The DE takes a while to work, i think 3-4 days to dehydrate the mite, probably shorter for young mites. The issue is that you have to deal with all of the mites that come from the eggs DE won't kill until they are hatched. I am finding DE is working, but for the more infected plant i soaked with neem+horitcultural soap then dusted DE back on to it. That really reduced the numbers of living, but the damage is still showing up over a week and a half after i nuked them 3 times. The reason for this is that the damage has already been done (even though you can't see it) but now the plant is shedding those old damaged leaves off.
I did a test plant (Capsicum) about 4 weeks ago with only DE, it was covered in mites. Now the plant is quite damaged but is finally putting out new growth that isn't damaged. Not a mite in sight, so it could just be a fact that DE takes some time before it does the job.
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