about 3 days ago we noticed about 2 small flies in our grow room,, then yesterday noticed small white worm like things in the soil . we have identified them as fungus knats, so we've ordered some insecticied for it but it wont be about 3 days until it comes,and i have read that these worm-like creatures eat the roots!! gahhh.. so tonigth we are temporarily putting a few garlic cloves on the soil. so now my big worry is that they are going to fuck up the plants, after theyve been growing so wel for the past month has anyone encountered problems with fungus gnats?? if so did they destroy your plants? or were they ok once using a garlic spray or insecticied or any other method? thanks in advance
VERY serious. 1. go to the store and get some "hot shot no pest strips" $6 2. get some potatoes, slice them, and leave them on the soil. Check the slices a lot, the gnats will feed off it, throw it away. 3. Neem Oil works well on the plant as well. Your insecticide will do the trick, those other steps will help keep them from killing the plant until then.
hi, yafula hope that every thing is fine. Since your last visit on 25th October you have not posted about your plants. Eagerly waiting to know what....
well they have all survived and now we have changed the lights to 12/12 so they are starting to bud However i did find that it is almost impossible to fully eradicate the fungus gnats. As the GnatOff that i ordered did not arrive until 2 weeks, i had to try some other homemade type insecticides (which i was worried about using almost anything because i didnt want to harm my plants in anyway). So i tried the garlic spray, applying daily which did not seem to affect them much, then tried the insecticidal soap spray which did not kill any of the larvae either, i then read about making some peppermint tea and watering the plant swith it, and i did start to see a small difference. GnatOff finally arrived and so did the sticky traps. The sticky traps worked great and within the first 2 hours had already caught approximately 20 gnats. But GnatOff did not work any better then the peppermint tea. I also let the soil dry out as much as i could, so now there are a lot less, but there is still the odd gnat flying aroundand i can still see some larvae in the soil, but the sticky traps are definiatly helping (they also help to catch the larvae oddly, if you place a few stickey traps horizontally on the soil, the larvae jump when watered and they then stick to the traps. Although the infestation p*ssed me off, iv just taken it as a good experience a i now know how to prevent an infestation. if anyone was to have an infestatoion of fungus gnats i would not recommened a commercial insecticied like gnatoff and instead it would best to use Neem Oil. (pics are a few day old) and sorry for the size
Hi. I think i have fungus gnats!!! I recently planted 7 seeds, they started fine for a few days then the leaves started to go lime green and yellow and seemed to dry up. They all but stopped growing, now 3 have died. I examined them today and saw a single small black fly in the grow room. Does this sound like a fungus gnat? Cheers DB
it could possibly be as your seedlings are young, and if the roots arent strong enough they will feed of them and stop water and nutrients from getting to your seedlings,which would be the cause of them goin yellow and dying. Check the soil, look very closely and see if you can see small larvea in it, and other black flies crawling in and out the soil, then it will more then likely be fungus gnats Buy some sticky traps as soon as you can and place them around your grow room. Until my sticky traps arrived i used a large bowl with pieces of crushed garlic in it, some of the gnats used to fly in it and die, but it didnt work aswell as the sticky traps so i would recommend you get them ASAP. Also avoid watering your plants as much as possible, as the larvea thrive of wet soil, and lettin the soil dry out a bit will reduce the amount of them. If possible cover the top layer of soil with perlite, the fungus gnats will then not lay theyre eggs in your soil. Bu some Neem Oil as soon as you ( if nowhere near you sells it you can buy it online), or also reasearch online about PREDATOR NEMATODES. Until then you can try and use peppermint tea, or insecticidal soap mixtures (even though these did not kill all the larvea it did reduce them a bit). Hope your grow will be O.K
Thanks will try all the above. Have some natof which my mate swears by so we'll see. I'll keep this thread posted. Thanks again DB
Seems to be a common problem with mj. When it happened to me i just mixed hormone rooting powder in with the water as that kills most soil type bugs.
spinosad works best for soft shelled insects. it comes in a spray that's sold as monterey garden insect spray. i've used it to kill thrips and fungus gnats on several occasions. totally organic and safe to use in all stages.
Hi, donbronzi here is another options for you and that is spraying spinosad as posted by one of our forum member JoeGKush. Thanks JoeGKush.
permethrin is likely a carcinogen and i wouldn't want it used on anything i'm ingesting. it's a nuerotoxin and has the same effect on mammals that it does on insects. http://www.safe2use.com/poisons-pesticides/pesticides/permethrin/cox-report/cox.htm
