Let’s Talk About The New Hoya Scourge – The Flat Mite

I have quietly been pursuing my passion for growing Hoyas for going on 20 years now, but up until now have been bothered by relatively few pests. My primary pests until now were fungus gnats, a few plants that were susceptible to spider mites, and a few aphids. Knock on wood I somehow managed to escape mealie bugs and root mealie bugs. I think I have so little problem with pest, because I bring in very few new plants into my collection every year. I read with horror the new issue of STEMMA on Facebook recently with its cover story talking about flat mites and hoped that I would never get something so insidious! The image below was copied from this Wikipedia Article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brevipalpus_phoenicis#Control

Flat Mite