spider mite problem I think

Question

I have recently planted some fruit trees and I bought a dwarf meyer lemon tree. I had tried to start a mango from seed and I noticed the seed was molding. I went to throw it out and I saw tiny spider-like bugs on the seed. I got rid of the seed but my other plants were in the same area as the mango seed. Now my lemon tree has some brown spots on the leaves, and the leaves are falling off. When I inspected the plant it looked fine, but the bottom part of the pot had a couple white tiny spiders crawling on it. I took a piece of cardboard and knocked it against the tree. Nothing fell off, no black specs or spider. I have also been able to see one skinny  long bug (still pretty tiny though)with quite a few legs. I have not seen any webbing anywhere or anything on the leaves just some bugs in the soil. Will soap and water take care of this problem?

Answer 1

Soap, oil and water mixture may help, just be sure to test it before you spray the whole plant. A pesticide like neem oil will help too, if the soap/oil solution is not effective enough.

Pests tend to attack plants that are stressed, so this is probably an indication that your plants are stressed. Try to determine what is stressing them and correct that and that will help keep the pest problems under control.

Answer 2

Thank you I will definitely try the neem oil. I have only had the tree for a couple months. When I bought the tree, it already had a lemon on it and it ripened (was the best lemon I ever ate) so I thought the tree was doing fine it was just recently that I have seen these bugs. I have tested the soil with a 4-1 soil tester PH was good, moister was good, and it gets lots of sun during the day! Hopefully this neem oil will work….thanks again!