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From: grass@uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU
Newsgroups: net.garden
Subject: Re: Problems with spiders
Message-ID: <18000008@uiucdcsb>
Date: Tue, 13-May-86 11:11:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcsb.18000008
Posted: Tue May 13 11:11:00 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 16-May-86 04:56:58 EDT
References: <1892@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU>
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Nf-ID: #R:mit-eddie.MIT.EDU:1892:uiucdcsb:18000008:000:1040
Nf-From: uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU!grass    May 13 10:11:00 1986


<>
>There are many (100's?) tiny (<1mm) spiders crawling all over
>my houseplants.  Whenever I apply a chemical spray, the majority

These little critters are "spider mites", and they are a MAJOR houseplant
problem.  If you have just one or two plants affected, I'd suggest you isolate
them from all your other plants, and then maybe you can keep the mites
from spreading.  If it were me, and only a few plants were affected, I would
get rid of the infected plants.  
I've had to resort to this for a few plants that had 
white fly.  It saved my other plants and got rid of the flies.

Spider mites reproduce very quickly.  Your spray may kill most of the adults,
but not the eggs.  That means as soon as you've killed a batch of adults,
there are eggs just about ready to hatch a new batch.  You have described
very well how they kill plants.

Any book on houseplants will give suggestions on how to deal with these.
It ain't easy.  
	- Judy Grass,  University of Illinois - Urbana
	  {ihnp4,pur-ee,convex}!uiucdcs!grass   grass%uiuc.arpa