Backyard Aquaponics
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Can anyone help with a cure for pesty mite that is sucking the life out of the leaves on my beans, egg plants, silverbeet and most of the soft broad leaf plants. I have been using Lux soap with a bit of garlic spray but it only seems to slow them down. If I don't stop the degradation to the leaves, the plants eventually die. My system is in a fully enclosed hot house. I also have problems with aphid which the spray only slows down also. The photo's are of an affected bean plant and if you look hard enough you can see very very tiny brown mites or something moving around on the underside of the leaves.

Spider mite ..... info and organic solutions attaced.
http://www.greenharvest.com.au/pestcont ... _info.html

Thanks Chappo. I recon that you are halve right. Closer inspection of other plants show that I have a "Thrip" problem also. Between the aphids , the spider mites and thrip my plants are really suffering. I have had my beetroot leaves covered with a fine layer of spider web so that is spider mite for sure. I'm going to try an onion/garlic spray that I found in one of the gardening sites and if that fails I have ordered some Natrasoap from your "Link".
Thanks again.

Dipel Dust.

Scratch that for aphids doesn't work on them.

More long term ..... grow some "good bug attracting plants.
Many companies sell a mix of these flowers , has helped me a lot with the dirt patch.

Don't know how effective that would be in my enclosed Hot House(44Deg today).
I'ii give the sprays a go and let you know the out come.

Grow in pots outside ,, take into hot-house ..... probably only get a few transferred , but they breed like bacteria:)

If you have got spider mites forget about sprays as they become imune to them very quickly and you cant eat anything that you have spayed.I have used a predator for years with great success.If you get them when the first signs appear they will last you all the summer .You will be tempted to get the spray out in the first couple of weeks but don't or you will kill all the goodies and leave the badies.The change is quite damatic when it happens and all of a sudden you will have healthy leaves again.I actually have video of a predator chasing a spider mite but I don't know how to put it on the thread.
It will cost you about $50 but they last all summer.You can get them from The Benificial Bug Company in Victoria or Biological Services in Adelaide. I also Use a predator for white fly .It is not as dramatic as the spider mite one but it works.

Thanks Don. I will have to look into the predator bugs. In the mean time I sprayed with my onion/garlic spray and this morning I couldn't find any live spider mites only one or two aphids. I have to spray in a weeks time to make sure that I have broken the breeding cycle so I will let you know if they re appear.

I still have a few aphid on the plants and it looks like the spider mite are reappearing. I searched all of the info I could find on organic sprays and got on to a forum about this topic. Scrolling through the entries, many people trying all sorts of sprays over a long time frame and the out come is that organic sprays seem to work for short spaces of time - the problem pest always returned.
I have got to agree with you Don. The only sure way is with predator bugs. I will be investing in some Lady Bugs ASAP. ($27 + freight for 100 eggs.)

I have been plagued with mites, thrip and aphid all summer. I have tried all manner of home remedy sprays and even a commercial organic spray, now for the results. The predatory (phytoseiulus persimilis) mites did get rid of the spider mites but need to be put into action at the start of the growing season. The sprays (organic and home remedy) only worked temporarily on the thrip and aphid. The sprays seemed to work but their effect weakened over time. The other down side was that the plants suffered with burning and die back of the leaves. I then bought 2 different lots of Lady Birds, each with 3 or 4 different types of Lady bird. I waited for the life cycle of egg, lava and adult to happen twice, each time getting less adults than the initial batch ( there was no shortage of food for them). In the mean time the aphid distroyed anything green. As soon as I planted new stock the aphid would reduce it to withered up stalks and of course the thrip were un effected by the lady birds anyway.
In the end I sprayed everything with white oil, INSTANT results. I have resprayed a couple of times since and now my plants are GROWING with very few visible aphid, still lots of thrip but I'll tackle that one at a later date. There is no doubt that the predatory mites got rid of the spider mites but aphid required more than Lady Birds.
Next season I will again get some predatory mites and some lady birds early in the season and I will be planting onion and garlic through out the grow beds. I will be keeping the white oil spray ready if these measures fail again. The white oil spray is cheap, effective, doesn't seem to harm the plants and is safe to use. Its a shame that spraying also kills the ladybugs, but thats the way it goes.

It seems that White oil spray has to be applied regularly to control Aphid, along with the other organic sprays that I have tried. My latest solution to my pest problem is to introduce LARGER preditors. I have been trialling canaries and finches. THEY WORK!!!!! I have watched them picking the aphids off the plant leaves, sometimes hanging upside down on the leaves to get them. The problem now is that they also pick the heads off my seedlings and the new shoots out of the centers of growing plants. I have had to invest in bird nets to protect the young plants. I am also training them to return to a cage fitted with a one way door so that I can keep them in the cage most of the time. I will let them out each day but when they return to the cage to get their seed, they won't be able to get back out (I'm hopeing that they preferr seed over easy picking greens). Hopefully that will be enough for the plants to carry on regardless. This should also lessen the mess from the bird shit. I have to accept the fact that I will always have pests and to mininumise the damage it comes at a cost.

My plants are starting to get attacked too....I'm so ill prepared for this. Lots of little eggs on the underside of the leaves. So far I have plucked most of the infected leaves, but cannot keep that up for long. A little dish soap and water worked in the dirt garden - I'm wondering if maybe I disconnect the GB for an hour - treat the plants with soap and then rinse and flush to the yard and then reattach the GB. I have a feeling this is going to be a long summer battling bugs unless I plant things that I do not have pest problems...flowers, rosemary etc...This is a trial system and I'm really just after using the gravel to startup the greenhouse and fish. The squash are growing so well though it seems a shame to get rid of them.

For Aphids and Spider mites.

This does work but, you will have to spray until you can get some predators to come to your GBs. Ladybugs are attracted to Yarrow. Anise and Coriander close to your plants will deter spidermites and aphids. You can also plant a trap plant like Sunflower. Aphids like it better than your other plants and they will go like mad for it. When you have all the aphids in one spot it makes it real easy for the predators to come and get them.

Here's the recipe in the meantime:
Ingredients:
1 cup of oil (Vegetable oil, peanut, corn, soybean...etc..)
1 tablespoon of Ivory liquid soap (or other pure soap... no perfumes etc...)
1 teaspoon of Tabasco

Making the Insecticidal Soap:
Mix the ingredients well. Shaking in a mason jar is faster.
Add 2 teaspoons of the mixture to every cup of water in the spray bottle when ready to use. Shake before spraying

I've used this for my indoor garden as there were no predators and I would have to spray every week. Dries them up.

Good luck