Dennis was absolutely correct.  There are likely always a few resistant mites in any population, or ones randomly occurring due to mutation.  Such a mutation has a strong chance of being passed to her daughters due to brother/daughter haploid/diploid mating.



Randys post on why was great,  and a hand to Aaron is in salute also.   What I get out of this is what a lot of the common thoughts are and hopefully get better at communicating mine.  My post on this was one of my recent failures! Let me try again.

No,  I disagree, AS you pointed out the genetics of varro are odd,  essentially clones!  That’s why the whole argument falls apart.  Fully accepting what Dick said about diluting the gene pool with "partially resistant" genes.  In some cases that may be true.  In this case since they are clones the case dies.   If you  use lets call miticide (I should say pesticide) A and it kills 99%  we assume that 1 mite is still there and now shes fully restiant genticaly,  and breeds...  okay  got it...  What your missing is that when I use treatment B that kills only 80%   Mite A is still there!  Cloning herself at the exact same rate as before.  But now shes accomapined by 19 more sisters,  with also some level of restiance.


What your talking about is a miticide that kills less because of poor application.   Take a look at antibiotics.  If you artial kill a large portion,  you get a worse infection.  Why?  Because the restiant germs are in fact cloning themselves.

 The more effectively you eliminate the parasite, the better off you are.  You could make the argument that if you only killed 80% of them the remaining 20 may not have as strong a restiance,  as the ratio in 99% but you also have a larger population passing on the smaller portion of restiance.

Lets take this to real world.  Right now the only one we say is 99% effective is the organic acids OA and Formic.   Dennis suggestion that mites can't build restiance to a hammer mode of action,  would indicate they are the ones to use at 90% effectivity,  but his comment left everyone thinking that  cumphos and Apavir were better because they are less effective.

I am pretty sure that wasn't what he wanted to say.

I will look for his email and ask him.

Charles

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