Root Aphid Help Please^^

[MedResearcher]

10 Days into flower.

Grown in pure CoCo 5 gallon buckets, handwatered daily.

Plants look great.


Although the CoCo is infested with root aphids. When I water or If I bump a bucket 100's of root aphids surface and run around.


I tried Neem and Dishoap drench...... didnt seem to help at all.


About 6 days ago in desperation I gave them all a full dose of Bayer Tree and Shrub...... so far hasnt helped either.


Im debating trying a Nicotine drench if the Bayer doesnt kick in within the next few days.


Any advice on a nicotine drench or any other methods to rid me of these bugs would be appreciated.

The plants look so great, my best work so far. I really hope I dont loose the fight.

Thanks,
MR^^

 

[Whatever]

From what I understand the only way to truly get rid of them is by cloning them out of existence in clean medium and gear.

I read a few threads about em and they are tough to deal with. I'm tempted to say an Avid drench but 10 days into flower...I dunno. Bug Buster O is supposed to help but tough on the plants. I think the carrier on that stuff is petroleum distillates and that's what hurts the plants.

Anyway...good luck.

 

[MedResearcher]

Thanks for the reply^^

My new clones, mothers, vegs, are in a room right next to the flower room. Luckily I havent seen any in there yet.


I really hope I dont have to get rid of everything to get rid of them, its sort of not an option.


Wonder where these pesky buggers came from.


Anymore advice is much appreciated, if anyone has got rid of them without having to go back to fresh clones, please let me know how.


Thanks,
MR^^

 

[phatnuggetz]

hello medresearcher, i just had this problem in my hydro system, i had many root aphids attack and the product that did it for me was sm-90. that product is amazing, i just started a thread a few weeks ago about it. It say on the bottle to use 2-3ml per gallon but i called nutrilife and they said i could use up to 8 mil per gallon and i did. It took a few days but after a week, all the larvae and adults were dead. It put no stress onmy plants and worked amazing! plus it kills spidermites and eggs better then anything i have seen for the price! good luck! Also right now is a good time to give them AN scorpion juice, another amazing product.

 

[MedResearcher]

Thanks Phat^^


I will have to give it a try, I use to mix SM-90 with my neem oil to fight spider mites along time ago.


SM-90 was having some sort of regulation/tax/fee problem for a minute and wasnt getting stocked/distributed in the States for a while. Any idea if thats over?

 

[phatnuggetz]

Nope its still the same, i think it was california only that it got pulled off the shelves. i live in california and was just recently at 2 grow shops were they told me they pulled it off the shelves but both stores still had some in the back and sold it to me, plus you can order it still at bghydro.com very reputable website. One store told me that they just changed the name of it. Either way that product is amazing at killing bugs!.another thing is you are probably overwatering if your watering everyday, aphids love that,let your coco dry out very well.I used to have half coco half hydroton mix in 3 gallon bags for a while and had high temps of 85 degrees with co2 and even with the accelarated growing becuase of the high transpiration, i still watered everyother day,ad AN's fulvic acid,it helps so plants dont stress on druoght,plus silca or AN's barricade helps with this also. good luck my freind!

 

[MedResearcher]

Thanks again Phat^^

Ya I could deffinetely water every other day and be alright. I use to do it like that, but I started to think I was getting better growth watering every day..... but honestly there prolly is very little to no difference.

Ill have to let them dry out more, I did notice that when I stepped up to everyday waterings was when the bugs really showed up.

Couple questions for ya Phat if you dont mind

So 8mil of SM-90 per gallon.

How often should I treat them with this? Or could I just add it to my rez?

If I cant just add it to the rez when I do the SM-90 drenchs, should I use plain water or the ferted water ?


The scorpion juice, should it be used alone as a drench, or can I just add it to my rez as well?


By the way I do recirculate my rez.


Thanks,
MR^^

 

[Whatever]

Yucca also helps with drought stress.

I've heard a lot of good things about SM-90.

 

[sarek]

I think there are a lot of variables to consider about root aphids. For example the type of system is very importnat.
Ebb n flow or drip etc and the medium might have very different outcomes.
I would think that rockwool cubes might have few places for bugs to live in so the numbers might be lower initially. Other more open mediums have lots of crevices.
Also I think just adding it to resevoir might not nbe enuf. After doing that you should manually pour res contents over medium during watering. To cover every inch of medium.
You might also simulataneously do some spraying of leaves in case bugs are in acanopy.
Also yellow and blue traps to catch winged adults.
Maybe a bomb would be good in there.
Maybe initially htting them with nematodes to get numbers down would be good.

SM90 seems promising. Aphid like creatures seem succeptible to oils. But I am not sure if it is accurate to call these aphids. Aphids give birth to live young wheras these have larvae? so these might need multiple applications to kill larvae

 

[Shan Diego]

I got permetherin (with no pertr distillates) from HD, as well as spinosad and imidacloprid. The combo finally killed everything.

 

[jaykush]

this is most likely a war you wont win, clone all plants, CLEAN everything. start over.

 

[phatnuggetz]

this is most likely a war you wont win, clone all plants, CLEAN everything. start over.

You might not be able to win it but i did, Im telling everyone on this website over and over, sm-90 will kill root aphids mites fungus nats white flies better then anything i have used.

 

[TanzanianMagic]

The plants look so great, my best work so far. I really hope I dont loose the fight.

Thanks,
MR^^

Have you tried predatory mites, like the Hypoaspsis Miles predatory mite?

http://www.thebugfactory.ca/pages/hydroponics/

 

[SmokeyTheDuck]

I must say that SM-90 did the trick for me. I run a large recirculating DWC setup w/ 5 gallon buckets. Root aphids took over my entire room... 80% of my plants were infected, the floor was crawling with black aphids. After hours of research, I decided to formulate my own attack.

1. In a spray bottle, I mixed up a strong Neem oil solution (water + neem oil + SM-90). I sprayed the entire room, including floors, walls, buckets, grow medium, roots, plants, everything. I did this every other day for 3 applications. I continued to spray the bucket tops as I saw more root aphids trying to crawl out of the grow medium.
2. I added Hygrozyme, SM-90 and Neem oil to my reservoir. Neem oil was a mistake - with a chiller, the Neem oil solidified, clogging my drippers and creating a rather nasty mess - but I think it did probably help in this battle. I believe SM-90 was the true champion out of this mix; I now use Hygrozyme and SM-90 regularly at the recommended dosages.

It's been over 3 weeks now and I still occasionally find one lone root aphid crawling on the floor, but I can no longer find any active bugs on my plants. This, to me, is a victory. After this grow I will be tearing down my room and performing a deep clean.

Good luck in your battle!

 

[Sauron The Blue]

spinosad root drench will kill them.

I use the monterey house and garden, but anything containing spinosad will kill them in the root zone on contact.

 

[Deft]

The SM90 is good stuff for me too, I've used it at 1/5 dilution with no negative effects even on seedlings, the roots seem to really like it, it seems very safe even in high concentration at least in soil.

 

[master shake]

what do root aphids look like? today i saw some tiny gray things flickin around (on surface of water) in some runoff from a cup i got a seedling in...nothing flying around or visible anywhere else. Are these root aphids?