Fungus gnats or WINGED ROOT APHIDS???

[Corpsey]

Note: i'll be buying mycotrol O and nematodes this week but i also wanted to see if i could do anything while i wait for these items.

so i just did an experiment.... took a few plastic sandwich bags and filled each with a different product that i had around the house. then dumped 4-8 crawling aphids into the bags.

1. Coconut oil Killed them, but not right away
2. White vinegar Killed them, but not right away
3. Herbal flea spray Killed them on contact
4. Wondercide skin tonic (another flea spray) Killed them on contact
5. Eucalyptus oil Killed them on contact
6. Tea tree oil Killed them on contact
7. Cedar oil spray Killed them on contact
8. R/O water (for control) did nothing



ingredients of products as follows...
1. 100% cold pressed organic virgin coconut oil
2. white distilled vinegar 5% acidity
3.sodium lauryl sulfate 2.7%, lemongrass oil .250%, rosemary oil .250%, cedarwood oil .250%, white thyme oil .100%, (inert: deionized water, isopropyl alcohol, glycerine total 96.45%)
4. distilled water, organic oils of neem, karanja, jojoba, coconut, vitamin E, natural emulsifier derived from plant materials, essential oils of lavender, cedarwood & lemongrass
5. 100% eucalyptus oil
6. 100% tee tree oil
7. 90% cedarwood oil, 10% ethyl lactate


so now to figure out if any of these can be used only for cleaning up around the growroom or actually in the soil which i doubt.

Also the least stinkiest and cheapest would be my goal, which vinegar might be, coconut oil would be next. tee tree and eucalyptus oil smell is so intense. and cedarwood is also overpowering. the flea sprays are just too expensive for this application, but cool it works. pretty cool that a lot of things kill them too.



BTW coconut oil works great for you pet, rub he/she down with it and the fleas die soon after, you will see them 'jump ship', hence why i tried it here.

 

[Granger2]

Corpse,
The first thing you need to do is to treat immediately while you're waiting for your todes and Mycotrol. You can control them well, with successful crops, with multiple treatments of VIABLE Nematodes and by treating with Mycotrol every week or 10 days.

You must knock their numbers way back right away. Then start with the other two. The Cedar is a great area spray to use on everything including all sides and bottom of containers.

For every tailpiped flyer you see there are craploads of other wingless adults in the medium. They reproduce mostly thru adults giving live birth to already pregnant adults. First Mycotrol treatment should be a 30 minute soak to get the entire rootball, especially just under base of plant. Good luck. -granger

 

[EclipseFour20]

Granger is muy correcto. But do not forget to do house cleaning, not once but twice. Think "clean room" clean, which means dish soap/bleach solution and clean the ceilings, walls and floor (in that order). Travel steamers can be picked up for less than $20 and work great on areas that soap/water is difficult (cracks, corners, fabric flaps/tents, filters, doorways, etc). Then clean all equipment, containers, tools, counter space, tables, buckets, etc...and be sure to clean the wall/floors in your work/storage area. You can not be too anal....IMHO, that means you clean everything twice.

And get rid of any bamboo stakes...RA love to nest inside them. Spend the bucks and get those metal-plastic coated green stakes. Reclean old containers....RAs eggs can lie dormant for years and "come alive" at the most un-opportune time.

 

[Corpsey]

Thank you so much granger and eclipse 420. I'm going to get on all of this. I have been seeing the winged ra for a couple of weeks and was wondering why bti and spinosad wasn't working. But still the garden looks as healthy as it ever was. I'm 3 weeks in flowering so we will see how yeilds are effected, but its a seed run pheno hunt so I really won't know the true potential of any individual yet.

 

[moses wellfleet]

Can somebody please describe the damage caused to roots by WRA?

I am seeing terrible symptoms affecting roots when I lifts plants out of pots!

 

[xxxstr8edgexxx]

Can somebody please describe the damage caused to roots by WRA?

I am seeing terrible symptoms affecting roots when I lifts plants out of pots!

read the first post . continue for a page or two.

 

[Bad Habits]

Need some help identifying potential root aphids

In the middle is what I think might be a RA. Bottom left blurred bug is a springtail for size reference:

The long antenna pointing southeast is the front of the bug:

Looks like it has 4-6 legs, with 2 antenna and 2 tail-pipe looking things on the back which may or may not be legs

Facing South:

Facing South:

Facing north, again with blurred springtail in bottom left corner for size reference:

I've had springtails for a few months now but haven't really bothered with em. About 2 days ago I saw this smaller bug climbing on the outside of the pot which I thought was weird for a springtail since I only see them inside the pot when I water or in the run-off. Got out the scope and saw it looks different than the spring tail because it has the 2 leg things in the back...

Whatever it is I think I caught it early? Haven't seen anything flying in the room, and put down some yellow sticky traps and they don't have anything on them.

Right now I have 2 trays in flower, the other tray (day 26 of 60) I've seen only a few spring tails but none of the other crawlers. I hit that tray with seven dust last night to kill the spring tails so I'll be able to tell if there's anything else crawling around in there. The tray where I saw the suspected RAs are on day 3 of 14 flush so can't use any treatments on those plants...

I have my veg in a closet of the room, and haven't seen any bugs of any sort in there. I transplanted 4 plants from there last night and closely inspected the root out of the pots and couldn't find anything.

I am just now finishing a new veg room so here was my tentative plan assuming they are RAs:

- hit all the veg plants with treatments (need recommendations on best ones, also plan on using teas brewed with OG Biowar products)

- move veg plants into new room

- finish up the 2 trays in the flower room

- deep clean the flower room after

Questions:

1) first and foremost do these appear to be RAs?

2) what should I treat my veg plants with? I know the biowar teas help, but my friend with RAs has only had success in knocking down the population with them but never eliminating them

3) I know h2o2 can't completely kill RAs, so how should I go about deep cleaning the flowering room once I finish up the 2 rounds?

Hoping I caught this early and looking to get after it ASAP!

 

[MynameStitch]

ok first is there any damage on your plants? you find it crawling in the soil right? Find any bugs on your plants? or underside?

 

[Moe Funk]

Looks like a springtail to me.

 

[Moe Funk]

Those tailpipe looking things are legs as can be seen in the last pic.

 

[Moe Funk]

Ah shit I take that springtail diagnosis back I meant hypoaspis miles (basically a soil mite). Been there done that. They are beneficials that help break down decaying roots.

The fact you have springtails and hypoaspis miles points to an issue with your medium. You got pics of the top sides of your plants so we can see what issues you are having?

 

[Bad Habits]

ok first is there any damage on your plants? you find it crawling in the soil right? Find any bugs on your plants? or underside?

In the tray where I have found them, not really. There was some symptoms of over-watering early in flower, so I let them dry out and resumed normal watering after and they seemed to be normal after that. It is a new strain so I'm not quite sure how they're "supposed" to look, but the buds are stacking fairly well, trichrome production is high, and the stems are green.

Have not seen any bugs other than on top of the medium, in the runoff, and now on the side of the pots.

On the other hand, the next (younger) tray, the majority of the fan leaves yellowed out early. Also showed symptoms of overwatering, so I've only been watering like once every 3-4 days (coco with perlite mix). The bud sites are still fairly green and growing, but the fan leaves are look like crap (tray is at day 26).

However I haven't seen any bugs in that tray at all except a handful of springtails.

Looks like a springtail to me.

I'm praying they are maybe baby spring tails? although the body shape looks different. And I saw them crawling on the outside of the pots, which I've never seen adults do... I don't want to take any chances.

Those tailpipe looking things are legs as can be seen in the last pic.

Yeah it looks like that in the last pic... I dunno though

 

[Bad Habits]

Ah shit I take that springtail diagnosis back I meant hypoaspis miles (basically a soil mite). Been there done that. They are beneficials that help break down decaying roots.

The fact you have springtails and hypoaspis miles points to an issue with your medium. You got pics of the top sides of your plants so we can see what issues you are having?

Yeah after browsing this thread and seeing someone suggest that to someone else with a similar pic I looked around on google images. The hypoaspis mites look like they have rounder bodies and don't seem like their rear legs kick that far back like the things I found. Unfortunately I can't magnify them any further than that - using an iphone scope attachment with LED light on it.

One issue I think I have with my medium is I am basically transplanting and flipping at the same time, and since they are on drippers I think I have overwatered them.

Ideally I would be transplanting into a bigger pot, giving them 10-14 days to fill it out with roots, then flip and run on drippers and they would take all that water up because of the root system.

However, until now I had a very small veg space, so I was taking plants in geopots or smart pots, putting them in a larger plastic pot, filling in the extra space with coco, and flipping same day. Thus it was hard to know how much to water in the beginning, which I think lead to me overwatering and springtails appearing...

 

[xxxstr8edgexxx]

potato slice on top of soil left for some hours will attract the aphids for a better look.
be sure what you ave before you go nuts. if they are aphids theres no such thing as just a little infestation. untl you eradicate them they'll suck the fun out of growing. maybe those are something else but it does look suspect. in some grows youll see em mature in to flyers that will get all in your buds
and look like fungus gnats, but not always.
i think i recall that blue sticky traps work on these for the purpose of id.
the potato should do it.

 

[Moe Funk]

When I had those they were also crawling on the outside of the pots and they are really tiny. But I know there are some other people that had pics of those here in this thread and they were afraid they were aphids but pretty much everyone was like no those look like hypoaspis miles. I seen it happen like 3 or 4 times at least in this very thread so you might wanna just skim through for the pics and see if that's what you got.

I do wanna correct one thing though the springtails are what feed on the decaying roots the hypoaspis miles are predatory mites that feed I guess on gnat larvae and I think some other nasties. That looks like what you got though if you had better resolution you'd see that's what they are.

 

[Moe Funk]

Page 155 has some pics of them.

 

[xxxstr8edgexxx]

there seems to be a few different types so the things people say about thier particular aphid may not hold true with yours. just keep that in mind. i had flyers out the ass but never had many crawlers like in the pics. my crawlers were black and pretty much just looked like the flyers without wings. i had a hard time finding them in the soil. i think if i remember they were really little in the nymph stage and tranlucent? its been a while.

 

[EclipseFour20]

It has been my experience that Hypoaspis miles have smooth bodies whereas Root Aphids have ridges with little hair-like spikes protruding around their "shell". Also...RAs have faster legs and scamper faster than Hypoaspis miles. Both will seek the container edge if the soil is watered. About 10% of RAs can morph into flyers....and those with RA infestation also seem to have a fungus gnat issue as well; they seem to go hand-in-hand--sometimes, but not always.

 

[Granger2]

Beware of tailpipes. Use potato slices. I wouldn't worry too much about the crop you're flushing, but the room/s and medium is what you need to go full speed on eradication. If you use OGBioWar, use it as a full strength drench. Use 4 tsp/gal of Root and 4 tsp of Foliar, undiluted. Do this every week or 10 days. Good luck. -granger

 

[Elements001]

Im sure it's been mentioned several time before, but I started using Diatomaceous Earth a few months ago and it has just about completely gotten rid of my fungus gnats.

I believe this thread is more intended for RA, but I just wanted to say this product works very well for me, and wasn't too costly.

http://www.saferbrand.com/store/indoor-insect/51702#desc

Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) Listed

At Safer® Brand, we pride ourselves in offering you organic products. Ant and Crawling Insect Killer is another product you can feel confident using in and around your home. OMRI Listed® and USDA Approved for Organic Gardening. No worries of toxic residuals.