Soil mites uncovered: the truth about what they tried to hide

If you type in the simple phrase ‘soil mites’ into any search engine, a whole range of pest control and gardening websites will appear at the top of the search results, instead of the expected scientifically-based sites that actually explain what soil mites are. It sometimes seems that the whole online world wants to get rid of soil mites, and eradicate them from existence. It’s a big problem for those of us wishing to educate people about the wonders of soil and the many benefits of the precious and tiny animals that live there. These evidently hugely popular websites are nearly always filled with the same, utterly terrible advice, complete with badly researched and intentionally scary clickbait misinformation and outright falsehoods, all explaining how to get rid of soil mites (which is a truly terrible thing to advise, and something that you should never, ever do). Interestingly, as far as I can tell, most sites seem to have copied their information from a single, un-factchecked source, as the same incorrect points are repeated, over and over again.

The truth is, apart from a very, very few earth mite species (see the post lead photo and the photo below) that can be a commercial crop pest around the world, soil mites don’t eat our plants, infest our garden soils, or need eradicating at all, unless you’re a pest control or gardening website with things to sell. Basically, soil mites are a welcome, healthy and useful addition in any garden soil and should always be encouraged.

Here is one of the inoffensive offending earth mite beasties. They’re very cute. They have an anus on the top of their backs, (hence the droplet) which is obviously very cool indeed. I have quite a few of this Penthaleus major in my own garden, ambling about through the summer wild flowers in my lawn as part of the ecosystem, and everything and everyone is still healthy and happy. Unless you’re attempting to grow vast fields of monoculture crops in Australia or the US, you’ll be fine.

One of my major problems with the internet is the amount of false information and the scare tactics used to push them. It’s everywhere and it keeps growing. When it comes to soil animals, in this case, soil mites, I really, really cannot bear it. So my intent here is to allay anyone’s unfounded fears about soil mites as well as offset some of my annoyance and simmering righteous anger about the continual and unnecessary misrepresenting of these amazing animals online.

A little controversially perhaps, I’m actually going to use some of the worst but still representative offenders I’ve found as examples, with the added intent of showing how to spot misinformation about soil mites on gardening and pest control websites. I shall be interspersing photos of these amazing and beautiful mites to act as a none-too-subtle counterpoint to the misinformation. By the way, I’m more than happy to remove any of the mentioned websites if and when they change their spots.

For example, these two incredibly awful quotes come from the website BumperCrop Times:

‘Soil mites are among the most wide-spread problems that plant owners face.’

Absolutely and disgracefully not true. And:

‘As you can see, the indoor potted plants infested with soil mites may expose your loved ones to different infections from the bacteria they carry. They may also expose you to disease-causing worms, which is never a good thing.’

Again, this is just wrong, knowingly misleading and misinformed. I’ll explain about the “disease-causing worms” later. On top of that, notice the use of the trigger words ‘infested’, ‘infections’ and ‘expose’ (twice). Carefully written misinformation like this is nothing more than cynical manipulation with the intent of inciting a scared reaction from worried and uniformed readers, and getting a sale.

Gardening Knowhow, while to their credit, do at least mention that soil mites are beneficial, sadly still also spend a lot of time recommending ways to reduce and remove soil mites from the garden and compost heaps as well as suggesting that people who are worried about soil mites infesting (that word again) their indoor potted plant soil should add insecticide to remove mites wholesale. Don’t do that.

Residence Style, a home and garden design company, apart from explaining it’s best to keep your garden free of soil mites (it’s not), had this to say:

…soil mites might pose a nuisance as they are an unattractive sight to see on your potted plants or garden.

That’s just silly. And unattractive? Just look at the gorgeous things…

If soil mites, Collembola, and the other wonderful soil animals are able to make a life in the soil of your potted plants or garden, it’s a great sign you have a healthy soil and healthy plants, and if inside the home, they’ll just stay in any nice damp pot of soil quite happily, improving the soil for your plants. However, it doesn’t really happen that much. I’ve tried to encourage them to live in my house plants and haven’t succeeded yet. I would honestly love it.

And then the website said this:

These critters can pose a health hazard to humans as they have been found out to carry parasites like tapeworms. There is no study found that soil mites bite or attack humans; however, it is better to be safe than sorry.

Scare tactics yet again. The mention of oribatid tapeworms (most sites repeat this) actually refers to how horses, sheep and other animals can sometimes get tapeworms from ingesting infected oribatid mites as they eat grass and hay, as some mites around the world host the Anoplocephalidae family of tapeworms as part of their lifecycle. However, for humans, oribatid mites and tapeworms are just a non-issue. When we get tapeworms, these are generally caught through raw or undercooked meat or being around contaminated and unsanitary conditions around the world.

A few juvenile forms of the Trombiculidae (prostigmatid mites commonly known as a chiggers or harvest mites) are certainly capable of having a nibble on a passing human’s skin cells. They prefer to hang out on the stalks of long grass in meadows, woodlands and arable fields but could certainly be amongst the longer grass of a garden lawn, so that they can catch a ride on a passing mammal or bird, as part of their lifecycle. But they just leave an itchy spot.

So actually, counter to their claim, there are studies showing that SOME juvenile soil mites are capable of kind of biting, but no soil mite ‘attacks’ humans. They’re not tigers.

Misleading people into believing that soil mites are dangerous and a problem is a crappy tactic but so hard to counter when it’s everywhere. But it has to be worth it. It’s 100% better to be informed than to stay ignorant, and that’s an actual fact.

The worst I’ve found so far, and at this stage it’s not even a low bar, is Humboldt’s Secret Supplies (HSS), a pest control and chemical-selling company. In an article called Root aphids or soil mites: How to tell them apart, they explain confidently that soil mites are either six-legged or eight-legged insects with pointed heads, antennae and wings, that eat honeydew from aphids. Nope. Nein. Hell no. Here, for some reason, they seem to be confusing mites with, I think, flying ants.

Also according to HSS, one way for you to tell that you have soil mites is to:

Look for webbing or trails in the soil; mites use these to travel between food sources and their hiding spots.

It certainly sounds authoritative, but needless to say, this isn’t true either. In this quote, they seem to be confusing soil mites with a cocktail combination of snails, spider mites (that live on the underside of leaves in webbing), spiders, fungus gnat larvae and ants.

I recommend finding the article and reading it. Pretty much every single thing is made up, even the stuff about aphids. It’s a remarkable bit of work.

I pulled out these four websites as they came up in the top search results on Google. Other search engines give similar results. There are hundreds of thousands more, all shouting from the same song sheet. Across the board, the general tone on these sorts of websites follows the usual pattern of lazily demonising soil mites- they ‘lurk’ in the soil, they are an ‘infestation’ and they’re ‘frightening-looking’ and ‘annoying’ and need to be ‘eradicated’. Scare the consumer and they will buy. The world really is doomed.

On a more positive note, and for an incredibly slight sense of balance, I did manage to find two gardening sites that were not only scientifically literate. and accurate about soil mites, but also advised (mostly) against killing or removing any soil mites. The first website is run by Kate Russell, a gardener and writer from the US. And unlike the other websites, I will add a link to her website, The Daily Garden. She says:

While not all mites are good, soil mites are your friends in the garden. Let them be, and be glad they’re around!

The second is a site called JustHouseplants, run by Teri Tracy, again from the US. Unfortunately she does add in a few of the usual ‘unsightly’ and ‘infestation’ claims about soil mites in indoor plant soil, and how people can remove them, which is a shame. The usual scare mentions about how soil mites can carry tapeworms and pathogens are also included (even though as mentioned earlier, tapeworm-by-mite is a non-issue for us and our homes and gardens and while some larval chiggers in some parts of the world can spread a disease called scrub typhus, this is only in parts of Japan, Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia, and then only in certain hotspot areas of dense scrubland). However, she is truly so incredibly positive and well-informed about soil mites overall and encouraging to people having them in their indoor plant soil, that I can pretty much forgive the few lapses and misinformation.

Soil mites are not the same as spider mites and gall mites

Soil mites are wonderful, beautiful and beneficial and play an important role in soil health. The truth is, gardeners and house plant wranglers do have occasional issues caused by broad mites, gall mites and spider mites for example (which aren’t soil mites). These sap-sucking plant mites really can cause problems for some plants that we want to grow in our artificial systems, although they are also rather beautiful to look at and none of this is their fault and are still part of any healthy ecosystem. (Thanks to Dr Frank Ashwood for allowing me to use his photograph of spider mites. I just couldn’t find anyone who had them on their plants, so I could take photos…).

So, it’s worth restating that whenever a gardening or pesticide company talks about soil mites in a negative way, it really means that they either have no idea what they’re talking about and haven’t even attempted to find out, or they’re aware of the truth but are OK with making stuff up as they know people will click on their link and they will get views. Either way, more likely than not, they’re just trying to sell you something.

There are two basic red flags to look out for when any website talks about soil mites:

1.   If they mention anything about tiny white bugs in the soil. 🚩

2.   If they mention eradicating soil mites, or a soil being contaminated or ‘infested’ with, or having an ‘infestation’ of soil mites. 🚩

Either one is enough to know that the information being provided should not be trusted.

So, what are soil mites really like?

A few years ago, I began to message the worst of the offending websites and attempted to correct their avalanche of misinformation, although so far, with zero success. If you feel like joining me in this, then go for it. It’s worth being polite, and trying to include some basic and correct information on soil mites in the message and maybe let them know that you would rather not use their website or their products until they remove or correct any misinformation and scientifically incorrect content. If it helps, you can also copy and paste the following section and add it to the email.

What are soil mites?

Soil mites are extremely common, tiny, eight-legged arthropods that live in the soil, leaf litter and decaying organic material around the world. They are diverse and unusual. Most are different shades of brown and are protected by armour, like the slow-moving moss mites. Some are colourful and furry, like the red velvet mites. Some are predators and hunt other soil animals. A few are white, like the less common astigmatid mites.

What do they do?

Most soil mites are decomposers and very important to soil food webs, helping break down old decaying plant matter, fungi, and algae into simpler compounds that can then be taken up by plants as nutrients. Some are predators, removing many plant pests and maintaining a healthy balance in the soil while also still breaking down compounds into nutrients available to plants. Mites are an essential part of any healthy soil ecosystem and a good sign if found in abundance in anyone’s garden.

Are soil mites good or bad?

While some people believe that soil mites are pests, this just isn’t true. You don’t need to worry about getting rid of soil mites or them getting out of hand. Soil mites tend to reproduce very slowly and should be encouraged as they are beneficial for the soil, for plants and for us.

Do soil mites bite?

The larval form of some Trombiculid mites known as chiggers or harvest mites can ‘bite’ due to that part of their life cycle. They climb up blades of grass and climb on passing warm, living transport to feed. they can’t burrow or drink blood. They make a cut and feed on the liquid from the broken down skin cells of birds and small mammals. Gross, I know. While their ‘bite’ does itch, midges, horseflies and mosquitoes itch loads more.

Do soil mites spread diseases?

In some parts of the world, the same larval ‘chiggers’ mites that can ‘bite’ as mentioned above, can spread a disease called scrub typhus, but only in parts of Japan, Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia, and then only in certain areas of scrubland. And sometimes, tapeworm-infected Oribatid mites can famously pass the parasite to horses (and other mammals) due to the mites being amongst the grass blades that is then eaten. But that’s it.

Why are soil mites eating my potted plants?

They’re not.

Four fun facts

• There are many thousands of different types of soil mites across the world.

• They are part of Arachnida, related to spiders, scorpions and ticks, just usually much, much smaller.

• Soil mites are found all over the world wherever there is soil and live alongside us, in our gardens, parks and roadsides as well as in every forest and grassland of the world.

• They are all cute.

Remember

Soil mites might be tiny, but they play a big role in keeping our soils and crops (and us) healthy.

So, dear soil soil mite-loving sisters and brothers, I hope this has helped. I feel a lot better.