That's right. Broad mites can be eradicated on food crops in one single step safely and simply. Read on...
Broad mites are nasty little (and I do mean little!) bugs that infest indoor plants and seem to have a particular fondness for chillis
Let's be clear here. If you find yourself dealing with mites then your plants will suffer. Either by mite or by treatment, yields will be down and plants may die. Broad mites are very nasty.
Leaving plants untreated indoors is pretty much guarantee they will shrivel and die quickly. You have to act fast.
So - what to do?
Heat treatment. The mites in all stages from egg to adult cannot tolerate heat. By "cannot tolerate" I mean it kills them.
Throw away badly affected plants, its best to concentrate on a small number of healthy plants.
Treat or throw away all plants at the same time. Treating just some plants at a time is pointless. You can't see broad mites easily and they will just walk back onto a treated plant from an untreated one.
It's very important to get the treatment right. Firstly because you will kill the plant if the temperature is too high. Secondly if too low you may not kill all the mites. Both will be pretty disastrous so invest in a good thermometer that you can rely on, and get a stopwatch ready.
Bag up the pots well as you will be laying them on their sides, and prepare for a muddy mess.
Fill the bath and dunk the plants fully making sure every leaf is submerged for the full duration. Use anything you can to weigh them down.
Temperature: 43 Celsius
Time: 15 minutes
Time: 15 minutes
Once done, stand the plants up and rinse with tepid water.
You will expect all the leaves to shed within the next 24 hours and this may be depressing. But don't worry. New growth should start within a week and you'll be surprised to see how soon you get fruit back.
Please comment below on your results or broad mite experiences!
You can see my full post on my fight with the mites here
No comments:
Post a Comment