Fungus gnats or WINGED ROOT APHIDS???

[Granger2]

the gnome,
Yellowish. Those are the one's I have/had? I've been using OGBiowar for over a year with great success. Haven't seen one or symptoms in close to a year. Also one app of nematodes at about 3 weeks into bloom.

But if you want to go with chems, I'd really suggest Eclipse's Orthene [acephate] and pyrethrin with PBO regime. Two 30 min soaks and a foliar spraying with an area spray seems to give a complete wipe out. Search his posts in this thread, and for anyone else's on pH related phytotoxicity. A couple of people have said they got damage. Its possible to temporarily adjust pH up or down to avoid phytotoxicity.

I'm intrigued by the Mycotrol for foliar and root that yourcorpse talked about. Seems like it should work. I have used it [Botanigard WP] in the past, root only, and got enough control for a healthy successful crop, but no wipe out. Good luck. -granger

 

[the gnome]

thanks guys.
I'm looking for something that is proven and tested to knock em down.

I read on THC farmer a guy said this:
I use Bayer Fruit & Vegetable for Root Aphids. 2ml per liter and drench the roots. i do 3 applications spaced apart by 5 days between each application. It saved my garden and i’ve never seen them come back. and i’ve seen it save dozens of other gardens..

in A lot of situation I think people are having varying degree's of success to complete success using the same product is due to the people's inconsistencies using the products.

granger, i read about the the nematodes last nite and will start using them in bloom as you suggested.
I have Bayers Imid handy and but have to order the other stuff like orthene(acephate).
I'm ready to do this now, I don't really see an infestation and it's pretty minor atm so time to strike is now before fliers hatch.

i was up till midnite looking in the drainage hole and leaves and so far I only seem to have 1 plant that Ive seen them on and it's just been sexed out as a male so I'm taking a cut and dumping it far from home base.
I'll post back in later and update.


as always IC comes through nice-n-quick..... you guys rock!

 

[the gnome]

I don't believe they live in soil without roots, but they will lay a winter egg in just a bag of soil (or elsewhere) that can hatch in 1-6 months.

I had one bag of promix that was almost done, but open in my room during my RA infestation. After I had spent weeks applying a few different things to my main soil I thought it was all good no aphids after a month.
Well I used that bagged promix for some new seeds in another room and within a week of the seeds popping up I had 3-4 aphids crawling on the rims of the seedlings cups, and one winged RA. That promix was totally untreated.

One Mycotrol O drench did the trick there, and no more RA. It has been another month since that happened.

next grow I do I will start being proactive and start using mycotrol and nematodes as a preventative.

reusing someone elses bamboo stakes is a big n NO NO.
I reuse mine but cut off the bottom of the stakes thats been below the soil line. then i soak the bottoms of the cut stakes in a 5 gall bucket of near boiling bleachy soapy water

 

[GET MO]

i realized my real infestation is from outside of my shed. I got rid of them then when i went back in the shed i would see a bunch being sucked back into the room from the outlet fan. I think they are coming from the creek right down the way... i need some type of prevention method that keeps these things out my soil, thinking about taking the cap n bennies ogbiowar route...

 

[Tonatiuh]

ogbiowar biobrew bruh... this thread made me a believer...

EDIT... it wont let the link pop up...google root aphid annhiliation and its like the 1st option...

i didnt end up having RA but thought i did,thats why i got the biowar stuff in the 1st place.
i keep them on hand just incase,they dont hurt anything used as a preventative.and dont cost much either.
peace-T-

 

[StankyBeamer]

Get mo, if re infestation is a problem, get a filter for your fan, bug shields are like fifteen dollars. Also if the aphids are naturally occurring in the area by your grow, I'd order some predators if I were you. Pirate bugs, lacewings, and nematodes. Fight fire with fire, it's the only way to really keep things in check if you know aphids will find their way back in.

 

[the gnome]

still scoping the plants i found 1 more with RAs in the top foilage.
insecticdal soap kills em 100% in that situation.
the 1st pant i scoped thru the drainage holes in the bag and only saw 2 RAs
in only 1 drainage hole,
and i had to wait a minute or so before i saw them.
wanting to see a larger section of the roots i cut open
a large section of the bag and scoped....
and scoped.......
and scoooooped.
never did see one,
i did see a few tiny fuzzy moldy looking spots and poked at em but no RAs
cut the other bag open and never saw anything but very healthy roots.

I must really have caught em early,
my lucky stars must be shining!
so i went and did a root drench with spectracide with triazicide @1-1/2 TBSP per gal.
spectracide lists aphid and root aphids on the directions.

 

[GuyMontag]

How big are adult non flying RA's compared to a spider mite or springtail?

At the same time, are beneficial or non harmful soil bugs like springtails, soil mites and such attracted to potato slices as well as RA?

I've found 2-3 different species of things living in the top part of the soil, in big numbers, one about the size of a spider mite but crawling around, another similar size more more elongated, then tiny worm things I assume are larva of one of the two, or nematodes, I think nematodes cause I coulda swore I saw one fighting/eating one of the other bugs.

All these bugs are in very high numbers in some plants. But very small and hard to see, they seem to be about the size of a spider mite, if you are not within 6" and really looking for them, you will not see them. They do not move overly fast like some people describe aphids...

The plants have been yielding okay/average since we have had this problem and will still have leafs on at chop, however they yellow around week 4-6.

edit: we have very few flying fungus gnats, i'm 99% sure they are FG as they are caught on my homemade sticky traps. (tangletrap + 1/5-1/6 of a plastic cup cut into slices, then taped onto a bamboo skewer)

This is extremely close to the situation I'm in. Started with what appeared to be a mg issue on the bottom growth (which was growth I should have already taken anyway), and one large fan leaf at the top of one Afgooey yellowing. This was at week 6-6 1/2, so the fan leave wouldn't have troubled me too much if everything else wasn't showing the bottom "mg" issue. Flushed with PH adjusted water, run off was a little high in EC and PH, but nothing outrageous (written down, but don't have my journal here). Resumed feeding, and the bottom growth went necrotic at the tips and curled up, while the supposed deficiencies (rust spots and all) started climbing. Shit. I went into one of two bloom rooms (both suffering), and saw a flier. Alarm bells went off, and panic mode set in. Potato test. Twenty minutes in and just for the hell of it I picked up a potato while propping up floppies. I stared just close and long enough to to see something crawling, but I didn't have my scope on me. An hour or so later I grabbed the 30x loupe and started checking more. It took a few, but I found one with a crawler and was POSITIVE I could see tailpipes (now I'm not so sure). Almost translucent yellow and more round than long. In addition, there was a crazy small, crazy fast black streak that zoomed by. This was more thin and long, but I couldn't get a good look, and it vanished.

I came back today (once again forgot to get sticky traps) with the 60x loupe, and didn't have a ton of time to check, but I checked a few of the new potatoes I had left, and all I could find was two sizes of what I now am sure were springtails. Oh, and another black streak that vanished before I could try and ID it. The original crawler I found was the slowest of the bunch (though still moved at a decent pace), and I'm now wondering if my panic didn't just convince me I saw tailpipes. I was so sure though. Fliers are rapidly expanding. When I first saw one, it was one. That, or try as I might, I could only spot one at a time. Now they're in packs. I saw probably six total today, and three to four were in the same pot hanging on the soil. I've checked the top of the soil without digging too deep, and I always think I'm seeing movement out of the corner of my eye, but there's definitely never anything hanging out there. Do RA fliers or FG have a tendency to congregate?

When I've been home during all of this, I've been pouring over every aphid/pest thread I can find. Driving myself crazy with doom and gloom. I've essentially resigned myself to the fact that this harvest won't be what it could have been, but this all popped up late enough that I can keep it from being a total loss. Growth has essentially stopped though. The plan is to get some OGBiowar and some nematodes and try to clear out whatever is in my soil (pure FFOF...ugh). I can only say 100% for sure that springtails are there, but there are at least two other types or stages of types as well, three if we're counting the fliers that I need to trap and ID. Be it FG or RA, there's something in there besides the beneficial springtail, and what could be an RA or a soil mite. Before I left I did drench with something called Big Time Exterminator. I went to the shop to grab some OGB, but decided I wanted to get a bigger size than what they've got, and I still need to slap a brewer together anyway. The clerk said I may want to check this stuff out, but didn't have any other info on it other than it's been selling well and is supposed to take care of all hard and soft shelled pests. I thought fuck it, I've got my plan and just need to get stuff in, but I might as well see what it can do just to get something in there while I wait. It claims that it can take out root aphids, spider mites, broad mites, and any and all eggs and larva in between. It's another wonderfully vague product that is "99.999% Organic (0.001% Potassium Sorbate)" And that its a "mechanical killing action." I can't really find dick about it online, but I sent an email to the company to see if they could give me SOME sort of info on it.

I went to grab something out of the building next door where we're vegging, and my heart sank when what I already expected, but had convinced myself wouldn't find, was staring me down. I see two of the veg plants with one or two yellowing bottom leaves with the very tip going necrotic. I give one of the 15 gal smart pots a little kick and what do you know, something flies out and around just to land back on the other side. I really, really don't want to go chem heavy, but what's vegging can't turn out like the bunch flowering now. It's ready to flip, but I'll give it an extra month if it means eradicating this shit (whatever it may be) and getting a preventative fungal colony going that would hopefully protect it through bloom against whatever is hidden in the room.

I'll be headed back tomorrow (later today I guess) and will be doing a very thorough inspection. I'm not leaving until I'm 100% sure of whatever it is that's attacking. I'm in smart pots and consider cutting a strip down to get a good look at the roots lower down. It's not ideal, but I'll just patch it back up when I'm done, and toss that bag.

 

[DONAJTHEIII]

This is extremely close to the situation I'm in. Started with what appeared to be a mg issue on the bottom growth (which was growth I should have already taken anyway), and one large fan leaf at the top of one Afgooey yellowing. This was at week 6-6 1/2, so the fan leave wouldn't have troubled me too much if everything else wasn't showing the bottom "mg" issue. Flushed with PH adjusted water, run off was a little high in EC and PH, but nothing outrageous (written down, but don't have my journal here). Resumed feeding, and the bottom growth went necrotic at the tips and curled up, while the supposed deficiencies (rust spots and all) started climbing. Shit. I went into one of two bloom rooms (both suffering), and saw a flier. Alarm bells went off, and panic mode set in. Potato test. Twenty minutes in and just for the hell of it I picked up a potato while propping up floppies. I stared just close and long enough to to see something crawling, but I didn't have my scope on me. An hour or so later I grabbed the 30x loupe and started checking more. It took a few, but I found one with a crawler and was POSITIVE I could see tailpipes (now I'm not so sure). Almost translucent yellow and more round than long. In addition, there was a crazy small, crazy fast black streak that zoomed by. This was more thin and long, but I couldn't get a good look, and it vanished.

I came back today (once again forgot to get sticky traps) with the 60x loupe, and didn't have a ton of time to check, but I checked a few of the new potatoes I had left, and all I could find was two sizes of what I now am sure were springtails. Oh, and another black streak that vanished before I could try and ID it. The original crawler I found was the slowest of the bunch (though still moved at a decent pace), and I'm now wondering if my panic didn't just convince me I saw tailpipes. I was so sure though. Fliers are rapidly expanding. When I first saw one, it was one. That, or try as I might, I could only spot one at a time. Now they're in packs. I saw probably six total today, and three to four were in the same pot hanging on the soil. I've checked the top of the soil without digging too deep, and I always think I'm seeing movement out of the corner of my eye, but there's definitely never anything hanging out there. Do RA fliers or FG have a tendency to congregate?

When I've been home during all of this, I've been pouring over every aphid/pest thread I can find. Driving myself crazy with doom and gloom. I've essentially resigned myself to the fact that this harvest won't be what it could have been, but this all popped up late enough that I can keep it from being a total loss. Growth has essentially stopped though. The plan is to get some OGBiowar and some nematodes and try to clear out whatever is in my soil (pure FFOF...ugh). I can only say 100% for sure that springtails are there, but there are at least two other types or stages of types as well, three if we're counting the fliers that I need to trap and ID. Be it FG or RA, there's something in there besides the beneficial springtail, and what could be an RA or a soil mite. Before I left I did drench with something called Big Time Exterminator. I went to the shop to grab some OGB, but decided I wanted to get a bigger size than what they've got, and I still need to slap a brewer together anyway. The clerk said I may want to check this stuff out, but didn't have any other info on it other than it's been selling well and is supposed to take care of all hard and soft shelled pests. I thought fuck it, I've got my plan and just need to get stuff in, but I might as well see what it can do just to get something in there while I wait. It claims that it can take out root aphids, spider mites, broad mites, and any and all eggs and larva in between. It's another wonderfully vague product that is "99.999% Organic (0.001% Potassium Sorbate)" And that its a "mechanical killing action." I can't really find dick about it online, but I sent an email to the company to see if they could give me SOME sort of info on it.

I went to grab something out of the building next door where we're vegging, and my heart sank when what I already expected, but had convinced myself wouldn't find, was staring me down. I see two of the veg plants with one or two yellowing bottom leaves with the very tip going necrotic. I give one of the 15 gal smart pots a little kick and what do you know, something flies out and around just to land back on the other side. I really, really don't want to go chem heavy, but what's vegging can't turn out like the bunch flowering now. It's ready to flip, but I'll give it an extra month if it means eradicating this shit (whatever it may be) and getting a preventative fungal colony going that would hopefully protect it through bloom against whatever is hidden in the room.

I'll be headed back tomorrow (later today I guess) and will be doing a very thorough inspection. I'm not leaving until I'm 100% sure of whatever it is that's attacking. I'm in smart pots and consider cutting a strip down to get a good look at the roots lower down. It's not ideal, but I'll just patch it back up when I'm done, and toss that bag.

first off it seems like these soil bags and aphids are like a buy one get one free kind of thing lol I dont really see people getting aphids from high quality coco too often. It makes sense as soil is where aphids come from and originate its home to them . Im not saying people dont get these in coco thats not even a question anymore. But what im trying to say is it seems like you have to contaminate your coco like bring in a dirty cut or let em find them. Coco isnt home to them but theyll sure adapt to it if there aint nothing else. Survival 101


ahaha dude went to the store a couple weeks ago and got the big time exterminator spiel to about how it shells out shit.

the only thing is they didnt seem to be very confident in the ladies reacting well to a root drench which imo is the whole fucking point isnt it ?

they said you can spray it on them is how they heard people were using them . Dont think there very informed on the aphid topic so i skipped out on it and grabbed the sm-90 like i always been using yrs. from start to finish and I have to say nothing but healthy roots here.


anyway when you guys find aphids on your roots are your roots looking healthy guys ? or do they look boo boo. This is something ive yet to find an answer.


oh yea one more thing are you guys finding the RA's in your runoff out of smart pots ?

i can see springtails in my runoff but are RA's too large to see in your runoff. that imo would be an easy way to identify if you have them or are they too big ?

are people getting these micro aphids....tbh havent heard or seen these yet knock on wood but i have seen the others and they seem more common.

which is more common out of all of them fellas ?



PLEASE POST YOUR EXP WITH THE BIG TIME EXTERMINATOR TOO ! super interested



AJAE

 

[the gnome]

you guys that are using bayers advanced fruit citrus and veg with imid
how much per gallon are you using for root dunk?

 

[GET MO]

i ended up using the bare complete, since I'm not flowering for at least another month or two. Sucks tho cuz now i gotta wear gloves every time i go in the grow room. Ima fallow up with doses of biowar every couple weeks. As of now RA free, but i see them all over the place outside the shed. One dose of of bayer complete took um out, I had also dosed with azamax like 3 days before that, and go biowar 3 days before that, n insect frass spread over the the top of the soil.

 

[cannascholar]

SC Labs test results came back negative for imid and kontos applied in July. I will be testing week 1 applied Kontos bud soon.

At 65 days flower pot surfaces are swarming with micro aphids, pin head sized brown aphids that are shown earlier in thread. Gonna make the best of it and conduct some trials with various organic pesticides on individual aphids. Looks like yields will be slightly under a p a gavita of acceptable meds.

Roots may be glistening white while the little bastards are settin up shop. They will gradually detoriate to brown if no preventive measures are taken.

Biowar is borderline worthless in the fight, however I am still using it on my quarantined currently pesticide virgin plants because it seems as though imid tends to harm the plant/soil, Kontos to a lesser degree.

 

[Granger2]

Cannascholar,
How are you using OGBioWar? Is the date good? How and where is it stored? Which OGBW products are you using? How do you prepare/mix OGBW? Do you dilute it? Are you using any disinfectants, like peroxide, etc. How do you apply? I ask because my experience with it is so different from what you keep saying. -granger

 

[DONAJTHEIII]

you guys that are using bayers advanced fruit citrus and veg with imid
how much per gallon are you using for root dunk?

i mix it with half strength nute solution with the rec. dosage on the bottle.

i remember using 5ml per gal of the tree and shrub years ago. and that had more imid than the veggie one. read the bottle for that one




AJAE

 

[DONAJTHEIII]

What am I going to do with a litre of pred insects its the middle of the winter, for two I only have 12 plants. Im sure they work but not going to spend 30 on some flippin bugs,some of us are NOT in a setuation where we can let a bunch of bugs loose. Plus some of us are on are own mission to figure things out. On the cheap and there are only a million ways to skin a cat so don't get all up set because we are not using your method's WE ALL CAN SEE Your pos.t Peace

no offense uncle but if 30 bucks is expensive to you then Idk what to say bro stop growing. I dont think any of my preventative measures are under 30 bucks dude lol

maybe the cheap ass imid or GCH is good for your situation but then youll be thinking in the back of your head whether your end product have these baddies unless you get it tested which is way more than 30 bucks i believe lmao.

whoever said this hobby was cheap ?

i know people who spend hundreds on nute lines and now 30 bucks is too much damn. If these bugs are in the right conditions theyll stick around and maybe youd only have to release some more half way through flower after your initial release. so 60 bucks for bug free and ORGANIC plants sounds good to me

not trying to be a douche just being real

AJAE

 

[GuyMontag]

Snip

I've never been so happy to be so completely wrong about anything in my life. I misidentified a predator/soil mite as an RA. Finally got some sticky traps and checked they flyers and new potatoes with a stronger loupe, definitely FG.

I started wondering why I wasn't seeing more crawlers around the soil when the flyers had been present for a few days at that point. I thought their population would have been big enough that by the time I had flyers for a couple of days, I would have started seeing more on the soil/potatoes, so I double checked, and sure enough, I realized that the tail pipes I thought I saw were just mite legs that I misidentified in my 30x loupe. I also found out after the fact that my partner did a massive flush the day after we had just done a massive flush without checking the pots first. Now them being totally water logged and the deficiencies getting worse makes perfect sense.

Now I'm just dealing with FG (and likely a bit of root rot), so I'm going to get some Gnatrol, and take care of that. I let the pots completely dry which seems to have decimated the FG larva/springtail/predator mite population (and definitely shocked the ladies a bit), but there were still flyers around, so I'm sure there's more larva at this point. This harvest won't be what it could have been, but at least I'm not terrified of every harvest coming up.


Lesson learned: Two days without sleep and close to harvest is not the best time to try and ID problems with potentially devastating problems on your mind. Come in fresh and careful, otherwise it's too easy to convince yourself that you saw something you may not have.


Oh, and @DONAJTHEIII I can't say for certain how the Big Time did. Maybe it helped keep the FG larva pop low, but I dried out after that, so I can't definitively say which really did more damage. I did email the company, and though they didn't tell me what it is that's actually killing the soft bugs, they did say that as far as the hard exoskelleton goes, it's got an enzyme that breaks down chitin. It's supposedly safe until harvest, so I might spray with that to see if it does anything to the flyers. It's definitely not a contact killer for springtails, I can say that for sure. Little dudes were swimming in it at that first application. I also (sort of) figured out what that little black streak I saw was. The day I went back to 100% identify what I could, there were now larger (still super small) versions that were the same shape and speed, so I'm assuming they're the grown version. I've only found one pic of them online, and it didn't have any info on what they actually were. It has them listed as silver spring tails (though I had the common white ones as well).

 

[DONAJTHEIII]

I've never been so happy to be so completely wrong about anything in my life. I misidentified a predator/soil mite as an RA. Finally got some sticky traps and checked they flyers and new potatoes with a stronger loupe, definitely FG.

I started wondering why I wasn't seeing more crawlers around the soil when the flyers had been present for a few days at that point. I thought their population would have been big enough that by the time I had flyers for a couple of days, I would have started seeing more on the soil/potatoes, so I double checked, and sure enough, I realized that the tail pipes I thought I saw were just mite legs that I misidentified in my 30x loupe. I also found out after the fact that my partner did a massive flush the day after we had just done a massive flush without checking the pots first. Now them being totally water logged and the deficiencies getting worse makes perfect sense.

Now I'm just dealing with FG (and likely a bit of root rot), so I'm going to get some Gnatrol, and take care of that. I let the pots completely dry which seems to have decimated the FG larva/springtail/predator mite population (and definitely shocked the ladies a bit), but there were still flyers around, so I'm sure there's more larva at this point. This harvest won't be what it could have been, but at least I'm not terrified of every harvest coming up.


Lesson learned: Two days without sleep and close to harvest is not the best time to try and ID problems with potentially devastating problems on your mind. Come in fresh and careful, otherwise it's too easy to convince yourself that you saw something you may not have.


Oh, and @DONAJTHEIII I can't say for certain how the Big Time did. Maybe it helped keep the FG larva pop low, but I dried out after that, so I can't definitively say which really did more damage. I did email the company, and though they didn't tell me what it is that's actually killing the soft bugs, they did say that as far as the hard exoskelleton goes, it's got an enzyme that breaks down chitin. It's supposedly safe until harvest, so I might spray with that to see if it does anything to the flyers. It's definitely not a contact killer for springtails, I can say that for sure. Little dudes were swimming in it at that first application. I also (sort of) figured out what that little black streak I saw was. The day I went back to 100% identify what I could, there were now larger (still super small) versions that were the same shape and speed, so I'm assuming they're the grown version. I've only found one pic of them online, and it didn't have any info on what they actually were. It has them listed as silver spring tails (though I had the common white ones as well).

Right on dude for responding back.

shit ahaha idgaf about springtails i want to know about root drenching and RA's ! i think ill just stick with my go ol sm-90 from start to finish



glad to hear about the misidentification although im sure your bald now from ripping your hair out if you werent before





AJAE

 

[Miraculous Meds]

Does anybody have any knowledge on the compatibility of sm90 and bti? Seems like I get a lot more black film on the res when I use both together, and I got myself wondering if the sm90 is smothering the bti. It would make sense since a well established fg population isn't being controlled very well by using both of them at the same time.

 

[Mikell]

Which Bti product? Might be binding together if you're using Dunks/Bits or another solid product.

 

[D1904]

Brief update: Treated an infested grow (not mine) using about 2/3 rate of my original recipe (1 tsp each of Orthene + Riptide) and we dunked all plants for 30 minutes, bottom first until the container was submerged plus 1"--and poof, immediate eradication...ZERO ROOT APHIDS! So...for us: 2.3 grams of Orthene and 2.5 ml of Riptide per gallon of water was just as effective as my original recipe of 1 tsp each.

Soil microherd is very important to me (yep, still using raw milk--which is essentially "whey fertilizer"--save the outrageous expense!), so what do the experts say about Orthene's effect on the soil microherd---those smarter than me concluded:

"A Hanford loamy sand, a Domino silt loam, and an Altamont clay loam were treated separately with three repeated applications (20 ppm) of the organophosphate insecticides, acephate (O,S-dimethyl acetylphosphoramidothioate) and Monitor (O,S-dimethyl phosphoramidothioate) over a 50-day time span. Population levels of actinomycetes, bacteria, and fungi were not substantially affected by the addition of either pesticide. Neither could a marked effect be shown upon ammonification, nitrification, sulfur oxidation, or respiration rates. Replica plating failed to isolate bacteria from soils that were adversely affected by either pesticide. It is concluded that neither acephate nor Monitor had any adverse effect upon soil microorganisms."

Source: https://www.agronomy.org/publications/jeq/abstracts/3/4/JEQ0030040327?access=0&view=pdf

BTW...not saying I am a root aphid expert, but let's just say--I had them, tried lots of things (organic and non-organic), posted my experiences in this thread, AND today I have killer harvests and ZERO ROOT APHIDS! Am I suggesting the advice from self appointed root aphid experts might be invalid? No...just beware of those that preach imidacloprid to combat their SINGLE and ONLY encounter with root aphids; my "root aphid knowledge" is from experience--not conjecture.

Google "imidacloprid aphid resistance" and discover why imidacloprid may not be an effective insecticide (hence my Orthene + Riptide solution). Also, soil half-life for imidacloprid is measured in hundreds of days...whereas Acephate it is barely a week!

Cheers!

Have you used receipe as a soil drench ?