TIMERITE® provides farmers with a single spray date for optimum control of RLEM with a period of three days either side of this date to achieve good control the following autumn. This date is unique to each farm and remains constant from year to year. To obtain the date for your farm, use the longtitude and latitude for your property.
The TIMERITE® package is for spraying Redlegged Earth Mites (RLEM) in spring. TIMERITE is not effective against Blue Oat Mite.
How does TIMERITE work?
For a short time in spring, after RLEM have finished laying normal winter eggs on the pasture, but before they produce their over-summering eggs, there are relatively few eggs present. This is the ideal time to spray because eggs cannot be controlled by spraying. Controlling RLEM during this period means that a large proportion of the population can be controlled, reducing the number of RLEM hatching the following autumn.
If you use TIMERITE in spring to reduce mite numbers in that paddock, it is important that you check the paddock in autumn for mites, particularly where you have planted a crop that is highly susceptible to earth mite damage e.g. canola.
You do not need to have very high mite numbers to consider spraying. But if you cannot see any mites in your pasture it is probably not worth spraying. TIMERITE is available in all areas of southern Australia within the known range of RLEM distribution.
The TIMERITE package was developed by CSIRO Entomology and supported by woolgrowers through Australian Wool Innovation Limited.
For more information on TIMERITE visit the Australian Wool Institute website.
