Field experiments were carried out to survey the mite species inhabiting soybean fields at Kafr El-Sheikh during three successive seasons; 2002, 2003 and 2004 as well as the seasonal abundance of the phytophagous mite and its relation to the predatory species and some weather factors (temperature and relative humidity).
The obtained results indicated existence 11 species of mites on soybean plants represented three groups; phytophagous, predatory and miscellaneous. Tetranychus urticae Koch (Family: Tetranychidae) was the only species belonging to the phytophagous mites. Seven species of the predatory mites were found in two families; stigmaeidae and phytoseiidae. Stigmaeus sp.; Agistemus vulgaris ((Soliman and Gomaa), Agistemus exertus (Gonzales) and Stigmaeus rattus (Gomaa and Rakha) were belonged to family stigmaeidae while Phytoseius finitimus (Ribaga), Amblyseius swirskii (Athias-Henriot) and Amblyseius cucumeris (Oudemans) were belonged to family phytoseiidae. Stigmaeus sp., Agistemus vulgaris formed a great portion of the population (34.62% and 30.77%, respectively), while Phytoseius finitimus and Amblyseius cucumeris composed the lowest portion by 3.85% each. Three species of miscellaneous mites belonging to two families were surveyed. Tyrophagus putrecentiae (Schrank) and Rhizoglyphus robini (Claparede) were belonged to family Acaridae, while Tarsonemus meyerus (Soliman and Kandeel) was belonged to family Tarsonimidae and every species represented 33.3% of the total population. Also, the results cleared that the population of T. urticae started to appear on soybean plants earlier than the predatory mites during the three study seasons. The highest population of T. urticae took place during July synchronizing with no or low numbers of predatory mites. Also, soybean plants significantly harbored the highest population of T. urticae during season of 2004 followed by season of 2002 and 2003.
The predatory mites and the two weather factors (temperature and relative humidity) affected insignificantly the population of T. urticae in the three study seasons. The combined effect of three factors on the population of T. urticae was more pronounced in season 2003, while lowest effect was found during season of 2004.