[FoCo(No.Co)]

Originally Posted by milehighmedical

I'm off to get some botanigard as soon as I can. Although I imagine it may not be available in Fort Collins since you picked up an alternative yourself. I hope what you're trying is working well, as it could be my last resort.

Yea they didn't have Botanigard at Way to Grow and nobody else has an inventory like them so I didnt even bother looking elsewhere.

Originally Posted by CovertCrops

FO.CO- how is the spectracide working?

It worked. All my root dwellers are dead. All my leaf crawlers are dead. The only ones that I've seen alive are a few fliers that escaped the application. I noticed one of the fliers returned to the coco and died after crawling around(I was over medicated, just sitting there looking for bugs, lol), so the gamma is still working. My plants were totally unaffected by it, I am quite convinced that they are growing faster already.

Originally Posted by CovertCrops

To further help identify root aphid infestation here is a photo of the waxy residue they leave behind. The infestation is pretty advanced by this point.
I hope this helps some of you confirm the enemy. Good luck.

Dude! Great call! I've got this residue all over the place and I didnt even stop to think that it might be from the aphids!

[*mr.mike*]

I had these bugs before. I used cipermetrin at quarter strength in watering once the third or fourth set of leaves show, and then right after they show sex. It kills anything with legs that lives in my pots. I then use it as a spray, and a repeat soil drench once sex is shown. I would figure a systemic like neem would stop them too, but I don't know about that one.

Originally Posted by humble1

...real analysis will show you that not only is MG radioactive but without a significant flush you will be ingesting a lot of unnecessary nutrients.
....One of my Horticulture instructors guessed at the real reason I was in his class and told me to stay away from anything with a gamma-beta-alpha-omicron- anything greek in the name...
.02

Yup, MG is indeed radioactive, as are ALL (even organic, it's true!) fertilizers. Your organic ferts have the exact same ratios of isotopes as MG, or even Schultz, etc... it's the way of nature. The salts are just concentrated in the "unnatural stuff." Think of how much "other stuff" you're actually putting in your dirt and plants.

As for "stay away from anything greek"... utter crap, nothing more. Horticultural scientists come up with this stuff and decide if it works, or not. IUPAC nomenclature is no way to blindly judge a molecule

Originally Posted by bali_man

I don't have any experience using peppers as insect control , but I recently was gifted some savina habenero, scotch bonnet, and some other peppers that I forgot, but I've never had anything this hot. He also has access to pure capsaicin (10,000,000 scoville +). Now I'm wondering can this be used as some sort of "pepper spray" to possibly blind or physically damage root alpids?
-bm

I like to grow habaneros and bhut jolokia. Aphids, mites and other bugs LOVE to eat the peppers. Seems that they lack a capsaicin receptor (as well as a THC receptor). If you look at some of the birdfeeds, capsaicin is added to keep away squirrels and other mammals. Birds and bugs are not affected. I can actually completely masticate (alone or in group!) and swallow an entire jolokia without crying, screaming, or jumping... until it's on it's way out.

[king acehole]

I too thought I was battling gnats for the last 6 months or so. Could not defeat them with BT, diatomaceous earth, no-pest strips, neem. I noticed the crawly ones only recently, thinking they were a different pest. I've had mag deficiency, yellowing, crispy leaves, low yields, low vigor on at least 25% of my plants. Yet didn't think they were related to what I thought was relatively harmless nuisance...

I gave up hope on defeating them, just contain them, I thought, winning is impossible.
I killed my mothers and started over from seed, sterilized everything, yet they returned. They haven't completely infested yet... do not want to go there again. Knocking dead bodies and shit specks off of buds with a bamboo skewer is not my idea of fun.

Thanks to spleebale for this thread and super thanks to FoCo! Yesterday morning I applied Spectracide @ 7.5ml/gal(per FoCo's suggestion) to ph'd water and applied as a soil drench to my dried-out coco hempy buckets. Instant death motherfuckers!!! Flyers, crawlers, they touch this stuff and it's over fast. At 7.5ml/gal it works and there is almost no smell, Spectracide undiluted has a very strong paint thinner type smell.

Within a few hours all of the plants looked noticeably happier, more perky and not just because I had let the coco dry. Today they are even happier, taller, perkier. The two most sickly plants are the most improved.

This shit works and it's $10 at Lowe's. I'm really happy I didn't try some of the $50-$150 pesticides that others are recommending that may or may not work.

By the way, if you have lots of fliers, I've had great success trapping them with masking/cello/transparent packing tape wrapped around the base of the hood. This works well around the top edge of pots too and keeps those fuckers from sticking to the buds.

happy growing,

king acehole

[GeorgeSmiley]

Originally Posted by king acehole

By the way, if you have lots of fliers, I've had great success trapping them with masking/cello/transparent packing tape wrapped around the base of the hood. This works well around the top edge of pots too and keeps those fuckers from sticking to the buds.

happy growing,

king acehole

Putting it around the hood is an awesome idea... k+

[Bud Spleefman]

I am happy to report that the Bayer Tree & Shrub liquid w/ 1.47% Imid works well in DWC when used at a rate of 2 ml per gallon. I filled my whole system all the way to the tops of the buckets with this mix and the buckets are filled with dead floating Aphids and my plants look great. Except for a couple that were too far gone. They look the same. Half dead! All the rest are Praying for the Sky. I used the stuff with plain water and no nutes, and I'm going to let them soak for 24 hours, then dump and go back to my regular nute schedule.

I bought the stuff at Home Depot, was less than 20 bucks.

Thanks to whoever discoved this one!

[FoCo(No.Co)]

...NOW HOW DO WE REPAIR OUR DAMAGED ROOTS?

I have found that these products help--->
-Superthrive(rooting hormone and b vitamins)
-Hygrozyme(enzymes that help prevent roots from rotting)
-Kelp/Alfalfa(contain plant 'steroids' for vigorous growth)

Anyone else know of anything that helps root health? I am convinced that the use of these three products is the only thing that kept my mature plants truckin' through months of heavy infestation.

[CovertCrops]

Rhizotonic is incredible for roots. Try it, the results speak for themselves.

[HIGHGROOVE]

hello community i believe i have the gnats...lets get your ideas...ok what i was told and seemed right on was just too keep some of my clones alive at the time i used some old dirt.....and thats what caused it? then transferred them to coco and ahve had them ever since my issue is i chop down later this week anything i can do?

[Fat J]

Hey FoCo -> I use the House&gardens roox excellurator - its kinda pricey but it is a really effective product. I use it with tap water in my cheezy cloner and i get roots in 4 days, its the best root regenerator/booster ive found.

High -> I'm currently going the pyrethrin route, many ppl here have had good success with Imidachlorpid or something (forget how to spell it but its in bayer tree&shrub) I would only personally reccomend the imid for plants in veg that are still a way from finishing as imid is systemic. Also, read further up in the thread, the ppl who say that going to clone and sterilizing is the only way 2 cure it are ultimately right. they will keep coming back no matter what you do unitl u cut clones, sterilize them, cut down all ur plants and sterilize with bleach or something similar. The treatments are only containment measures.

[Fat J]

Oh and if ur harvesting in a week, i wouldnt reccomend any of these chems - maybe no pest strips to stop the fliers and cut back watering as much as possible...