Anyone know what kind of bugs these are, if they need to be irradiated and if so, how I can do so? Was gone all weekend, came back today to see that a number of plants had very droopy leaves. 2 were very light and clearly needed a watering. I saw that they have these very tine bugs all over. They are extremely small and see to have some kind of webbing that they're moving around on. They're on numerous trees, most notably on the ones that were in need of a watering. Anyone know what they are?

Spider mites?  Blast em off with water!

Suzi

Looks like spider mites. Get rid of them!

Looks like you guys are right.  Will take action this evening.  Did a bit of searching and it look like misting the plants with a mix of Rosemary Oil and Water is a effective organic approach.  Has anyone does this and do you know the ratio of oil to water I should use?

If these are potted plants, just put the foliage under the faucet and blast them.  Water will do the trick.  They don't really do much other than cause you worry.  We had them all the time at our other place, but only on the outside plants.  They love grapevines too!  Water disturbs their reproductive cycle.  Google that.

Suzi

Spider mites can be controlled/ eliminated with a mix of water, alcohol and soap sprayed onto the plant a few times . I use this recipe on my banana plants who always seem to get overrun with them when I bring them in the house for the winter.
This recipe comes from the American Orchid Society.

https://www.aos.org/Default.aspx?id=131

So I blasted them last night with a 2% Rosemary Oil 98% water mixture. Unfortunately I checked this morning and the mites looked like they were happy as can be. I figure I'll try to add a emulsifier to the mixture today, like dish soap as I didn't do that on the first spray. If that doesn't work I'll add more Rosemary Oil.

They’re definitely sucking the life out of the leaves, I can see the brown spots and leave are shriveling up and falling off.

I've battle this for a few years. Mites will kill that plant quickly if they are not taken care of.

Rosemary oil ... I cant imagine how that would work.
Soapy water ... does not work very well.
Soapy water with alcohol .... kills them dead-overnight.

Insecticidal soap works on these too.  You really don't need anything stronger.  If you want the inexpensive version of insecticidal soap, you can use 4Tbsp of Dawn dishwashing detergent in 1 gallon of water.  Spray it on... it kills on contact.  You can do repeat sprayings a day or two apart if you have a heavy infestation.  I like to spray with plain water a couple of hours after spraying the soap, just to prevent soap buildup on the leaves.  (If you do multiple sprayings of soap without rinsing, you'll see the soap does build up).  It shouldn't hurt the tree in dilutions like this, but I spray the water anyway.

Mike   central NY state, zone 5a

I know I'm being picky, but I'm trying to stay 100% organic.  That's where the Rosemary Oil avenue came from.  Apparently Rosemary Oil is a natural pesticide.  Quite a bit of info on it online.  Like you said, I read dish washing soap, even without the Rosemary Oil is also effective.  Going to try that today.

Good call on the rinsing.  I'll make sure I do that. 

Water blasts them and destroys their habitat, just have to repeat every 3-5 days for the new cycles of eggs hatching, the hotter and drier it is the fast they go.  Neem Oil will knock them back quite a bit after that, probably need to do 2-3 times with neem just to hit the generations.

Maybe my error was in how I applied it.  I gave it a pretty solid "misting" with a spray bottle last night.  Do you think more of a "soaking" is the best approach?

Thank you. I gave them a good soaking this evening.

I'm stocking my greenhouses with predatory mites when my plants leaf back out.