Should I be worried? I just made a similar post on aphids but decided to keep this one seperate for educational purposes in case someone searches the same question in the future. They are red/Amber in color and move really fast. About the size of Abraham Lincoln's eyeball on the penny. Theyre everywhere on all the plants soil. None are showing any signs of bad health and growing stronger than ever before. They avg'ed about an inch a day, now it seems like 2inches. I spent like 20min on each plant inspecting underneath the leaves and couldn't find a single one nor any aphids(thank god lol). I tried counting the legs but couldn't really get an accurate look(might be going blind). I definitely couldn't find exhaust pipes. I looked through vids of root aphids and noticed they were slow and cluttered. These dont, they just crawl around really quick. I attached a pic of them. All I gotta do is take a pinch worth of soil from the top and it'll have like 2-5 of them I also discovered white little bugs on top of the soil and mulch all over the yard that jump like crazy and somewhat thrip shaped. Now those I've had forever and never had anything go wrong so just classifying them as harmless. If someone could give me a list of names of what they possibly are that'll be cool.
Here's a pic of the fabric pulled from the sides. White healthy roots. No grease or coating on soil. Dug thru some of the dirt on top and found just white roots. Didn't really want to disturb top layer since it's already been taken over by roots
That's what Im prepared to do but before I do that I just want to make sure they aren't beneficial. Plants do look good and I've never had an infestation of spider mites(unless these r them),aphids or gnats outdoors. Maybe these could be why. I just read that certain mites hunt fungus gnats and decompose leaves into nutrients but not entirely sure if these them. Anyone with experience with beneficial soil mites?
Top dress your soil with neem seed meal, also a little diatomaceous earth around the base of your plant would help.
Fast moving mites are usually predators (good). Sounds like you also have springtails (jumpers&harmless). Mites and other anthropods are decomposers and are simply there to do the job of shredding material to become a part of the soil. Rest easy! Sent from my SM-J700T using Tapatalk
Just wanted to update the post. I decided to let the mites be and it doesn't seem like they're harming anything. Roots on top looks as white as they can be and plant is growing faster than ever. I caught a couple springtails and confirmed their identity with magnifying glass and pictures. Also found green lacewings larvae. Killed a couple by accident before finding out what they were. Nasty looking little guys.
I used to squish the lacewing eggs...those ones that look like teardrops on a thread. That was before I learned they are freakin lions and eat all the bastards I hate. Green thumbs up! Sent from my SM-J700T using Tapatalk
Yea gonna do that. Not so much for the mites but these ants that are pissing me off. Pretty sure they're starting a nest in every pot. Thing is they're like 60galloners so gonna take a decent amount of it and aren't I gonna have to keep topping it or does it float at the top
I would say a pound or 2 of Damascus earth should cover your grow. Doesn't take a lot. Basically it is like glass shards for bugs. I believe it will kill ants as well. Once you put it down and in a couple of day all those bugs should be dead amd gone imho.