FlyTrapCare Forums

Today I saw some white mites crawling on the growth point of my S. purpurea. I had those last summer. They don’t seem to cause a lot of damage and I somehow managed to get rid of them by spraying water on my plants twice a day. They are the colour and size of dust particles but they move fast. I don’t think they produce any webs but I am not sure. What should I do?

I wouldn't do anything unless I see damage. Typically, if a mite moves fast, it is a predatory mites that will hunt down other mites, including spider mites.

Maybe they are predatory mites. Yesterday I didn’t see anything while checking the plant carefully but today I saw at least 3 of them crawling on the new growth. My question is why do they crawl almost only on the new growth and not so much on the old growth? Also I didn’t see any pests or damage only a white thrip and a scale that I killed. The 2 of them were a lot bigger than the mites and I looked very carefully on my plant from then especially the growth point because most pests live there. If the mites aren’t predators and they feed off the plant what should I do? I don’t want to use miticides or chemicals. Should I submerge it like how I did with the VFTs? I think Sarracenias can handle more water than VFTs.

Also there are webs all over the plant. Short compacted ones and long ones. I took videos of the mites walking on the flower stalk that I cut 2 days ago. How all of this happened in one day? How can I post links to the videos? The video files are IMG_8072 and IMG_8073 . Here are some images.

It is hard to tell from the pictures. If they are predatory mites, it makes sense that they would be on the new growth. They are hunting, and that is where they would likely find their prey.

So the best thing I can do is wait and see if there’s damage on the new growth? I already sprayed the plant twice with just water. Because I don’t know how to show the video, I will show the frames one by one and then you can see them move.

There is some damage on the new growth. There are some black spots. Do the mites eat the plant or something else?

The plant is totally fine. There isn’t any new damage or webs, so the mites indeed are predatory and they probably eat a spider mite infestation in the early stages and they do a good job! I feel kinda guilty because I had them the last summer and thought they were bad and tried to kill as many of them as I could.