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What is this white cluster stuff on my roots?

B

bonecarver_OG

best bet is an insecticide with *Imidacloprid.
*Imidacloprid is a neonicotinoid compound and these have been suggested as as causative agents of colony collapse disorder (CCD) in Honeybees.
 

greenatik

Member
Yeah thanks for all the help fellas, really do appreciate it. Reality has sunk in - I have root aphids :(

I had made up a batch of tobacco juice but on further reading it's not gonna help to the level I want. I'll try to buy the Tree & Shrub today. Do I understand right that if I apply the tree & shrub, it's systemic, so it will kill the ones in the coco, it will kill the ones flying around (eventually) and they shouldn't come back if I don't introduce new clones/coco/etc? Is there a point to bombing my house, or is the systemic Tree & Shrub enough to eradicate the problem?

Yeah the tree and shrub offers like 12 months of protection, which is why its not recommended to use after 3 weeks of flower (i wouldn't use it in flower period)

here's more info on the lil buggers. bayer worked 100% for me with one application
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=70503&highlight=Root+aphids

GL ninja :joint:
 

ScrubNinja

Grow like nobody is watching
Veteran
Thanks fellas, yeah that thread seems like the central knowledge system. I'm battling though it :) That's how I realised the tobacco will just lead to more pain long term. The withholding period (or however we want to call that) of Tree and Shrub turns me right off. This weed is for me to smoke. All I can think is to sift it and make hash.

Or I can just try to control it with tobacco juice, get some healthy-ish smoke, and I am also making femmed seeds. Then I plan to move far away when this grow is done, and take no clones or coco or pots or tents, just my femmed seed.

What would you do ?

*it will be 3 weeks into 12/12 by the time I treat it.
 
Just treat i- treat evey plant you got. You have no choice really, cause these little fuckers don't go away. They simply fly around, end up in your next crop. Nothing other then Imidacloprid. works (according to the forum threads) Opt1c had em in his latest crop, treated- and they were gone for good.

**EDIT: I just realized you said your moving so .. well .. your call man. You can make it through just killing em back- your yield will be reduced.**

If you use peroxide it is simply to knock down there numbers. The draw back is if it causes shock to the plant then your going to have to let them be, and lose yeild/time.

The Imidacloprid is the killer you need it to be, without much harm risk (at least in my research on it). It is used on commercial farms all the time, some right up to harvest. Its already in a lot of the food we buy. It's one of the widest used pesticides in the world. Read the hazardous material report on it- it is pretty harmless to us. It is modified nicotine, so the reason it works so well is because the little beasties get bathed in it, it killes the eggs, and makes the plant toxic to them. The modification chemically is what makes it go systemic I believe. But it is the nicotine that does the dirty work- so not too different from tobacco I suppose. To you and me, at our size, we would have to ingest huge amounts of it. HUGE!!

So if I were you, I wouldn't stress.

I had a friend who thought he had roots aphids (and I steered him to the thread on the little fuckers), he actually had something else, and it didn't work. He went with the Bug O Buster and that did it for him. Hence my saying be sure you properly identify.

Now then- hdn155: you are unfortunately caught in the unwinnable root aphid battle described in the root aphid thread by all the growers who battled them until they used the Imidacloprid. Some of those folks gave up after 6 months of trying to kill them off with everything in the tool box (p-bombs, peroxide, azamax, miticides, P root drenches- no winners). Some shut down the grow and started over; since that is another way out as well. It seems the ONLY way out is Imidacloprid. Your totally right, you can knock em down, but not get them all. The flyers are still around, your problem starts again. All it takes is one or two and your back in it awhile later.

I understand your not wanting to treat with Imidacloprid; Azamax is $$$ and you won't win, so you'll probably end up having to do it at some point. Do what you got to do, I have seen the frustration of friends trying to take em out and am just spreading the good word. Sorry man, I feel for ya.
 

ScrubNinja

Grow like nobody is watching
Veteran
Good on you, Citizen - I couldn't have hoped for a more straightforward answer. Thankfully I read it just after getting home from the store with Confidor. They had no Tree & Shrub, and according to sarek (aka the smart dude) any product with Imid in it is going to work. Having trouble working out what dosage I'm supposed to use though, as the confidor directions are for a spray.

Active constituent: 200g/L imidacloroprid

Now that's kind of F'd up because grams (g) is weight, and litres (L) is liquid. But seeing as 1000 grams of water equals one litre, I'll guess that I have 20% strength imidacloroprid. Sarek made this helpful post but I'm struggling to understand the doseage :/ Could anyone tell me how much 20% strength Confidor I would need for 10 litres of the final mix? Or say, 3 gallons? I want to handwater it on.

It's really hard because like I said, the label directions are for a spray, and it's measured in drips. (6 drips per litre) :wallbash:

Starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Cheers

Edit: I should also note that I have since found just about every description on the Phylloxera thread in my coco, so I'm convinced it's that.
 
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ScrubNinja

Grow like nobody is watching
Veteran
Ok so Tree and Shrub is 1.47% strength and is used at 5ml per gallon. Confidor is 20% strength. 1 gallon = 3.79 litres.

So tree & shrub is used at 1.319 ml/litre
Confidor is 13.6 times stronger and should be used at .096 ml/litre

Please feel free to check my figures, I would appreciate it. :)
 

ScrubNinja

Grow like nobody is watching
Veteran
lol that's not the answer I wanna hear! If this doesn't work, I will jump off a cliff!

For any potential (liquid) Confidor users, if the above figures are actually correct, I worked out the rate above to be equal to 2 drops per litre. So I'm about to apply 18 drops of Confidor into 9 litres of water. The recommended dose as a spray (on the packet) is 6 drops per litre. I bet I fucked up a number somewhere. But it sort of makes sense that the drenching should be a lighter dose.

I found them swarming (well, ok, there was like 20) in the runoff tray of another pot when I lifted it out. Real easy to see on a light background. Shit is messed up. I'll post how it works out, thanks again chaps.
 

WeedChuck

Member
If thats what root aphids do may I never get them in my life! You need Merit or Bayer Tree and Shrub to kill them. Nothing else works- period. There is a thread in the infirmary of the horrible battle they can be.

Be SURE you make proper identifacations. They have some very good pics of them in the thread- very very small- like mite sized. Stare at your medium and after awhile you might notice tiny bits of dust moving. Usually once you see them there are 1000's. Once they fly your fucked, cause other then the above products you can never kill them all.

But I am not sure thats what you have- I think you would have noticed by now if it was bugs. It might have fungus in the coco (good or bad). That looks way more like fungal growth, especially being that bright white. How fast is it spreading? Do you see it in areas of no light as well?

Try a treatment of SM-90. It's light weight enough that your probably not going to hurt anything, and it will knock out most of the microlife. I would also start brewing yourself some aero-compost tea and pump it full of bene's for awhile after the SM-90. There is that EM-1 stuff too (I have only read about it).

Roots tips are photophobic, as in they die in the presence of light, as far as I know anyways. The greening roots I thought was algae on them. I could be so wrong too, its not something I play with.


Lol, " Bayer Tree and Shrub to kill them"

that shit is a systemic that lasts up to 1 YEAR. Yaa thats what I want to put on my MJ plants that I INGEST. OK.
 

ScrubNinja

Grow like nobody is watching
Veteran
Lol, " Bayer Tree and Shrub to kill them"

that shit is a systemic that lasts up to 1 YEAR. Yaa thats what I want to put on my MJ plants that I INGEST. OK.

So you have a good garlic spray to share, or what? Have you dealt with these? Have you read the wiki page and the whole depressing 15 page phylloxera thread on here? People are very phobic about things like this and it's no different to someone being ignorant about marijuana.

The fact that it's systemic does not mean much when the world health organization deems it as moderately toxic. The cigarette I'm about to smoke is moderately toxic. For a pesticide, I'd say that is not doing too bad. There is a toxicology section on wikipedia clear as day if you'd like to read it. Otherwise there are numerous reports and crap from the grape industry and all the other food crops it gets used on.

The most widely used applications for Imidacloprid in California are pest control in structures, turf pest control, grape growing, and head and leaf lettuce growing. Other widespread crop uses are rice, grains/cereals including corn (maize), potatoes, vegetables, sugar beets, fruit, cotton, and hops.

And don't forget tobacco. Which I am now smoking.
 

WeedChuck

Member
I use the stuff for work. There are also a long list of fruiting trees that it is not recomended for use on if the fruit is going to be eaten. That right there has got to tell you something. Sure use it on your apple trees, but dont eat the fruit, wtf? systemic means its in your plant and its only moderately toxic and lasts up to 1 year? If you feel comfortable with that by all means.............
 

WeedChuck

Member
some guys i know from a auto shop will roll doobies without washing their hands from a oil change, Sure moderatly toxic and im not smokin that shit either. lol
 
It's really simple. Do you want to have root aphids forever, or not?

Your choice. Read the horror story of a thread about these things. I have seen friends fight the fuck out of them to no avail.

You know this shit is already all up in our food right?

In the end, what I think doesn't matter, make up your mind for yourself. There is no right and wrong, or some pissing contest to win.
 

ScrubNinja

Grow like nobody is watching
Veteran
Thanks for qualifying your stance chuck. I can't find any info of what you mention. I would suspect it's because of bees? It is used for apples and I don't see anything that you can't ingest the fruit. I didn't look too hard - getting kind of sick of this shit by now, understandably. But I welcome you to elaborate on your knowledge/experience.

A 4-year-old child who ingested four rodlets containing 50 mg of imidacloprid per rodlet, corresponding to about 10 mg/kg bw, showed no signs of poisoning or adverse health effects.

We are not talking about absorbing a chemical through an apple in the above example. That's 200 mg of pure imidacloprid straight to the dome of a 4 year old kid. Nothing. That is like her drinking 10 grams (or ml) of pure Confidor. (strength is 200g/L). My whole bottle is 8ml and I applied less than 1ml. Yes, I could have tipped the whole bottle into my mouth and still be here telling you about it. A 4 year old kid could.

Sorry Chuck, but I regret nothing and I'm very glad it's systemic. I used 18 drips and that is spread out over probably a years worth of weed, and the CS treated plant which isn't to be smoked anyway. Surely this doesn't seem unreasonable to you? Please be aware that "you can't spray it on some fruit trees" is not going to cut it as an argument here. I took a great deal of time working out those numbers when I was already sick of the shit, so please qualify your position with details.
 

WeedChuck

Member
I have been in grounds maint for over 20 years and not as a hobby. When the product became popular in our field of work, we began useing it because of fruit tree borers in our area are devestrating on the fruit trees. I actually contacted Bayer and spoke directly with a rep. now there is a long list of plants that it is used for that they recomend that you dont eat the fruit. Not me, them. I may have been wrong about apples, But the problem we were faced with was that a customer had a orchard of mixed friut trees , we could treat some, im not sure which ones, but we could not treat others around them. some came close to others drip lines , we could not treat those. This is what I have been told directly by bayer. theres an 1800 number on the bottles, call and check for yourself.
 

WeedChuck

Member
by the way you dont use the product as a spray on anything. It is a soil drench. and sure if your not smoking the treated plant thats completly reasonable, but the clones will be im sure. Dont get me wrong Im not trying to tell you what to do , I thought i would give my opinion on the matter, thats all. and since it is a soil drench have you thought about useing spinosad?
 

WeedChuck

Member
The reason i grow my own is because I want to know what chemicals are or are not being used. I guess im anal but i like my plants as chem free as possible. Have you thought of cloneing the infected plants and them getting rid of the infected plants and soil? and do you think that inhaleing it into your lungs migh have diffrent accumilated effecte than ingesting through the stomach.who's to say this stuff wont mutate your lung cells? You know you can drink rattlesnake venom all day and not get poisoned or sick, but get a drop into your blood stream. does this now make the rattlesnake venom a non harmful substance because you can drink it?



Imidacloprid was negative for mutagenicity in 21 out of 23 different laboratory tests, but was positive for chromosomal changes in human lymphocytes and for genotoxicity in CHO cells.

http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/haloxyfop-methylparathion/imidacloprid-ext.html
 
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ScrubNinja

Grow like nobody is watching
Veteran
Thanks chuck I do appreciate it. Your links don't work by the way. I know you're looking out. This is my whole future here, I'm making fem seeds, and quite a lot of them I hope, So above all, that is why I treated them. I don't see that anyone is having any real success with anything except imid. You really have to read the whole thread. Seriously. You absolutely will not understand this issue until you read every depressing page. No way in hell am I messing with that. I live in a very unsuitable growplace and the whole thing is stealth and just getting water to them is an issue. So I needed this absolutely taken care of, and I get the impression it still may not disappear. Of course all my non-weed plants were affected so this was an issue in treating the lot.

You have convinced me not to smoke it but I may well cook with it. Obviously I was planning on water curing it to this point also. Honestly bro, I'm not convinced that this stuff is dangerous enough to worry me when used properly, just that I did apply it late. Rep+ and thanks.

And if you do contract this shit, drench it with imid. There is just no getting around that part it would seem.
 

WeedChuck

Member
whatever you do, good luck to you and good vibes comin your way. Shooooot for seed production, go all out and do what you got to do. damn links....cut and paste, what can you say , lol.

:smoweed:
 

WeedChuck

Member
after trying to read the whole thread ,(not suceeding) did any one ever try spinosad for your problem. it can be applied to the foliage and used for a soil drench. Mabey you should give it a go and become the "one" who found results. Spinosad is a new insecticide also.
 

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