Shell mites are one of the numerically dominant groups of arthropods that live in soils. They certainly play an important role in soil food chains, regulating the decomposition of organic matter and microorganisms that live in the soil. Among the armor mites there are many species, some prefer to colonize in slightly acidic soils, others in alkaline ones. On average, the population density of carapace ticks of various species reaches several hundred thousand individuals per square meter.
Stages of development of carapace ticks: larva, nymphs of three ages and adults (adults).
Unlike spider mites or flat ticks, carapace develop rather slowly. So, spider mites go through a full development cycle at high temperatures in 3-5 days, and most species of carapace from egg to adult develop from several weeks to several months, and in nature, in temperate climates in forest soils up to two years.
Do not confuse shell mites with herbivorous root or onion mites, which never crawl to the surface of the stems, do not run along the leaves and have a characteristic translucent gray body, the same watery gray large eggs.
But why are we talking about them in the indoor flower pest section? Because many sites on the Internet convince you that carapace mites devour your plants, especially harm orchids, especially young ones. And what really, let's figure it out a little lower.
Differences between spider and carapace mites
Shell ticks can be seen in a magnifying glass.
Very quickly runs down the sheet into the substrate.The main differences between pests and harmless:
| Shell mites | Spider mites and flat ticks |
|---|---|
| They have a dark brown or black body, often with a sheen, measuring about 0.7-0.9 mm. The eggs are reddish brown or brown and are also visible to the naked eye. | Herbivorous ticks can be whitish (dirty gray), light brown (sand), reddish brown, yellowish with brown spots, brick or brick brown. The size of adult ticks is from 0.1 to 0.3 mm (average). |
| They run fast - about 5-7 mm per second (my observations). | Very slow, the same 5 mm crawl in a minute or two, if they are stirred, and for the most part sit motionless. |
| They run away from the light source, immediately hide under the leaves, onion scales, in the soil. | They are not afraid of light, initially they settle on the back of the sheet, there are more of them, but not for the reason that light interferes with them - there it is easier for them to stay on the leaves (they do not fly off from water flows, rain or air movement). |
| They crawl throughout the plant, but the eggs are laid on decaying organic matter - fallen leaves, twigs in the ground, a tangle of rotten roots, on already dead yellowing leaves of plants that have not been cut (but only if they come into contact with the soil surface). | They crawl throughout the plant, but lay eggs on green leaves. The most favorite places are young shoots of leaves, shoot tops, stems, sprout buds. In plants with fluffy leaves, eggs are laid in any part of the leaf, in plants with smooth leaves - mainly along the convex veins on the back or in the depression of the central vein on top of the leaf. |
| They develop only in a moist environment, damp soil. | The humidity of the air and soil for spider mites and flat ticks does not matter. |
Do shell mites harm orchids
In fact, shell mites do not clearly harm orchids or other plants. Oribatid mites Oribatida are one of those living things that make the structure of the soil by grinding, actually chewing fallen leaves and all organic residues, including eating mushrooms and algae.
Among shell mites, there are no species that feed on living tissue, even if they are young sprouts. In fact, panic and myths are born mainly on Russian-language resources. Among the orchid-loving societies of Canada or the United States, there is no mention that shell mites can injure young seedlings of phalaenopsis or other orchids in any way.
For example, in order not to be unfounded, I will quote Paul Johnson, professor of entomology at South Dakota State University, from his work on November 22, 2008: "Quite often with orchid culture there are many species of harmless ticks that feed on mushrooms, bacteria and rotting organic material. There are also several useful ticks that are predators and feed on herbivorous ticks, insect pests and other creatures. Oribatids, which are like tiny round, dark-colored bugs, feed on fungi on the roots of plants, the products of decay of organic materials."
Hiding under the dry scales of bulbs, bulb.
Black shiny oribatids measuring just under 1mm.But carapace mites can cause indirect harm - they are carriers of helminth eggs, as well as nematodes. Therefore, it is desirable to prevent them from appearing in the ground for flowers. To do this, it is enough to warm the prepared substrate in the oven, scattered on a baking sheet with a layer of about 5 cm at 200 degrees for 20-30 minutes to destroy pests and pathogens.
Oribatid ticks carry fungal spores and bacteria on their paws, and they crawl not only on healthy tissue - if a leaf or root breaks off from a plant, the ticks will immediately climb for fresh scrapping. And at the same time they will drag a bunch of microbes. Therefore, all breaks and sections on the orchid must be dried, but not with green, but with colloidal sulfur or crushed birch coal.
The real, simply killer damage to the leaves of orchids and other plants is caused not by shell mites, but most often by a wide mite - Polyphagotarsonemus latus - a microscopic mite that you will not find even in a magnifying glass, only in a microscope. Signs of its appearance are deformation of the tops of shoots, ulceration and curvature when unfolding a young leaf. The saliva of wide ticks is toxic and the signs are similar to a chemical burn: shrunken brown edges of open leaves, buds. Less often - yellowing and gray spots. It is the wide tick and its brother - cyclamen - the main and main pests in greenhouses, including industrial greenhouses with orchids.
Two species of tick were found on this orchid: spider - gray stripes from it and a wide tick (close-up).
a wide tick, characteristic eggs are completely transparent with white cones (through a microscope).Carapace mites on orchids
Shell mites on orchids like mushroom mosquitoes are an indicator of the state of the soil in pots. Their abundant reproduction suggests that you have very damp in your pots, so damp that bark, moss, rubbish that ends up in the ground rots (sticks, twigs, leaves). And they rot very actively! Even if the pieces of bark in the pot with your orchids look dry, they likely don't dry out inside.
Is it bad? In natural conditions, this is natural and inevitable, shell mites literally swarm in the moist forest litter, but epiphytes themselves choose where to direct their roots - in too moisture-intensive moss and rotting bark and leaves, or grow up the trunk, where there is less moisture. We forcibly keep orchids in pots in room culture, their roots have nowhere to run, and if bark and wood rot nearby, blue-green algae develop, and roots rot.
Therefore, if you have armor mites crawling, panic not about these animals, but about the fact that, most likely, pathogenic microflora is actively multiplying in you - fungi and bacteria that can kill an orchid in a few days. In addition, simultaneously with carapace ticks on your orchids, wide ticks and cobwebs can settle, if a silver coating appears on the leaves, or the growth is deformed, it is worth looking for, first of all, them!
Shell mites lay their eggs on damp, rotting organics.
Already inanimate leaf scrapping, ticks only digest what died from waterlogging or from old age.Are shell mites useful in orchids
Think about why we need pine bark in pots - this is a very slowly decomposing organic matter, first of all it does not nourish, but serves as a fixation of orchids in a pot - so that it does not fall, does not fall on its side.
During watering, a small part of the nutrients consumed by orchids passes into the water. Many house orchids, including phalaenopsis, can do just fine without bark, on a block or in an empty pot. Orchids classified as terrestrial (conditionally terrestrial) do not grow on compost heaps! These orchids grow in a substrate also slowly decaying and moderately moist.
Therefore, keeping an orchid in a pot filled with raw rotting bark is about the same as drinking a classic tea or five-bag chifir per glass.
If you have shell mites crawling in a pot, pine bark turns into dust several times faster, you need a more frequent transplant. And for an orchid, shaking from pot to pot, from bark to bark - these are inevitable root injuries. Orchids can and should live in one place (substrate, block) for several years in a row (6-8 years). Transplantation is necessary only when the soil is saline, when the walls of the pot are silted, when the bark turns into dust, when it is necessary to treat and remove rotten areas of the roots.
Therefore, if there is an opportunity to get rid of shell ticks - get rid of them. You should not immediately resort to acaricides, as is the case with spider and wide ticks. Just remove the orchid from the bark (substrate), rinse it whole in hot water. Most orchids with dense leathery leaves perfectly tolerate hot water up to 50 degrees. I have not tried rinsing precious orchids, but if you have doubts, rinse in warm water (about 40 degrees).
It is necessary not only to soak, but to rinse out an orchid or other plant. In order not to injure the bush, I take a large basin, very large, so that you can not knock leaves on the walls, but freely move the plant back and forth without touching the walls. The fact is that armor mites are afraid of light, especially bright, hide not only in the roots, between pieces of bark, but also under the scales on the bulbs, axils of the lower leaves. It is impossible to tear off dry scales, but the streams of water when rinsing will wash the ticks from under them. The water in the pelvis needs to be changed 3-4 times.
Next, you need to destroy ticks in the ground. Freezing them does not bother, but high temperatures help us. The easiest way is to warm the substrate in the microwave for a few minutes until the steam goes. Then dry thoroughly. But do not plant an orchid immediately in this substrate - hold it for several days without a substrate, repeating rinsing and letting the roots breathe fresh air.
Own observations
Cucumbers grew on my balcony in the summer. They grew in huge buckets and, naturally, I did not sterilize such a volume of soil.
On the same balcony there were pots with orchids, in one of them there was a small dendrobium, cured of spider mites. And so she overlooked, let the cat into the "garden," he cut off a couple of cucumber branches, dropped cactus crops and burned orchids. I roared, beat the cat, collected what I could, and put the dendrobium stub in a bucket for cucumbers. I did not know what to do with it, the healthy growth was destroyed, and on what remained - gray-silver leaves after spider mites.
In a bucket of cucumbers lay a bunch of sphagnum moss and a few alder leaves. And since cucumbers were watered very abundantly, a wonderful place was created for soil animals. My dendrobium lay a little on top of the alder leaf, and armor mites also ran along it. I did not take it out, I decided to see what would happen. And nothing terrible happened - a week passed, the dendrobium increased 4-5 mm of healthy green leaf tissue and let in 3 mm of roots.
For a long time I looked through the microscope at the entire menagerie and did not find any damage on the new growth, while shell ticks were swarming on it - they mainly crawled along the bunch of dead roots, which I never cut off.
I don't know if this baby will survive (still very small), but shell mites absolutely did not harm him in any way.
Later I went to a friend whose phalaenopsis grows in the bark, literally picked up and found carapace ticks in one pot. They are easy to notice - glossy shiny round, like balls move very quickly. Of course, they were found in the pot where there was the rawest bark (although 5 days after watering), there was one yellowed leaf and several rotten roots.
How to get rid of shell mites
If you nevertheless decide to get rid of carapace ticks by chemical means, then use drugs from the group of acaricides - all the same as for the destruction of any other types of ticks: Fitoverm, Apollo, Vermitek, Nisoran, Sanmait, etc.
However, these arthropods are as easily adapted to chemistry (the strongest survive) as all other animals. Therefore, if the tool did not help the first time, reuse the drug with the active ingredient from another chemical group.
Remember that Aktara does not work on arthropods!
To surely get rid of carapace ticks, you need not only to apply acaricide, but also to thoroughly dry the soil. In some cases, it is advisable to replace the entire soil, and simply soak the root system of the plant in a basin with a solution of acaricide.
When compiling soil for any indoor plants, take into account that sphagnum moss and inert (non-decomposing materials), like coconut substrate and fibers, do not favor shell mites, from all organic matter they prefer fallen leaves, half-rotted wood and bark.
You can get rid of a huge number of carapace ticks, i.e. not destroy them, but reduce the colony to negligible: put several rings of potato peel, cucumber or apple on the ground surface, after a few hours adult ticks will climb onto them, and you can throw them out.
Natalia Rusinova