anyone ever lose a crop to gnats?

T

TWS

Well-Known Member
patrickkawi37 said:
Fungus gnats are rather easy to kill. They are hard to rid of completely because of the larva and such keeps popping out new generations. But if your having issues killing them with mosquito dunks and like an sns203 drench.. I would look at the bugs under a microscope because like mentioned above it could be root aphids. I had a battle with these recently and they are bastards
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The fliers are pretty easy to tell the diff from. Root aphid flyers are fast and will escape you. Fungus gnats are slower and hoover around more and you can see the larvae in the soil.
 
T

TWS

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Humanrob said:
Since my other room is getting closer to being finished, I picked up an inexpensive 30x magnifier just the other day, so I'll take a look -- I've read about the "twin tail pipes". When they first got bad I went to a local hydro store to get something to kill them with, and I stuck a bunch to a piece of tape and brought it with me so that they could ID it. The main guy said gnats, so that's what I went with, but he could be wrong, he never looked at it under a scope.
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a lot of folks are nave to root aphids, specially stoners at a hydro store. LOL
 
P

patrickkawi37

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TWS said:
The fliers are pretty easy to tell the diff from. Root aphid flyers are fast and will escape you. Fungus gnats are slower and hoover around more and you can see the larvae in the soil.
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I had both this run and made it through surprisingly easily . I used the merit 75 during veg . It killed most of them but I saw a good 5-10 everytime I watered through the run. I was able to smash them with my fingers, they didn't run off or fly away , so I assumed I got rid of the aphids and still had the gnats .. But I never saw any larva and I was definitely looking for it . Pretty weird
 
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Humanrob

Humanrob

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TWS said:
here's the organic way for both pest and many more,

http://bioworksinc.com/products/mycotrol-o.php
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Yeah, I saw that stuff, but at $90+ per bottle, there were cheaper ways to get rid of gnats. If it turns out to be root aphids, I might consider the investment. I did just get nematodes today, I wonder if they work on aphids also?

TWS said:
The fliers are pretty easy to tell the diff from. Root aphid flyers are fast and will escape you. Fungus gnats are slower and hoover around more and you can see the larvae in the soil.
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The pests I have are not good flyers, they just flutter around a lot.

My room is lit from 10pm to 10am, so after 10 tonight I'll have another chance to look. The nematodes come in a use-it-or-lose-it sponge, with enough of the buggers to cover a 3000sf yard, so I'll water the girls and then spread the rest around the yard tomorrow morning. Not sure how long they take to work.
 
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Humanrob

Humanrob

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It appears that root aphids are smaller, more compact, and under a 30x magnifier the twin tailpipes are just visible - but clearly there. Aphids are lankier, longer legs, butt tapers to a single point, and they can get bigger in size overall.

Don't ask me how I know.
 
T

TWS

Well-Known Member
im curious if your nematodes will work. I tried them outside on RA's before. I think they worked but I all so used other means.
 
T

TWS

Well-Known Member
Humanrob said:
Yeah, I saw that stuff, but at $90+ per bottle, there were cheaper ways to get rid of gnats. If it turns out to be root aphids, I might consider the investment. I did just get nematodes today, I wonder if they work on aphids also?



The pests I have are not good flyers, they just flutter around a lot.

My room is lit from 10pm to 10am, so after 10 tonight I'll have another chance to look. The nematodes come in a use-it-or-lose-it sponge, with enough of the buggers to cover a 3000sf yard, so I'll water the girls and then spread the rest around the yard tomorrow morning. Not sure how long they take to work.
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100 % kill rate to Orthene's 98% and wont kill your nematodes
 
T

TWS

Well-Known Member
Humanrob said:
It wasn't that I crossed my fingers, it was more direct than that. I was kind of freaked out about them but the little info I found on them seemed consistent -- the line basically was not to worry about them. One post on here, for instance, said something about how they are more of a nuisance to us (flying in your face) than they are a problem to the plants, since they don't actually harm the plants. So when they were growing in numbers during veg, I tried to take the advice I was hearing, and not worry about them. I never heard or read that they can stick to the buds and make them unusable.... if it had been discussed, somehow I missed it.

But like you said, now I know. Maybe when I harvest I'll take some pics as a warning to other newbies who also somehow missed that lesson on bug control.
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When got them the first time I was on the same train of thought and read the same stuff ,it wasn't until my soil started crawling with the non winged ones did I realize it was a major problem and did a lot of research .

Do your plants show deficient and drink less ?
 
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Humanrob

Humanrob

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TWS said:
im curious if your nematodes will work. I tried them outside on RA's before. I think they worked but I all so used other means.
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I'm curious too, the package mentions gnats but does not mention aphids.

TWS said:
When got them the first time I was on the same train of thought and read the same stuff ,it wasn't until my soil started crawling with the non winged ones did I realize it was a major problem and did a lot of research .

Do your plants show deficient and drink less ?
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I have so much DE and gnatnix on the surface, that it looks like a dead zone, I don't see anything moving.

The plants are a pair of clones identical to a pair in another room, and have less than half the foliage and buds. They've been stressed their whole lives. As I mentioned, its a bad soil mix that is dense and holds water, but I suppose it could seem like its holding water (or that could be exaggerated) because the plant is drinking less so the water is just sitting in the soil.

TWS said:
what strain ? she is frosty
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Casey Jones. There's a pic from about a week ago at the beginning of this thread from the healthy room. They are definitely frosty girls. This is my first grow, I wish I had known how to clone before they went to flower, I'd love to run these again.

The SNS203 seemed to put a dent in the problem, and the bottle does mention both aphids and gnats, but one thing that really bothers me about it is that it says "kills/repels" -- really? There is a big difference! I have clones, starts, and young plants in the room outside the closet, "repels" is not an option.

TWS said:
100 % kill rate to Orthene's 98% and wont kill your nematodes
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My wife begged me not to spend another $90, at this point this is already the most ridiculously expensive pot we've ever seen. She'd rather lose the two plants than spend another dime trying to save them, I don't blame her, at some point you have to cut your losses (looking at them and considering I can get $100oz. at the dispensary, in dried weight I doubt there is $90 worth of bud on them). I'm just hoping they make it through to full maturity, and then we'll give the washing routine a try and see what we can salvage.
 
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Humanrob

Humanrob

Well-Known Member
Does anyone know is soil additives feed aphids or gnats? I'm due to put down some more Happy Frog Fruit and Flower on top before the next watering, and I don't want to do anything that could make the bugs lives easier.

I also may have been too generous with the mycorrhizae when I transplanted these originally, could over-doing it with root happy microbes end out feeding bugs (or feeding the fungus that the bugs eat?)?

Just searching for the interconnectivity of it all.
 
C

CC Dobbs

Well-Known Member
Humanrob said:
Yeah, I fucked up. Perfect storm of mishaps and misjudgments, and one of my closets got so out of hand with gnats that now about half the buds look like fly paper in a shit storm. It's 4 weeks into flower at the moment.

How did it get so out of hand? A few main factors: First grow. I read that gnats aren't really a problem because they don't harm the plants, so I waited too long to act. I got gnat infested soil. I used a bad mix (rookie mistake) and one of my soil components had water retention properties, which promoted fungus, which fed the gnats larva/nymphs(?).

So, some questions.... How bad is it to smoke gnats? Would making tincture in 151 Rum be an OK use of the buds? Should I just pull the plants, scrap the grow, and chalk it up to an expensive lesson learned?
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Kill yourself and help us all.
 
bertaluchi

bertaluchi

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I have never seen bud that infested with gnats. Maybe try a water cure and some of them will float off. Damn dude!
 
Banana444

Banana444

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hyroot said:
gnats just drink water til they drown. They don't eat plants. The larva however will eat roots.

if you run soil. Just topdress neem meal, compost and worm castings and that's it.

if you are in hydro run rosemary oil through the resi.

also set up lots of fans. Gnats and all other flyers hate wind.

dont waste money on spray or sticky traps. They don't do a thing.
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They do get stuck to your hair!
 
H

High Grade Only

Active Member
Richard Drysift said:
3. Sprinkle diatomaceous earth on top of your mulch
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solid advice.



and i have never seen or heard of anyone having actual losses from fungus gnats. slight decrease maybe, but never significant harm. more annoying than anything. however, your pics are gnarly. you must be sustaining high humidity levels, fix your enviroment
 
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