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Broad/cyclamen broad mites can't live without food or hibernate.....right?

Rooms been dormant for over a month and I'm still nervous about starting a new grow up. Had a thread about this a couple months ago where I was pretty sure they were broads but I never found the eggs. With the possibility that they were cyclamens I figured I needed to increase the amount of time my room was empty of any living plant tissue for them to feed on. Couldn't find a way to raise the room temps up as all store bought heaters have thermostats that stop stuff from getting too hot. Also since I live in the same room I elected not to use any chemical sprays and chose to shut down and starve them. It's been 6wks now with no living plants at all.

I've spent many many hours searching online about these demonic little bastards. If I do a Google search anything that comes up is pink showing I've clicked on it at least once haha. Cyclamens have a lifespan of a month and broads a little less then half that.

If they have no living plants to feed on they couldn't have survived if they fell in a crack or crevice that I missed right? Spider mites can enter diapause but it's been hard to find info on whether broads/cyclamens can. I did find one article from the usda(dated November 1933 lol) that is the most descriptive I've found so far in my exhaustive searches.

https://archive.org/stream/cyclamenmitebroa301smit/cyclamenmitebroa301smit_djvu.txt

It says there's no evidence that either species hibernate in soil or anything and clearly states they need "living plant tissue" to survive. It also states that cyclamen are more likely to strike in winter months which is what happened and that they both species commonly occur together. So reading that I'm going to assume it's possible I had the longer living cyclamens or both to be safe.

So my question is basically would 2 months of being shut down starve them for sure? I really want to start up again in 2wks or so I've been off my meds for way too long and things are getting weird yo. I relined my cabs with panda film, got new media and will be starting over from seed. Thanks for any help
 
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That document in the link is a bit long. The part where I got the info I cited is just under halfway down in life history and habits section.
 

buzzmobile

Well-known member
Veteran
You might want to consider putting some houseplants (begonias, ivys, African violets) in your grow space and monitor them.
 
You might want to consider putting some houseplants (begonias, ivys, African violets) in your grow space and monitor them.

God damn that's a good idea buzz holy shit I would have never thought of that! Makes sense put some of their favorite hosts in the room and see if they strike. Wish I could rep your post more then once maybe I'll follow your posts on other threads and rep them a few times lol. Thanks man that was some great advice:tiphat:
 
Heading to Lowe's tomorrow it might be best to get seeds in case the plants they have are already infected which would be my luck lol. I'll get a few grown plants too though and carefully go over them with a 60x scope but to know for sure it may be best to grow some from seed. If I do find some gremlins I'll take great joy in burning the plant up in a bbq pit mwahahaha:hotbounce

Can't say enough how good of a idea that is. Even if I have to grow some of those plants out by seed to know for sure over a month or so it's worth it. I'd rather know my kids are going to be born in a safe environment then spend 4-5mo raising them just to have them eaten again by microscopic locusts again. Thanks again buzz
 

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