My tomatoes got hit by the worst mite invasion I have seen in over 40 years of growing tomatoes last season. I did not react quick enough and several of my plants that looked like some of yours were killed before I got them under control and most of the badly infected plants never did produce too much after the initial mite damage. By spraying everything with the Permethrin, Dawn and DE spray aggressively even on plants that showed no damage and the mulch under the plants and any other species of plant in the garden that could carry mites I was able to stop them before they could get my newer plants and those not heavily infested into that just hanging on condition. I sprayed twice in a couple of days to make sure I got everything covered and then removed all the damaged leaves. It left me with quite a few of those palm tree plants that didn't do much until fall because it took so long for them to regain enough foliage to be productive. The problem was worsened by the drought we had last year so I had to give the damaged plants a couple of extra doses of TTF and a lot of water to coax them back to somewhat healthy plants. To further make it more difficult every few weeks after that I would have to repeat the spray because new mites kept floating in and trying to get my plants colonized again.
It took me a few years to learn to spot mites and much longer to find a way to stop them. They can be very persistent in dry weather and they particularly will take over a slightly sick plant very fast. I figured out that any RKN increased the chance of mites greatly and that even mild fusarium problems with a plant would frequently incur mites far sooner than healthy plants. Despite years of fighting mites and usually coming out on top, I was totally caught flat footed last season by the swiftness and totality of that mite problem so what happened to you is not unique nor will it be the only time you are faced with these little monsters.
You could also have the additional problems of RKN and fusarium to make mite problems much worse and more likely to reappear year after year. It would probably save you a lot of future problems if you find out whether you have those underlying soil problems so you can plan for how to deal with them in the future.
Bill
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