FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I’ve noticed several tiny red dots on my venus fly trap. Last night, I used a wet q-tip to whipe them off, and this morning, I notice new tiny red dots (circled in red). The plant appears healthy, though the traps from last year are starting to grow dried looking brown spots near the edges (circled in blue).
Should I be worried about these tiny red dots? Are they mites? Will they hurt the plant? In my experience, with other plants, it is best to try to avoid pesticides and instead ensure that the plany has healthy environmental conditions so that its natural defenses can fight off pests. Pesticides can end up killing not just bad bugs, but also good bugs such as springtails.

So are these bugs a threat to the plant? If so, are there systemic pesticides that work with a venus fly trap?

Jagasian they are mites.


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Mites will have to be removed.


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They are not a threat to your plants. It’s okay to have black traps in the old ones from last year.


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Ok, I’ve ordered Avid miticide from FlyTrapStore:
https://www.flytrapcare.com/store/avid-miticide

It is a translaminar miticide, which are more effective than contact-only sprays because a translaminar spray’s ingredients are absorbed into the leaf, which means new mites will eat the poison when they bite the leaf, even if that part of the leaf is not currently covered with spray.

However, Avid is not a true systemic miticide. Systemic miticides are newer and harder to find. The benefit of a true systemic miticide is it can be absorbed through the roots or leaves of the plant, and the mite poison then spreads all throughout the plant because it is moved through the plant’s vascular system. Systemics provide are very long lasting protection, even protecting new growth! Kontos miticde is a true systemic:
http://www.greenhousegrower.com/product ... up-kontos/

You can buy a case of it here:
http://www.forestrydistributing.com/en/ ... cide-bayer

I will try Avid first and then use Kontos for super long lasting protection. If Kontos works well, I will be looking for people interested in buying the surplus Kontos (I had to buy a case of several bottles as that was the only thing available.)

Here is one of the red dots under 360x magnification microscope. I used a $10 pocket microscope available from Amazon that I highly recommend, and the picture was taken on an iphone 7s plus where a 3x magnification of of the microscope’s 120x magnification, resulting in a total of 360xz
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LAX52IQ/re ... MAbBJQDRCJ

Last weekend, I ordered the 3 top miticides: Avid, Forbid, and Kontos. Since it would take them a week to arrive, I decided to go ahead and use a spray that I had bought a couple of years ago from Home Depot, Bayer Advanced 3-in-1:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Bayer-Advan ... /202019105

It contains 3 ingredients: a systemic insecticide that has no impact on mites, a contact-only miticide, and a fungicide. I sprayed my flytrap 3 days ago and the plant does not appear to be negatively impacted and all of the mites are gone.

I will follow up with Kontos in a week for long-term protection.

The Bayer product has worked well for me temporarily. I suspect some of its inactive ingredients are a foliar fertilizer too cause it seems to give my VFTs a boost.

Avid has only partially worked for me so I think it is a good idea to use it in rotation with another miticide.

I've read neem oil is actually effective against spider mites. I just bought some and am going to give it a try. I have an infestation on my plumerias and banana plant.

Almost one week later and the Bayer 3-in-1 product seems to be working. After researching miticides all week, it is clear that the most effective miticide is Forbid 4F. It is similar to Avid in that it soaks into the plant and so has a long lasting protection, even after the plant has been rained on. Soaking into the plant also means you don’t need to perfectly cover all parts of the plant for it to be effective. What makes Forbid 4F a much more effective miticide than Avid is the fact that Forbid 4F is effective against all stages of mite life, from eggs to adults. Avid, on the other hand, does not kill eggs.

Also, mites can adapt and become resistant to miticides. Avid is older and so more mites are resistant to it than Forbid. So it is recommended to alternate between multiple different types of miticide: Avid, Forbid, and Kontos.

This Bayer product definitely worked. No mites weeks after treatment. However, it appears as though the shape of new traps has been impacted. The new traps are smaller. The length of the traps is the same as before treatment, but the traps are now more shallow.

Hopefully this is just a temporary effect of the miticide.

Jagasian wrote:Almost one week later and the Bayer 3-in-1 product seems to be working.

C6F7C887-214F-4B98-83A4-CE3809323757.jpeg

What was the ratio you used for the Bayer?

Jagasian wrote:Here is one of the red dots under 360x magnification microscope. I used a $10 pocket microscope available from Amazon that I highly recommend, and the picture was taken on an iphone 7s plus where a 3x magnification of of the microscope’s 120x magnification, resulting in a total of 360xz
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LAX52IQ/re ... MAbBJQDRCJ

2B0CC048-B95A-42E1-8B23-C9F9518FB3EE.jpeg

Awww, such a cutie.

Fieldofscreams wrote:

Jagasian wrote:Almost one week later and the Bayer 3-in-1 product seems to be working.

C6F7C887-214F-4B98-83A4-CE3809323757.jpeg

What was the ratio you used for the Bayer?

I used the dilution on the label. The fungicide in this 3 in 1 causes temporary slow growth. The slow growth goes away after 4 weeks.

I ended up buying the premix in a spray bottle.

So the only issue with using it is a slow down in growth?

Having some bad luck lately. Two weeks ago I got spider mites so I ordered Avid from FTS and that totally killed off the mites, I caught it so early on they did very little damage. 3 days ago I ended up with Aphids. Avid will kill off juvenile aphids but not adults so I needed something else and it seems the Bayer 3 in 1 was pretty popular but it was hard to know which Bayer 3 in 1 because there are two different kinds and they look exactly the same at first glance. One has a rose on it and the other has a bush on it and the chemical makeup of each is different. Luckily for us you posted a pic of the one you used which none of the other threads made any mention of the one they used leaving the reader not knowing which one to buy.

The Bayer 3-in-1 is convenient because it is available at Amazon, Home Depot, and Lowes. It is inexpensive, and contains a fungicide, miticide, and insecticide. So it is broad coverage for venus fy trap pests and diseases. If you use the recommended dilution, there are no other adverse effects than slowed growth and slightly smaller and more curved traps (due to the fungicide). This is temporary and goes away after 4 weeks.

One other thing to consider is that mites can build a tolerance to a single miticide and similarly for fungus and fungicides. For this reason, if you have repeated outbreaks, you will need to use two different miticides and/or fungicides, depending on what you are treating.