Fungus gnats or WINGED ROOT APHIDS???

[Norkali]

ok, im convinced these things are coming in bags of fox farm ocean forest soil. I had these around 7 weeks ago, i only had plants in veg. I used 15ml/gal of spectracide to kill them and i didnt see any until today. I looked in my veg room today( these are all new plants that weren't around 7 weeks ago) and spotted a couple tiny crawlers on the soil of one plant, i checked the rest and they all have them. Also a few that i just transplanted and put into my flower room last week had them too. Luckily, i didn't see any in the older plants that are now 5 and a half weeks into flower (the plants that were treated with spectracide 7 weeks ago). So i treated all the vegging plants, and newly flowering plants with the spectracide today, hopefully that does the job and they dont migrate to the older flowering plants. Anyway, so i check my rubbermaid tub full of premixed soil to see if i find any in there and the tub was infested. In the tub i have half ffof, half promix, and like 20 percent perlite mixed up. This is all brand new soil out of the bag. If these things came from somewhere outside of my grow, why would they go into a rubbermaid tub of brand new soil that hasn't had any roots in it? These things had to have come in with the soil. I'm pissed that there selling this kind of infested crap and charging me 22 bucks a bag for it.

I agree. im pretty sure it was from my FFOF soil.....

Question to both of you...had you brought in any plants into the rooms since 'eradicating' the first time?

I had my suspicions of the FFOF, but eventually found out the definite source of my root aphids was a plant in coco. Scary, scary stuff.

 

[jimbo99]

iv never brought any plant or clone in from anywhere outside of my grow. i start everything from seed and then clone the plants i start from seed. The rubbermaid bin i use to mix soil in which was still half full of mixed soil was full of aphids when i checked it today. brand new soil. they had to come in from the ffof, the promix, or the perlite. my guess is the ffof because the last time i had them i was only using fox farm. i had no promix in my place last time i had them.

 

[spleebale]

The first link in the last post of mine is the yellow bottle immune booster ("Foliar A + B" - a two-part product). The yellow-bottle company is "Agricultural Organics." This product is great for beefing up immunity and even battling pathogens once they have already started to take hold. They may have changed the name now (some places may be selling it under a different name: "Imuno 1" and "Imuno 2") - I don't know if the formulation has changed.

-WB

 

[ItsGrowTime]

Question to both of you...had you brought in any plants into the rooms since 'eradicating' the first time?

I had my suspicions of the FFOF, but eventually found out the definite source of my root aphids was a plant in coco. Scary, scary stuff.

Keep in mind that on a larger scale, as companies cut back on costs to maintain profits they will start sourcing lower quality materials and lower cost labor. What may have been a great product back in 2008 may now be a much lower quality product sourced from entirely different places and treated much differently. Im not commenting on FFOF in particular here. Just something to keep in mind on the grand scale. Soils and nutes are not immune to a declining economy. It's very possible that these bugs are in commercial soil now that they were not in only a couple years ago.

 

[puff adder]

It's been a bit since I potted up and 2 applications of Bayer Tree and Shrub (Imid). The plants are doing well, no signs at all of any crawlers, but I am still seeing a few flyers stuck to my sticky traps.
I have to assume they are getting into the room somehow, or a few are surviving somehow.

I am about to flip to 12-12, I'll give another dose of the Imid at that time, which I HOPE will carry me through flowering.

I plan to do a soil drench with Azamax a week or so after the last application of Imid. This should break the life cycle and deal with any stragglers.

Now if that works, and the Floromite works for protecting against mites, and the Eagle-20 works for protecting against PM, this first run in my new room should be smooth and uneventful.

I'm using mosquito dunks for the fungus gnats, but they still seem to thrive. I'm hoping the Azamax soil drench helps.

Thanks again for this thread and info.

 

[smurfin'herb]

Man, i feel like i did the first time i found that i had mites!! This is horrible. Ive only run into the red asses so far, but i havent seen any reddish on the ass yet, they jus look goldish brown. I got flyers, but i beleive they are just fungus gnats. I wont know for sure until i get one under the scope.

Im going to order some stuff to rid them, but i was wondering if i could use aquashield (previously hydroguard) until the package gets here? The stuff used to mention that it was like 2 strains of bacillus. It was B. subtillis and B. amyloliquefaciens. Would this work or would it be better to add something else pyrethum based like organocide? I also have spinosad, and have read of people doing soil drenches with it, but ony for fungus gnats. Havent heard any results when using it for aphids. Whats best to use temporarily? I have microbe community in the pots right now so i dont really wanna add any chemical stuff.

Where is a good place on the net to find a bunch of pics of insects that could be in your soil? I need to find a perfect match to make sure its aphids. Kind of seems to small to be aphids, but ive never seen one in person so i dont know what to compare them to. They are about the size of a grain or two of table salt.

 

[sneakinman13]

hey ppppl. just wondering if anyone is spraying there plants with the imid. or are you just watering???? i ask because i dont see any fliers. but just want to make sure weather or not i should water with imid and spray with imid for total control...

if anyone has a idea please let me kno... cause im just gonna water with it until i found out more!

 

[spleebale]

Smurf: sorry to hear you may have joined our commiseration group; aphids can be VERY small - can be much smaller than [typical] mites. Aqua shield can help to fend off root pathogens but will not get rid of aphids. Spinosad supposedly works well on root aphids when used in the soil and may be our holy-grail secondary control product (though I have not looked into it much). Look up each insect name in google and then hit 'images' to see a bunch of pics. Thrip larvae are squirmy larvae, as are gnat larvae. Root aphids are the only crawly-bug I know of that would infest soil/root zones (unless it is a predator bug feeding off one of the aforementioned).

Sneak: DO NOT spray w/ imid. It will not kill mites and will not be well trans-located to roots. Additionally it will mess you up temporarily if you breathe imid spray.

 

[Rabbits]

Quite a few people here have used Imid with success.
I, rather stupidly used it 30 days before harvest. I have all the buds curing but I don't know if I'll ever use them.
I have read a lot about Imid and it is all very confusing.

Be aware of this though.
Millions of people are smoking it in tobacco. Those plants can be sprayed two weeks before harvest.
Also millions of people are eating Imid in vegetables. For example tomatoes can be sprayed three days before picking the fruit.

Sales of Imid are more than a thousand million dollars annually.
That tells me a lot of people are using a lot of Imid.
And every single person is using as per the instructions.
Yeah, right!

The trouble for us is there is no research regarding Imid and our favorite plant.
So I'd have to say 'best not to use it.'

 

[sneakinman13]

thanks splee! watering it is

 

[smurfin'herb]

Hey splee, im really not keen on reading all 50 pages of this thread, so can you please tell me how much spinosad you guys are adding per gallon to be effective?

 

[smurfin'herb]

im gonna hit them with a soil drench of spinosad, and some ladybugs, then ill use aqua shield and h-zyme for some cleansing afterwards. I try to keep it as natural as possible. If that doesnt work, ill try out some beneficial nematodes or some other root zone predators. I didnt think i had immediate to lady bugs, but i guess i do. I am just afraid of them overpopulating and taking over my house!

Ive been finding lots of different sized white specks on the undersides of my leaves no bigger than the size of an unsharpened led pencil tip. They arent marks from a bug sucking juices cuz i know what that looks like and theres no damage on the top side of the leaves as you see with mites and thrips ect...Also not powdery mildew. Under 30x scope, these white specks look kind of like coocoon material that a butterfly would hatch from, but obviously are wayyyy smaller. Also black dots are seen on these white specs, but could possibly just be some type of resin glands that are popping up thru the white speck, or they could be some type of eggs. I use floramite to kill mites recently and im wondering if they turn into this white powder when they break down or something...I also have white cement walls in the grow where the paint comes off in specks all the time, and theres a fan blowing on the plants, and the plants are against the wall, so maybe it could be paint specks, but i highly doubt it, because i know what they look like on the plant, and they are usually on the topsides of the leaves, not the bottoms... so many possibilities!! Ill give another update once i identify the dead ones with wings.

 

[RetroGrow]

Quite a few people here have used Imid with success.
I, rather stupidly used it 30 days before harvest. I have all the buds curing but I don't know if I'll ever use them.
I have read a lot about Imid and it is all very confusing.

Be aware of this though.
Millions of people are smoking it in tobacco. Those plants can be sprayed two weeks before harvest.
Also millions of people are eating Imid in vegetables. For example tomatoes can be sprayed three days before picking the fruit.

Sales of Imid are more than a thousand million dollars annually.
That tells me a lot of people are using a lot of Imid.
And every single person is using as per the instructions.
Yeah, right!

The trouble for us is there is no research regarding Imid and our favorite plant.
So I'd have to say 'best not to use it.'

I would not worry about smoking it. If you read the label on the Bayer Citrus, which is obviously made for produce, you will note that they list the times to wait after application before eating the food. Each crop is different, however, the longest time interval recommended by them is 21 days for certain vegetables, as short as 7 days for others. This is for edible veggies and fruits, and it tells me that the imid has dissipated from the fruits pretty rapidly, and they have to be overly conservative on their warnings, so I would not hesitate to smoke the bud, especially since the amounts of imid are miniscule, and have not been proven to be harmful anyway. This is the same stuff given to dogs in pill or liquid form to kill fleas, so how bad can it be if they are allowed to directly ingest it?
If you don't want that bud, send it to me.
I will smoke it. Actually, I will vape it......as I rarely "smoke" anymore.

 

[spleebale]

If you are concerned about imid, read the MASSIVE post I made on the toxicity of imid (#663).

I will second RGs comment, that if ANYONE has ANY bud they are planning on throwing away because of imid contamination, please send it to me instead.

Once again: THE BIGGEST CONCERN WITH THE USE OF IMID IS LEAVING IT AROUND IN THE MEDIUM INSTEAD OF FLUSHING IT OUT.

It breaks down very rapidly inside the plant but will continue being absorbed through teh roots as long as it is in the medium. This is the main reason it is supposed to offer such long protection, as it otherwise breaks down inside plants rather quickly.

Smurf: sorry,I have not used spinosad and I do not remember info about its use on this thread. In another thread it was apparently found to be effective, although a chart on one study shows it to be only minority effective against aphids (perhaps RAs are different than leaf aphids though). IN any case, I think it will require somewhat high doses to be effective.

As to the "cocoons" - I think I know what you are talking about, as I have seen these as well. I took them to be either dead mites or more likely molted skin (insects molt when they grow). They could also be sheds from RAs, but I doubt it (in my own experience I don't think there could have been enough RAs on leaves to leave behind as many "cocoons" as I saw.

 

[smurfin'herb]

I put my camera up to my 30x and this is what i got. Its the best i can do. I had to freeze these things in order for them still and to keep their form so you can distinguish what they are. They are exactly the size of the flat tip end of a paperclip. Six legs and two antennae looking things on the head. The legs are curled in because thats what happens when bugs die. I havent noticed any on the plant leaves, just the coco. Tell me what this is...

Looks like they could be southern red mites (which ive never had), but i have never seen colonies of spider mites that live in the grow medium. They are always on the leaves spinnin webs. Please help me identify.

 

[RetroGrow]

If they are spinnin' webs, they are mites!

 

[spleebale]

Smurf: There was a photo of one of those included on my original post; a few people were complaining about these "little armored pill-bugs" and I included them as one of the types of root aphids originally, which I designated "psulloxera" as in pseudo-phylloxera, since they were the closest in appearance to real phylloxera (which I do not believe anyone has, or at least has not described/posted photos of).

Later I recognized that the creature in the photo I had posted (same as you have) had 8 legs and was definitely an arachnid (thus a mite) and not an aphid so I removed it from the post when I added "red-assed aphids" which seem to be perhaps the most common or second most common cannabis root aphid.

Since they are mites, I do not think they are feeding on roots (though I did not know of root aphids a year ago so I cannot say for sure!) They are probably feeding on leaves (look for stipples). Look up some mite photos by searching "spider mite" in Google images and see if you can identify them. Pay attention to the plants and look for signs of root damage or sickness (mites sucking leaves generally just slows plants down and does not make them sick or stop moving/drinking). If these things are feeding on or otherwise damaging roots it will be very important information, so keep a heads-up!

-WB

 

[smurfin'herb]

I have noticed a few spider mites here and there, but nothing too crazy or uncontrollable. They are just the normal brown two spotted fuzzy ones. I havent ever seen a different kind of mite in person as to date (good thing i guess).
The things i pictured only have 6 legs, not eight. They are DEFINATLEY feeding mainly on my roots. I know this cuz I have phosphorus deficiency out of nowhere. Runoff ph and PPM are fine, and plants get regular feed. Never had problems with this regimen til now, so thats how i know they are munching roots. Plus, there are like 100's crawling around in the tops of the pots and i havent seen ANY of these on the plant leaves or any other part, except the medium. I have never in my life seen spider mites try to breed in the medium, so im kind of wondering what kind of mite this is, if it even is a mite...

 

[spleebale]

Damn, smurf! That sounds bad! This is very important information, though, as this type of root-beast may be distinct.

First of all:

This is the critter I was talking about that others have had but that has not received much attention. Do we have consensus this is the same thing? Notice How it seems to have 8 legs?

Can you snap us more photos? Ideally of two or more specimens?

In the bright pic you provided it seems that the bug has 4 legs on the top side (of the photo, right side of the bug), perhaps one is tucked under or missing on the other side?

From what you say these certainly seem to be root-feeders, now it is a question of:

-What are they (mites or aphids)?
-What works the best on them?

Hope we can help you, and thank you because your information helps others.

-WB

 

[spleebale]

Also: this guy seems to think root mites are beneficial (and I believe hat when he says from the "phylloxera thread" these are the ones he is talking about [pic above])

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=150745