold pressed neem (not clarified) used, matches the dosage of the bottle product. (as far as dosing quantity based on active ingredient percentage)
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Have you ever used AzaMax? If so, did it work? If so, you used Neem. The equivalent of cold pressed. I have used both, and get no better results from AzaMax than my cold pressed. But AzaMax has aza extract, with surfactants, so that it's water soluble. And you pay a premium for that.
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I don't use any pesticides in my garden except for Neem, so I guess you could say that I'm a bit biased. But I do know that it works. As you know from living just a few clicks north of me in the same county, where there are whitefly, there are broadmites. And damn, do we have whitefly. Just giving free rides to the little bastards, all over the place.

sirex · Aug 13, 2019

Man I had the broadmites and whitefly so bad a couple years ago. Wicked Mike ended up sending me some abamectin and I just nuked everything.

So the azamax is just neem (azadirachta extract) with surfectants added? Hmm.. I didn't know that.

Why does that Bobo shizz you get at Walmart not work?

solid7 · Aug 14, 2019

Yes, the whitefly (and as a byproduct, broadmite) tend to explode into pandemics every few years. Right now, they're pretty good. But I can see that we're gonna have another bad season, on the horizon. Abamectin. Yikes. LOL
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Yep, AzaMax is just the extract of Neem. Clarified Neem is the oil that they extract the Neem from, sold back to you at a premium. Neem, of course, can be emulsified and sprayed, or it can be applied as a horticultural oil. But the clarified stuff is overkill, just to suffocate bugs. Might as well use soap. The one good reason not to use a soap, however, would be the high pH. Repeated applications can actually damage plant tissues. But I'd probably opt for a cheaper oil, in that case. Even vegetable oil can work.
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There are a number of reasons why the bottled products might not work. Hard to say for sure, without getting specific...
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If you have to treat again, let me know. We can get together or something, and I'll show you exactly how I take care of my bug problems.

sirex · Aug 14, 2019

For sure!

Stuff like aphids I go the Dr Bronners route and that has always worked.

After that mite epidimic I used sulfur spray which usually seemed to work if I had a pop up of mites.

But after reading this and seeing the differences in the types of neem as well as seeing that it's deemed organic...I might try to go that route if it's a problem again.

solid7 · Aug 14, 2019

sirex said:
For sure!

Stuff like aphids I go the Dr Bronners route and that has always worked.

After that mite epidimic I used sulfur spray which usually seemed to work if I had a pop up of mites.

But after reading this and seeing the differences in the types of neem as well as seeing that it's deemed organic...I might try to go that route if it's a problem again.

Sulfur works really well, but it will kill every bug in the garden, good, bad, or indifferent. And you have to be really careful not to lower pH in your media, or it can cause uptake issues. Additionally, it doesn't play well with anything that contains oils. It's also a "nuclear" option, IMO.