My war with the Root aphid.

[ballplayer 2]

Sorry to hear about the effects of the spectracide w/ triazicide. Thank you for reporting your progress and what worked/did not work for you. Hopefully the bugs will be knocked for a loop, and the root booster put your girls back on track. Please keep updating.

BP2

 

[DabSnob]

Hobb, the black spots and the yellow wilted leaves are a sign to me that something is eating on the roots (if you know the plants aren't over or under fed). I would be checking the soil, and leaves. i would also start laying out sticky pads to see if or what im dealing with. the fungus gnats are generally easy to get rid of, mosquito dunks work awesome when watered in or ground up and placed in the top inch of soil or two. they do usually come hand in hand with Root aphids so check your roots next transplant to be safe, its not worth over looking... as you can tell haha.

Ballplayer, as you said with a good root booster they will all perk up in 24hrs no problem. i seriously hope that after 4 harsh treatments, 3 of those being systemic, they would HAVE to be running for the hills. the heavy dose of triazicide with low temps (58-63 degrees) should have landed the final punch... but only time will tell. im saving the acephate and Acetamiprid for the last stand.

 

[DabSnob]

UPDATE:
checked flowering room, they could use a good boost, some leaves look a little crispy BUT they are stacking much better then i expected for being treated so horrible. some are MUCH better off then others... i'll spare photos as they are nothing to look at let me tell you, haha, sad sights still but noticeably better then the previous crop at this stage.

veg room looks better then yesterday, half as many droopy ones as yesterday. All the plants in the Roots Organic soil is looking the best by far. everything in ProMix and the local soil mix ( basically promix with Guano ) looks much worse, they are in need of some food FOR SURE. No RA's found alive, only a few new dead ones under my cheesecake mom.

*started brewing my Root Booster*
(all measurements are what i used TOTAL in the 5 gallon brew)
Aptus Fasilitor-3ml
Aptus startboost- 5ml
Liquid Kelp- 6oz.
hi-brix molasses- 50ml
Roots Excel- 5ml
Oregonism Xl- 5Tbs

 

[Granger2]

Dabsnob,
I would either flush out the OD of Triazcide or get plenty of runoff with the brew you're giving them next. Good luck. -granger

 

[DabSnob]

Granger, suprisingly 3 days after the triazicide drench, i still cant see any burning tips or yellowing leaves only the droopy look. could be another one or four days before i see any damage from the treatment though so im hoping the booster will set me straight. i will be sure to get plenty of runoff to help rinse some of the extra triazicide out. cant see how that tea couldnt send roots exploding outside the pots haha.

 

[DabSnob]

UPDATE:
noticed a HUGE population of dead fungus gnats laying around everywhere in my veg room... one was aimlessly walking around not even trying to fly.

no dead Root Aphids found under any pot or drainage holes..

The root booster gave some selected ladies a huge boost. It even gave them a nicer shade of green in less then 24 hours. very impressed. im excited about the aptus fasilitor and startboost... the technology behind their lineup is pretty incredible. when i regain my cashflow i will be trying the full lineup using Baseboost as my base nutrient.

 

[opt1c]

merit75wp can be sourced off the net quite easily... people use it on roses... and it is only the active ingredient; no fillers or other shit to mess with your plants... once and done; sorry to see this thread keep going on

 

[DabSnob]

Opt1c, hopefully it wont be going much longer lol. im optimistic they are pretty much gone. havent seen a live one for almost 2 days, only retarded fungus gnats. all the dead bodies im seeing are covered in white fuzz. so im thinking the botanigard did alot of the work.

 

[DabSnob]

UPDATE:
Still havent seen any Roots Aphids... i'm going to tear apart another plant in veg and check the root ball to make sure. at this point im done treating the ladies every 3 days. once a week for the next 30 days they will continue to receive treatments of azamax, botanigard ES, and SNS-203 in all the rooms for safety measures. I will continue to update if i find any new pests or any new damage to the plants.

* keep an eye out for my new soil grow journal, you will be following 4 orange Blossom's from clone to finish. later i will do a journal of my entire medical grow and all 9 of my strains. chose to do orange blossom first as it is an ORIGINAL cut from the 90's, acquired by my father from his high school buddy who has been growing since the 70's in Valencia, CA. This strain is commonly confused with orange bud but is not the same at all, this actually has an orange peel aroma with a citrus lemon kick on the exhale. some people call it "Red Beard" but im not sure if thats one of the actual nicknames for it or not*

 

[DabSnob]

Orange Blossom. around week 6 of flower, right before the final feeding before the slow soil flushing process.

 

[DabSnob]

CANT WAIT to be back to producing colorful nuggets of stinky buds!

thought i would share a few photos of a GDP plant 2 rotations ago.

 

[DabSnob]

UPDATE:
transplanted from 1 gallon pots to 3 gallon pots. ripped a few root balls apart, not a single RA in sight. there was a bunch of fungus gnat larvae in one of the pots... which was weird to me, so i drenched it with gnatrol. we'll see how it goes.

 

[medicalmj]

UPDATE:
transplanted from 1 gallon pots to 3 gallon pots. ripped a few root balls apart, not a single RA in sight. there was a bunch of fungus gnat larvae in one of the pots... which was weird to me, so i drenched it with gnatrol. we'll see how it goes.

I think you've found the problem. I would find the same thing when I had issues. Where there's FG larvae there's soon to be mites, which sooo many think are RAs or some mystery bug that's causing the problem. I had no luck w bti(dunks/gnatrol). What did em in for me was Imid (in veg or first week maybe two in flower) then a couple apps of predatory nematodes.

 

[Granger2]

Gnatrol works well if it's viable. I think a lot of what is sitting on suppliers' shelves has been there too long, and has lost viability. I recommend the powder form of Gnatrol for longer shelf life. Good luck. -granger

 

[DabSnob]

Fellas thanks you both for continuing to follow this thread.
Medical, I am certain I had RA's plenty of time
Under my microscope showed me that haha. I did find soil mites too, but I know they don't do any harm so I bever worried about it. The fungus gnats are FOR SURE coming in all the roots organic soils, found larvae in 2 fresh bags. Also the local shop owner isn't sellin g formula 707 right now because of it. He also had two major customers report RA's coming in the FFOF bags. Interesting news to me.

Granger, I have been using the powdered version. I just sprinkled it in during transplant at all levels of the pot to aid in a thorough spread in the
Medium. If that doesn't work then I'll just try mosquito dunks on the top soil and water in some more Bayer to give them a double whammy.

 

[Granger2]

Dab,
I think you'll get better results with the powder by adding it to water/nutes and pouring it on. Good luck. -granger

 

[DabSnob]

UPDATE:
month after this thread and im still root aphid free!!!! fungus gnats have proved to be the harder ones to wipe out. finally got em with an inch of sand layered on the top of the pots. i also filled the runoff saucers under each plant with sand as well to cover the drain holes. this worked perfect with no need for chemicals/ pesticides. i hope none of you go through what i had to go through. Good luck and happy growing
DabSnob

 

[joe mac]

great thread here dab. Thanks for the link. glad you got your problem under control. I had great results with the powder gnatrol for my gnats a while back.

Another pesticide which seems to be extremely effective for the RA's is abamectin. This stuff is liquid death for mites. I read somewhere it worked for Ra's too. So I read the label and they are listed as a target species. I did a soak with it and imid a little over a week ago in veg. and am still yet to find a living bug. It did damage the roots a bit tho but I let em soak for 2.5 hrs.
I'm about to do a riptide orthene soak in veg very soon. Even tho I haven't found any moving nymphs I can't believe they are gone totally.

I am currently using sns203&209 added directly into my rez. in flower. I also added some liq. pyrethrin to it the other day. The little bastards deff. don't like this combo. They were swarming at the top of the buckets so I smeared some vaseline around the rim to catch the little buggers before they could escape.

anyhow thanks for the great info.

 

[DabSnob]

Joe mac,
with that combo of pesticides and a few more treatments you should be home free! EclipseFour20's riptide/orthene combo is a proven winner too. i never got the chance to try it but too many have with success. If you do notice a comeback in population after a few weeks, just try the orthene/riptide combo. From what i read on his thread people reported no ill effects to plants after treatment, but i would recommend a good "healthy cocktail" to get those roots exploding again.

Learn your prey to win the battle, no pest is invincible.

 

[Maine]

DabSnob- Thank you for documenting your war with the Root aphid. I found much useful information in your posts.

I have root aphids in my veg room and flower room. Today marks the beginning of the ground war. My first attack consisted of a through drenching of all plants.

-Spetracide Triazicede (gamma-cyhalothrin .08%) at 10-12ml per gallon
-Bonide Neem Oil (70% clarified hydrophobic extract of neem oil) at 1oz per gallon

At this point my cat was relocated to a neighboring building. He will be a refugee of the bug war for a few hours.

Maybe the pesticides went to me head, but I decided a good battle wouldn't be complete without an air strike. I mixed one more gallon at the same rate and sprayed my garden. Then I deployed a pro-control bug bomb for good measure. (pyrethrins .5%, piperonyl butoxide 4.5%)

The flower room will be getting drenched tonight when the lights come on. SNS 203 and Bonide Neem Oil.

I like your idea of using different products to account for pesticide resistance. I chose the above products because they were available locally. I plan to hit them again with the above products before using another active ingredient for a knockout blow in 10 days.

Again, thanks for posting your experience Dab. It will be a valuable reference for me as I wage war.