GregoryBulmer wrote:How long has yours been trilobed?

This is its second season, but it is only 15 months old.

Here is a trilobed Lithops herrei C355 that stays trilobed. I thought they revert to the bilobed form after changing leaves.

If you look at the picture posted by antisepp you will see the gut contents visible through the body wall, probably what you are seeing. Those little tranparent bristly bottomed mites are very common on soil surfaces, and completely harmless to plants. So I have been poisoning my plants with organo...

Thats not a RSM on the tip of that needle, its a harmless soil organism, possibly an oribatid mite. They have those characteristic bristles on their bottoms. The reason I called it RSM is because there are two dots on its back (that you cannot see on this photo). Can harmless ones have those dots a...

Eric Williams wrote:You cannot see RSM without the use of a 8X magnifying glass,( unless you have superb eyesight). So I do not think these are mites at all. Cheers

I think this is RSM, on the tip of a needle. It is small enough so that I cannot count legs, but you can see them very well with a naked eye.

Thank you Ian! They did appear in the "wet" corner, where I keep Meyerophytum, Mitrophyllum, and Dicrocaulon plants, and Gibbaeum seedlings.

My first thought was it was predatory mites. However, the population of white mites is on the rise (!), not decline. Also, I have put white mites right in front of these brown bugs hoping they would attack them. Alas, brown bugs had no interest in white mites whatsoever. I tried counting legs to fig...

Last year my mesembs were invaded by white RSM. The pests spontaneously disappeared with the summer. Now they are back, but in addition there are also similar pests, about twice-three times larger, much quicker, and brown in color. They crawl side by side. Is it a different stage of RSM life cycle, ...

I have fed my mesembs with NPK 1-1-3 + a micronutrient mix. Most winter species started growing or flowering within a few days, but I think this is just a coincidence. This is time for them to finally spring into action, feed or no feed.

Your measurements suggest that your T5 tubes put out nearly six times as much light as your T8 tubes. Hi Ian, you are my illuminance guru (I was going to say "lightning guru", but that sounds ambivalent). Your article "Growing Cactus with Artificial Light" was the most useful pi...