{"id":2444,"date":"2013-05-19T20:58:44","date_gmt":"2013-05-19T12:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/?p=2444"},"modified":"2013-05-20T21:17:54","modified_gmt":"2013-05-20T13:17:54","slug":"red-legged-earth-mite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/19\/red-legged-earth-mite\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Legged Earth Mite"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/20130519-005.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2399 alignright\" alt=\"20130519 005\" src=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/20130519-005-300x200.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/20130519-005-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/20130519-005.jpg 801w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>This was supposed to be a post about my asparagus which has just thrown up its first 2 spears, but when I zoomed in on the picture, I saw my first red legged earth mite. \u00a0I have always read about this in relation to developing clovers in pasture for horses, but I had never actually seen one, which is not surprising as they are only 1mm long. \u00a0Like many of the pest species in WA, they come from South Africa. \u00a0The first sighting was in\u00a0Bunbury in 1917 and are now spread across much of southern Australia.<\/p>\n<p>The Red legged Earth Mite is mainly a pest of broadleaf species \u00a0and its\u00a0reproductive capacity is increased when capeweed is present &#8211; which is one of our main weeds. \u00a0 <strong>It causes more damage than any other pasture pest<\/strong> which is probably why its Latin name is\u00a0Halotydeus destructor! \u00a0According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.csiro.au\/~\/media\/CSIROau\/Divisions\/CSIRO%20Entomology\/RLEMOverview_ento_pdf%20Standard.pdf\">CSIRO<\/a> the yields of susceptible crops can be reduced by half.<\/p>\n<p>It can completely destroy newly sown pastures and\u00a0also feeds on ryegrass and young cereal crops, especially oats (yippee something else to look out for when we sow the oats next month). \u00a0It also causes damage to a wide range of vegetables and broadleaf crops such as canola, peas and lupins. \u00a0It feeds on the upper surface of plants using its\u00a0adapted mouthparts to lacerate the leaf and suck up the sap.\u00a0 Plants may become stunted and take on a silvery appearance. \u00a0 They also foul the pasture so sheep prefer to graze pasture that is Mite free. \u00a0 We don&#8217;t have so much capeweed on the north paddock where the sheep will be going, so hopefully that won&#8217;t be an issue for us.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dpi.vic.gov.au\/agriculture\/pests-diseases-and-weeds\/pest-insects\/redlegged-earth-mite\">http:\/\/www.dpi.vic.gov.au\/agriculture\/pests-diseases-and-weeds\/pest-insects\/redlegged-earth-mite<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This was supposed to be a post about my asparagus which has just thrown up its first 2 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15,19,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-farm","category-property","category-wildlife"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/20130519-005.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2444"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2447,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444\/revisions\/2447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}