Root Aphids, who has had them?

So I’ve had an ongoing fungus gnats issue for some time. But it never really got out of hand. And even now I have them knocked back to where I see maybe a few here and there. But I keep having issues. I have had in total two plants that completely died randomly, been gardening well over 10 years and that’s never happened.

Those were just the extreme cases but I’ve had the same thing happen several times where plants stop drinking as much and just generally don’t turn out. It is usually only a few plants out of a decent sized room, but recently I could tell I had half a room doing so I cut half the room down and replaced it.

I have looked and looked for root aphids digging around in top few inches of soil? Are they easy to see? Are my fungus gnats really just winged root aphids?

I also could have a hlvd and sending out a test after thanksgiving for that, but I don’t think that is my only issue and might not even really be an issue if I get this figured out.

I am thinking of just treating for root aphids even without seeing them?

Any ideas?

So far I’ve used Mosquito bits added to the pots and sprayed the tops of the pots with cann control every other day. The fungus gnats are all but gone, but I still see a few.

The plants don’t drink as much as the others, show yellowing on some branches, funny closed together branching on severely affected branches, weak brittle branches that break easily where they attach to stem. Looser buds on finished plants and noticeable loss of quality.

If I get fungus gnats, I put this stuff called Neem Seed Meal. It smells like ramen seasoning but I swear by it for getting rid of them. It does contain nutrients though so gotta be careful. Adding yellow stickies always helps too, along with more airflow.

You can spot RA's if you unpot them and look at the roots....particularly areas that look like the roots have died off. Once they get bad they will be crawling over the rims of your pots and on the ground and are easy to spot.

I've used Bti products with great success you just need to keep doing it and being consistent with them. I used gnatrol, when I used mosquito bits I wouldn't use them as a dressing or amendment better to wrap them in something like a cheesecloth or something along those lines. Then having it sit in the water you're going to feed to your plants. the environment is a big contributor to them.

I forgot to mention, root aphids will pretty much be living directly on the roots for the most part until they become winged adults and start moving around. If you just dig around in soil you might miss them if you aren’t looking at exposed roots.
im not sure that the brittle branches are a symptom of root aphids. That sounds more like you have duds or possible fusarium.

Right before I recently trashed my whole clone library, I went through each one and pinched each cut between my index and middle finger with my thumb, every single cut was just brittle as hell and snapped instead of bending. It was pretty heartbreaking, but I just rather start over than deal with duds that you veg for weeks only to find out mid-flower that things don’t look right when you already have your feeding dialed.

waterproof808 said:

I forgot to mention, root aphids will pretty much be living directly on the roots for the most part until they become winged adults and start moving around. If you just dig around in soil you might miss them if you aren’t looking at exposed roots.
im not sure that the brittle branches are a symptom of root aphids. That sounds more like you have duds or possible fusarium.

Right before I recently trashed my whole clone library, I went through each one and pinched each cut between my index and middle finger with my thumb, every single cut was just brittle as hell and snapped instead of bending. It was pretty heartbreaking, but I just rather start over than deal with duds that you veg for weeks only to find out mid-flower that things don’t look right when you already have your feeding dialed.

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What was the issue you were having? If it was fusarium can you not just clone it? Also this problem has been going on quite some time and I have not seen any aphids and I’m there looking quite often so maybe that’s not the issue. I’m trying my best to figure it out, but kinda stumped if it’s not bugs.

Gond00s said:

I've used Bti products with great success you just need to keep doing it and being consistent with them. I used gnatrol, when I used mosquito bits I wouldn't use them as a dressing or amendment better to wrap them in something like a cheesecloth or something along those lines. Then having it sit in the water you're going to feed to your plants. the environment is a big contributor to them.

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Hmm I have just been adding mosquito bits to the tops of my pots, you think it’s better to add to water?

A good thick layer of diatomaceous earth can get rid of fungus gnats. It also destroys crawling insects of all types.

I got root aphids about 6 years ago, nasty shit to deal with, started up thinking it was gnats, plants threw weird deficiencies and we finished the run cleaned the room and flipped again, next run started showing random deficiencies about 2 weeks in and we chased it around for like 2 more weeks until we repotted one plant to see if our soil mix was fucked somehow, tons of small mite looking things on the roots along the edge of the rootball, lots of brown dead roots. Same thing happened when I went and tore up the root balls from the last run too.

They were a pain to get rid of and I can't recommend how I got rid of them as a good method either, I know there are a lot more biological controls available now than there used to be, aphids are a huge problem outdoors in ca/or so I'd look at what they're doing out there to keep things in check and go with that.

I have had a few fungus gnats appear recently. I have hit them with sticky traps and been letting the soil dry out as much as possible, that has dealt with the majority. Watering with carbonated water really fucks with them, they really don't like that. But I am considering Nematodes, but have no experience of them, are they any good?

speedwell68 said:

I have had a few fungus gnats appear recently. I have hit them with sticky traps and been letting the soil dry out as much as possible, that has dealt with the majority. Watering with carbonated water really fucks with them, they really don't like that. But I am considering Nematodes, but have no experience of them, are they any good?

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Very good, cost is the only issue with them in my opinion. The sizes you order are more than enough for probably every plant on your property cannabis or not and often shipping is as much as the product itself. Honestly still worth getting though as they help nutrient cycle as they eat.

A cheap biological alternative is something like BTI which is a bacteria available at most stores with a garden department as mosquito dunks or bits. The agricultural product I believe is called gnatrol, but i had a hard time finding small quantities of it.

Gumdrawp said:

Very good, cost is the only issue with them in my opinion. The sizes you order are more than enough for probably every plant on your property cannabis or not and often shipping is as much as the product itself. Honestly still worth getting though as they help nutrient cycle as they eat.

A cheap biological alternative is something like BTI which is a bacteria available at most stores with a garden department as mosquito dunks or bits. The agricultural product I believe is called gnatrol, but i had a hard time finding small quantities of it.

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Nematodes seem to be super cheap. I can get enough to treat 50 M² for £14.99, about $12.

Nematodes are a good preventative measure but there is no quick way to eradicate RA’s besides something gnarly like imidioprid. Biological controls are expensive and not 100% effective and slow to work. It’s honestly fastest to just take clones and throw out all your soil and clean the hell out of your space. RA’s are the worst bug you can get IMO.

Okay so I had another plant die the other day, was an old mom I already had copies of anyways. She just stopped drinking and started drooping. So I took the root ball out and went through and broke it all down looking everywhere for bugs and didn’t find any.

I have several plants in the flower room drinking slow as well.

As far as fungus gnats I thought I had them pretty much wiped out but yesterday they were back again.

So far I have tried mosquito bits added directly to the pots, sprayed with mammoth cann control right on top of the coco. I also been adding 3-4 ml of 30% peroxide ro my Rez. I also did one treatment of bioceres wp recently but didn’t seem to help with the gnats as much as cann control.


Kinda afraid to to keep spraying oil type killers in my roots, afraid will clog them up some how?

I was thinking of trying Monterey’s soap spray next but was wondering if anyone had sprayed soil with it instead of plants?

I have the imid to get rid of RA if that’s actually the problem but didn’t wanna just use it without verifying that I did have RA.

Watched a video on fusarium, but when I checked the roofs I’d didn’t see any sign of red tint, the roots also didn’t have that slimy coating like with Pythium.

I’m really kinda chasing my tail over here, at this point I’m about to dissect a whole plant and send off to have tested. The only place I know of that does testing is dark heart nursery, would like to find somewhere in mi. But if not I’ll send out samples to
DHN next week.

Very frustrated over here. About to throw in the towel genetics wise and throw away years worth of hard work and start over from seed.

I have dealt with Fungus Gnats by letting the pot dry right out, they breed in damp soil, if the soil isn't damp they can't breed. Sticky traps, I read somewhere that a pair of Gnats produce 300 eggs every two weeks. Watering with carbonated water, this really pisses them off. The adults take to flight as soon as the surface of the medium starts fizzing, straight into your sticky traps and the fiizzing also meses with the larvae.

These methods help control them, it won't wipe them out completely. Which is why I am interested in Nematodes.

speedwell68 said:

I have dealt with Fungus Gnats by letting the pot dry right out, they breed in damp soil, if the soil isn't damp they can't breed. Sticky traps, I read somewhere that a pair of Gnats produce 300 eggs every two weeks. Watering with carbonated water, this really pisses them off. The adults take to flight as soon as the surface of the medium starts fizzing, straight into your sticky traps and the fiizzing also meses with the larvae.

These methods help control them, it won't wipe them out completely. Which is why I am interested in Nematodes.

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Nematodes work great but they are super temperature sensitive, so if you order them in the winter you need to pay for next day delivery if you want them to survive.

Rurumo said:

Nematodes work great but they are super temperature sensitive, so if you order them in the winter you need to pay for next day delivery if you want them to survive.

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I was going to get them from Amazon Prime, so next day.


TBH it never gets cold here, we never get snow and it never gets close to freezing, it was 14℃ today, the rest of the UK is predicted to have snow and I am wandering around in shorts.

But thanks for the tip. I spotted a few the other day and broke out the sticky traps, I now have a lot of dead ones and I haven't seen anymore.

You might have the transparent root aphids that you can't see. They are the worse one's you can have....Azosol, bioceres, and deep cleaning saved my rooms. I tried everything in the book!!

OP

hotrodharley said:

A good thick layer of diatomaceous earth can get rid of fungus gnats. It also destroys crawling insects of all types.

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Do you mean this stuff?


Is it just a case of top dressing the pot?

speedwell68 said:

Do you mean this stuff?

Multi-Mite® 6KG Bucket FEED Grade DE - DIATOMACEOUS EARTH - Mite Fleas and All Animal Lice Control Powder and FEED Supplement : Amazon.co.uk: Garden

Multi-Mite® 6KG Bucket FEED Grade DE - DIATOMACEOUS EARTH - Mite Fleas and All Animal Lice Control Powder and FEED Supplement : Amazon.co.uk: Garden

www.amazon.co.uk

Is it just a case of top dressing the pot?

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Yes with a thick layer of it. Meaning about an inch.

https://www.therustedgarden.com/blogs/vegetable-gardening-tips-blog/how-to-use-diatomaceous-earth-for-fungus-gnats-and-crawling-insects-seed-starts-more