Aerial dispersal is movement on air currents rather than by walking. Spider mites in crowded colonies move to the highest leaf tips, mass on webbing and let themselves be blown off, a behaviour often called ballooning; UC IPM notes mites are spread by wind as well as on clothing and plants. Eriophyid russet mites and winged aphids also travel on air.
In practice
Indoors, strong oscillating fans and exhaust airflow move dispersing mites from plant to plant. That is a reason to treat a whole room, not only the visible hot spot, and to work and move air from clean areas toward infested ones, never the reverse.
Don't confuse with
- Phoresy: riding on another animal, e.g. broad mites on whiteflies.
- Ambulatory dispersal: walking along touching leaves.
Tetranychus urticae, the commonest cannabis mite indoors: a 0.5 mm sap-feeder that stipples leaves pale and spins webbing, breeding fastest in hot, dry rooms.Integrated pest management: preventing and controlling pests by combining monitoring, prevention, cultural, biological and, as a last resort, chemical tools against set action thresholds.A family of microscopic, carrot-shaped mites with only two pairs of legs; includes the hemp russet mite, invisible without about 40-60x magnification.Aculops cannabicola, a microscopic eriophyid mite specific to cannabis that causes upward leaf curl, bronzing and dull, greasy-looking trichomes.The winged form of an aphid, produced mainly when colonies crowd or plants decline; alates fly to new plants and are caught on sticky cards.An oscillating fan sweeps back and forth to circulate air over and through the canopy, mixing the room and preventing still, humid pockets.Polyphagotarsonemus latus, a microscopic tarsonemid mite whose toxic feeding twists, glazes and stunts new growth; often mistaken for calcium deficiency or heat stress.Small white-winged sap-sucking insects of the family Aleyrodidae, mainly Trialeurodes vaporariorum and Bemisia tabaci, that fly up when disturbed and coat leaves in honeydew.Airflow is the movement of air through and around the canopy; it thins the still boundary layer on leaves, evens out temperature and humidity, and lowers mould risk.Holding incoming plants, clones or seeds apart from the main grow, under observation and sometimes treatment, until they are shown to be free of pests and disease.
