Soil mites

[ChrisR]

Hi

I have a healthy-looking Genlisea but when I knocked it out of its pot recently I was surprised to see some small orange/brown mites running around in the air pockets in the soil. They seem very scared of light and never appear on the soil surface and they are obviously pretty resourceful because they were living happily when the plant had water nearly up to the rim of the pot!

The plant seems healthy but I am a bit worried that these mites are parasitic and will eventually weaken the plant and possibly spread to other plants in my collection. So, I was going to start with Pravado soil drench (as Aidan recommended recently in another post) but does anyone out there have any experience of these things and can they offer any more advice?

PS: one thing just dawned on me that they might be Hypoaspis mites, used to control soil pests. But I'm not sure how I could prove that. :?

[sundewmatt]

Take a look in your other pots first, they may be in everything and only be a predator mite. If this is the case, they are probably good for your plants since they may be killing the bad bugs.

[ChrisR]

Hi Matt

I have checked the other pots and all seem to be without mites - just the Genlisea has them, so I suspect a grower has treated his plants with these predatory mites and that's what I am seeing - unless anyone can think of a parasitic mite that runs about in the soil and is brown/orange.

[vic brown]

If they are running around and you can see them clearly with your naked eye, they are almost certainly not plant parasites - don't worry about them.

Vic

[ChrisR]

Great - thanks for the advice - that's set my mind at rest