ID clover leaf issue. Virus? Bug? Cultural?

Hey. Not sure this is the right forum to be posting in, but I assume it would be.

Anyways, I'm curious if anyone knows what's going on here? This is from my urban backyard. We have a staple ground cover of clover(other stuff inbetween), and I noticed on most of the clover these little white spots are showing up. I then noticed on some plants I was trying to grow (just small stuff like cilantro, basil) that the white spots appeared on these plants too. The cilantro is in a pot, and the basil is in the ground. I did notice though as the 2 plants are maturing, the white spots go away for the most part.. I also have lemon balm and mint, both show white spots, but they seem to show less as the plant matures more. Also another thing I noticed on some grass and even on some clover leaves are red strikes or red spots. I noticed the most on the sheep sorrel that found its way in my yard. I posted this in the soil forum because it feels soil related. I assume there's some dis-ease going on in the soil or something. Also I'm a newb to anything gardening by this year, so excuse me if I sound stupid(:

here's a pic what's going on! I didn't get a good one of the red stuff, but if you look at the grass, you can see the the red strip.

The white is a miner bug of some variety. looks like quite the infestation and you may be better off removing the leaves that are terribly infested before treating. You can use water with a bit of soap and alcohol.

Ah, it's not soil related - sorry !!

Well since this is pretty much on all of my lawn(mostly the clovers), I'm guessing a long term solution is more diversity?

It looks pretty infested and I'd try to get the buggy problem addressed to some degree before I brought in other plants/seeded. Oh, I think the splotches (red) are not bugs, but possibly water related aka too much.

Thats what my guess would have been, water related.

I wouldn't usually go for the "Eek, it's a disease!" option, but in this case, I dunno.
White+clover+mosaic+virus
I really, really hope not, as viruses are pretty hard to manage.
I'm going to edit the subject line and ask for more eyes on this one.

don't think a disease - minerfly makes a more defined white ribbon, but it has many brethern including the leafminer, whose pattern certainly looks like this.

Marianne Cooper wrote: don't think a disease - minerfly makes a more defined white ribbon, but it has many brethern including the leafminer, whose pattern certainly looks like this.

Great!, I was feeling a bit alarmist.
I was looking for leaf miner damage pics and their tracks all looked more 'determined' than this.

thanks guys for the help and title change(:

Assuming it is a leafminer, and on such a large scale, how would I go about safely dealing with this?

at some point in the past i connected all the whiteish splotches and the look of the thing on groundcover with mineral that were being distributed sprinkler via the groundwater pump. so away with the sprinkler (not the dance). drip drip

must say it also looks of a roundup(glyphosate) ish look? no?

I'd try a sprayer with water, a tiny amount of dish soap and alcohol. spray away - I'd watch the weather and make sure you'll have several days without rain.

Tony Thomas wrote:must say it also looks of a roundup(glyphosate) ish look? no?

We've never used that on our lawns, HOWEVER, 4 or 5 neighbors in front of us use that scotts service. I have no idea what they spray exactly and I don't wanna know, but I don't see how that would effect our backyard?

Marianne Cooper wrote:I'd try a sprayer with water, a tiny amount of dish soap and alcohol. spray away - I'd watch the weather and make sure you'll have several days without rain.

Awesome, Ill try that(: Forest for next 10 days though... rain. Although it says rain and it ends up not raining. I'll be patient.