Cucumber death followup

This is a followup post about last year's cucumber plant. I said in the previous post that I didn't know what caused the symptoms I was seeing. I suspected CMV, but after some research I'm fairly confident to say that the real reason is spider mites. These little insects are known to enjoy feeding on a variety of greenhouse veggies, and cucumbers fall into this category. Obviously all those little bugs on the leaves were the mites. In Dutch they're known as Spint.

Here's that photo again

We were on vacation when they hit, so there was already a ful-on infestation happening. Early treatment of any plants bearing mite signs is crucial in combating these little guys. This is the main reason our plant didn't recover. Also, not knowing the exact cause at the time, I didn't really apply the right strategies. I was worried about spreading any diseases to other plants, and decided to sacrifice this one for the sake of the other.

But hopefully this year we won't have the same problem. At least I'll try to keep any infestations in check. Maybe implement some biological control methods.

So, my new theory: not CMV, but spider mites.