Phylloxera information - aka root mites aka root aphids

[attila76]

I went the azatrol route in hydro. In my experience it was a big waste of $. Though it may have had some immeasurable effect.

Then again, I haven't seen any evidence of them in my soilless mix pots, only in hydro. It may depend on the important details that he has not provided, i.e. medium, picts of pest, etc, etc.

 

[bali_man]

Hey all, sorry I've been busy as hell...

I'm thrilled to report that these bastards are history.

I've become very well versed in the numerous methods, strategies, and chemicals to use to target these root suckers in their different life stages.

I do believe that is why so many fellow cultivators are having a nightmare killing these things off.

I've done tests with different store bought pesticides and also played with different mediums, to test the effectiveness in eradicating these strange insects. Diff chems are better for different life stages.

It is all out chemical warfare to gain the upper hand on these. There has to be patience, planning, a strategy and most importantly you must exercise great care in handling all these chemicals.

The list of chemicals that I used that dealt a 99% knock out to the population on a friends setup, who was infested with these things. Acetamiprid, Imidacloprid, Gamma-cyhalothrin , Bifenthrin. These along with a surfactant to make sure all of his coco was submerged.

We made about 20 gallons of this stuff. He had 12 containers going. We flooded the containers for approx 30 minutes. and then drained. It took about a good week of hardcore searching until we could find a few tiny ones.

Keep in mind the canopy was treated with a 91% rubbing alcohol foliar, followed almost immediately with a RO water rinse. After this point we spread that sticky shit on fly traps around the stalk of the plant to prevent future climbers from succeeding.

Approx 5 day later the same exact treatment was applied and its been 4 weeks, and he looks daily, and cannot find one.

Some background on his infestation. By the time he asked me and we began treatment, the infestation was epic in size. I mean there were hundreds just doing laps around the brim of his pots.

We did move his plants to different sterile locations throughout the house for segregation and control measures. All locations were sterilized with 3x ozone generators, and were left to run for about 12 hours. (it smelled like the room had been soaked in bleach). I've never experienced such high concentrations of ozone, literally eyes would burn instantly, and my lungs almost couldn't/didn't want to inhale. Insane stuff, be very careful. This stuff is the airborne equivalent of bleach so don't be careless with it. At those insane concentrations god knows what it just might oxidize in your body.

I'll be back soon with more details, and shit that I left out.

PS whoever is using the Imid (bayer tree and shrub) up the dosage by 5x. You will see a huge difference in the effectiveness.

be back soon with more, good luck all.

PS if anyone is worried about residual effects and shit, this is NOT the procedure to be doing during flowering. What I personally did after posioning the plants, is I let them grow out, took a clone,killed her, rooted the clone, let her grow out, took a clone from that clone, did the same thing, and then did it one last time. I'm now convinced that she is safe enough to give me clones that I can safely flower.

This was my way of "flushing" or minimizing the quantity of pesticide present in my mother plants.

I think almost every MJ grower has these things had just hasn't noticed it yet. And they also explain the false signs of deficiencies, over watering, ph fluctuation, etc.

=)

have fun waging war!!

 

[MedUser420]

this link says that imid dunk isnt very effective, BUT 100% eradication was achieved from orthene dunks, dycarb dunks achieved 86% die off and botaniguard 96% die off.

http://gpnmag.com/articles/some.pdf

 

[attila76]

Baliman,

My fight with them is drawing to an end. My ladies are dying in the forth week of flowering. With the fan leaves rapidly yellowing and the roots looking like a dirty mop, it seems clear that all has been for naught.
It wasn't so much that the root aphids overwhelmed them in numbers. It is the pathogens and damage that they do to the roots.

If you, Baliman are right about how to fight (and I don't doubt it) them... then for future browsers of this subject if you have the specific variety that I have posted here I would advise the following:
-scraping the grow completely and immediately. Cut your loses
-while cleaning up go to war with the room and all your equipment... bleach is not strong enough.
-chose different growing medium.

Be well and chose wisely,
I might be able to make hash with this.

 

[ScrubNinja]

That's very sad to hear, attila. Damn. You wanna hear something f*cked up? I've been battling this outside in my regular potplants/vegies, thought I had it whipped a few times but a palm tree was just too badly affected to soak up enough imid, so I've been applying it regularly and I think it's almost cleaned up, lol, but who knows. My dope plant is all good inside, no further problems after 1 treatment.

Anyway, as I was investigating the outsiders today, I looked on the ground around the pots, and they are just everywhere Then I found them all over the god damn property. There's basically not a bit of ground where you wouldn't find them. So that is kind of hilarious. Maybe these things really will take over the world? I looked in the container of leftover soil I mixed up for the young dope plants I repotted the day before and they're all partying in there as well. There's never even been plants growing in any of that soil yet. It's f*cking ON now, chaps.

I've had good results controlling the fallout (and generally improving my gardening) with beneficial bacteria. I use an Aussie product called Bio-Bugs and all the things in it seem to be aimed primarily at root pathogens/diseases etc. There are a lot of similar products for other markets too. This works out as one of the cheapest products in my collection per application, yet makes one of the biggest differences, with obvious benefits for phylloxera sufferers. Works in hydro too.

If you have phlloxera... may the lord have mercy on your soul...

 

[montanaorganics]

I thought I had phylloxera. I freaked out and read this damn 15 page thread over and over again hehe. After battling them and losing I began to realize, what I had, does zero damage. I have now come to the conclusion that what I have is the fungus gnat predator mite, or some beneficial soil mite that is very similar.

No where on this site have I heard anybody make light of beneficial mites. Here is what I understand

If it is a root aphid it WILL have antenae looking appendages sticking out its butt end. No dual sticks on the butt it is not an aphid!

My little guys cruise the medium. They eat fungus gnat larvae, algae, and leftover kelp... evidently they eat lady bugs too, who knew. Angry little shits are not going away though, and I'm glad to have them. Just another part of my microherd.

Check out naturescontrol.com , they have the predatorial fungus gnat mites.

 

[bicycle racer]

worst thing ever having read this thread i feel depressed anyways my veg room is infested and the plants show it at least some do. it seams some strains tolerate it better than others. oddly enough my outdoor plants which were vegged indoor seem somewhat unaffected maybe some natural predators idk. but i do not see them on the medium surface outdoor anyways it seems there is no absolutely effective treatment. im goin to do a h202 pyrethrum/canola oil and sm-90 soak i know this wont kill all but hopefully will knock them back a bit fuck. i have dealt with thrips mites fungus gnats caterpillars powdery mildew etc.. these are the worst followed by caterpillars (outdoor).

 

[bicycle racer]

well went ahead and soil drenched with what i said no doubt this will not kill all but it was nice to see hundreds dead floating in the bucket i used. the sm-90 canola/pyrethrum and h202 were things i had laying around so no money was wasted i figure this will knock them back and allow the plants to recover a bit for round 2 or the high dose of sm-90 h202 and pyrethrum will kill the plants will see soon.

 

[opt1c]

yeah i think if u are in flowering the best bet is sm90 or other root protectants to minimize the damage they do to the roots; let us know how it goes.. are you in soil bicycle racer?

 

[SpeechIsNotFree]

attila; that's why i recommend the combination of merit with the gnatrol bt product... with the two of those whatever is crawling in your soil needs a spine to be alive after treatment. I like the merit because it is a more concentrated form of the imid without as many unknown fillers making up that other 90% or whatever the bayer is; i like to know what i'm putting in my plants as much as possible especially when it comes to chemicals.

Just like there are different species of mites there are different species of root aphids; i think the medium plays a role in what point in their life cycle they explode; often times you don't realize you have them until they're in their later stages of life; the last stage is the flying nymph stage where the go off seeking new roots as the ones in the pot they are in have been sucked dry; not a good stage to find them in. My netpots were full of rockwool minicubes and i didn't notice them until they reached the surface; they were brought in my garden via a compromised bag of coco and spread quite rapidly. I was lucky, i guess, in that i vegged my plants for over 50 days and flowered them for 70 days; well over the 90 days the chemicals were present in the plants; imid, however, is stored in the roots of the plants and i don't believe that it travels to the leaves or anything so i don't know how much would end up in the buds on a molecular level; i just go with the better safe than sorry approach.

good luck

I was the user formerly known as kushism who posted previously in this thread, and
cheers, good info.. Imid should knock down like 90% of root dwelling, plant sucking pests.. Stuff works like a charm.. Gnatrol can be a lifesaver also, and after treating with gnatrol and still have a prob with pests, hit em with the imid.. i have figured the same time frame info for imid.. if the plants are treated early enough, and only once the concentrations will drop steadily over time as the plant grows..

But great info, seriously!!

 

[bicycle racer]

i grow hempy style(perlite vermiculite) all the plants i treated were in veg i fillled a 5 gal bucket with water and added a high dose of sm-90 pyrethrum/canola oil and h202 i thoroughly dunked and saturated the medium as well as the foliage. i was worried this might just kill my plants but checked them this morning and there fine so far and there are no bugs to be seen i assume they will be back but this gives my plants a bit of time to recover. im hoping the canola oil and oils in the sm-90 smother any un hatched eggs as i know all adults were killed but i know that is somewhat wishful thinking. i was very thorough so well see. fingers crossed.

 

[Chronic777]

Are these aphids?

 

[montanaorganics]

I know I have already answered your other thread chronic but I want a post in with your picture.
These ARE not root aphids. First of all no dual butt pipes. No dual exhaust coming out their ass and they are not aphids.
It is the one general defining aspect of aphid species period.
I wonder how many people have been fighting these beneficial insects, just sick as could be over it.
I sure did...

 

[Chronic777]

I wonder how many people have been fighting these beneficial insects, just sick as could be over it.
I sure did...

Tell me bout it, ive been searching since this morning & ive seen so many posts with people putting all sorts of uncecessary things in their soil to try & get rid of bugs which are probably helping them in the first place!

 

[*Journeyman*]

I know I have already answered your other thread chronic but I want a post in with your picture.
These ARE not root aphids. First of all no dual butt pipes. No dual exhaust coming out their ass and they are not aphids.
It is the one general defining aspect of aphid species period.
I wonder how many people have been fighting these beneficial insects, just sick as could be over it.
I sure did...

So if you're sure those are not root aphids what beneficial insects are those? Those look like immature root aphids/root mites/phylloxera/whatever to me. I've had those things. What beneficial bugs populate coco (I assume but maybe peat/peat based?) like that? I don't think those are oribatid mites.

 

[*Journeyman*]

Here are those photos showing different bugs. the micro white one's are what I got.

Picture 1 in this post, #243 in this thread, brings back nightmares. These are the adult form and are what you will see on the surface and crawling out of drain holes (I was growing in soil) and crawling around everywhere...lol.

I will agree with Montanaorganics that you should not treat a situation until you know what you're dealing with. Identify the issue.

 

[Chronic777]

Im keeping an eye on them to be 100% sure they're predatory

They def look more like the bugs in the bottom left of this:
http://www.massey.ac.nz/~maminor/mites.html
Than the bugs in post 243

 

[*Journeyman*]

Is that bagged medium you're working with? Are you doing any medium recycling? Are you using any native soil or doing any composting?

Just wondering.

 

[bicycle racer]

you will know if there root aphids by what happens to your plants if growth slows and you get yellowing its probably the bad kind. well been 4 days and not one can be found after my treatment. if in a week or two i still see none i will think i more or less eliminated them fingers crossed.

 

[Chronic777]

Its Canna Bio-Terra, so yeah a bag mix.

Bicycleracer, growth def hasn't slowed, quite the opposite, i actually want it to stop growing & start flowering!