Flowering delayed....Fungus Gnats

[500lbs Guerilla]

Got a bad batch of soil and had to battle off a major fungus gnat infestation. I've already gone through over 100 mosquito dunks. Although their population has diminished significantly, the damage has been done. Over half my plants drop an excessive amount of foliage daily. Even more bizarre, it seems my plants stopped flowering. My GDP, which usually finishes in 55-60 days, is now approaching 10 weeks without a single amber trichrome. Has anybody else experienced this before? Tomorrow is the full moon and I'm thinking of harvesting anyway

 

[Seamaiden]

I don't know that it's just fungus gnats. I can't get rid of them, they're wild here and so I just treat on a regular basis. Azatrol as a root drench during veg. I think if I were seeing the same thing, kind of had something similar except I'm pretty sure it was my fault, I'd probably go ahead and harvest, too. If the buds aren't growing any further, things could start moving backward.

I've also tried Dipel, it's supposed to be a good treatment for FGs, but I ended up going back to Azatrol.

 

[red_eye]

Azatrol as a root drench during veg.

What application rate are you using for the Azatrol root drench?

 

[leadsled]

Seamaiden that sucks. I have gotten rid of them multiple times. No reason you should not be able to get rid of them. Make sure to treat houseplants or get rid of them as well. Can be a source for the gnats to live.

SNS-203 is excellent. Killed em dead. I just did a follow up drench. fairly new product I been testing. One foliar and root treatment has appeared to work. I did a follow up to be safe. I will do a follow up post to confirm there dead and gone.

I did a soil drench along with foliar spray of sns203. Combined with yellow strips to catch the adults.

I have previously used fox farm "dont bug me: and sprayed the tops of the soil to kill the adults.

Then used gnatrol to kill the larvar but that took weeks and multiple applications. Also had to wipe out the adult with sprays and sticky traps. Or else you do not kill the entire life cycle. Very important to kill adults and larvae.

now here is a new method I have not tried but recently read about. If you do not read it I recommend it. Urban Grower is a kick ass magazine and website. not biased like the other industry mags.

Hypoaspis miles - gnat and trip predator.

http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2010/08/know-your-predators/

Hope that helps please share your results.

 

[Seamaiden]

LS, they just live around here. Before I ever started growing inside I kept losing houseplants to them, they come in from outside and damn if I can completely eradicate them. They've not caused a terrible problem, but I think they may be one of the reasons I was having cloning problems when I used any media. Switching to an aerocloner I'm having much better pull rates.

I use the yellow traps to monitor population density.

What application rate are you using for the Azatrol root drench?

1oz/gallon.

 

[Silica]

I used to get these white tiny insects under my leaves when i first started growing.
That was under my parents house and are they gnats or white flies?
They had lots of eggs too, no webs like spider mites.
They didnt fly around but looked like tiny flies and would suck all the nutrients from under the leaves. Mainly effecting one strain only- white rhino. The rest seemed untouched. however the white rhino was the oldest and they would be in hundreds if i didnt spray.
Id spray with washing detergent and a little peroxide once a week which seemed to help limit the population. They would increase greatly with high heat it seems.
I heard if you have humidity control you call pop the eggs with high humidity.

 

[leadsled]

I used to get these white tiny insects under my leaves when i first started growing.
That was under my parents house and are they gnats or white flies?
They had lots of eggs too, no webs like spider mites.
They didnt fly around but looked like tiny flies and would suck all the nutrients from under the leaves. Mainly effecting one strain only- white rhino. The rest seemed untouched. however the white rhino was the oldest and they would be in hundreds if i didnt spray.
Id spray with washing detergent and a little peroxide once a week which seemed to help limit the population. They would increase greatly with high heat it seems.
I heard if you have humidity control you call pop the eggs with high humidity.

Sounds like white flies. Sns 203 also kills them.

 

[Silica]

Thanks sorry for the tangent than. Ill look into Sns 203. i found this product on this website-
http://hiddenvalleyhibiscus.com/care/whiteflies.htm
Product-
http://www.hiddenvalleynaturearts.com/acatalog/safari.htm

That product promises to kill aphids and white flies as soon as they suck on the sap.
It works by you feeding it to the plant. it lasts for months in the plant.
Says non toxic to eat but is it non toxic to smoke?

The new, and relatively non-toxic pest control product, Tree & Shrub with Safari, eliminates whiteflies from garden or home. This pesticide is systemic, which means that it is absorbed into the plant where it remains in the sap for months. Whenever a whitefly or other sap-sucking insect feeds on the plant, it is killed by the pesticide in the sap, which is not very toxic to people or pets but is deadly to many insects. It is best applied before the problem becomes severe and can be reapplied when the effect wears off, every 3-6 months. For a severe infestation, you may need to apply the product twice at 2-month intervals to get complete control over the infestation, then switch to a maintenance application schedule of 2-4 times per year.

Id like to know what relatively non toxic means. Relatively to what? DDT.

 

[500lbs Guerilla]

I just dug around some of the containers last night and also found what looks like small centipedes! They are brownish, very fast and about a half inch long. They are only in a couple containers in one corner of the room, but what are they? My first thought were symphilids, but the only photos I've seen of symphilids are white and a bit smaller that these.
I've grow this strain regularly and the only thing different this round was the soil (from FFOF to Sunland). I've pH'd the runoff and adjusted accordingly so its not lockout. Nevertheless I've flushed the plants twice now, once with clearex. I've applied an entire bottle of Azatrol to little effect. The dunks were pretty effective as long as I crumbled about a dunk and a half over each five gallon container, and then watered in with dechlorinated water. I would like to try SNS203 as a drench, but that would be quite expensive. I run 8k organic medical for multiple patients. Thats 128 five gallon containers. At 2-4 ozs of SNS203 per gallon at 100$ for 128 oz, that would be the most expensive treatment for something that would have to be applied a few times to completely irradicate the gnats.
Another problem is that I have just transplanted most of my mother plants to this soil. I've had great results with it outdoor, and I know the owner of the company so I get a great deal on pallets. Good soil with good drainage, but I've never seen a fungus gnat infestation like this, especially with little centipede things.
I am going to go ahead and harvest with the moon, but in the future I think I will try a combination of predatory mites, either Hypoaspis miles or Gaeolaelaps gillespiei, with some parasitic nematodes. Rincon-Vitova offers a pretty good selection of beneficial fungus gnat predators.

Seamaiden, have you tried using Oasis HortiCubes? I have always had a good success rate with them. Even in the middle of a gnat infestation, the gnats seem to have no interest in my cuttings. I use the 1.5" cubes that come in sheets of 50. I line a tray with a little pearlite, place the cubes on top, wet the cubes with RO water with a drop of superthrive and a couple drops of liquid kelp, let some of the water drain out, then cover with a humidity dome with the air inlets all the way open. My veg room is around 70% humidity. Takes about 14 days for the roots to really poke through, but my last batch lost only 5-6 cuts out of 150 with gnats flying around.

 

[Seamaiden]

Never even heard of them, thanks for the tip! :) Always gotta have the kelp, yeah? Yeah.

 

[lil miss lone]

Ok, I believe from what you've described you don't have fungus gnats (we thought we did too, and went through many packs of mosquito dunks), but what are called root aphids. When the infestation is bad enough they grow wings to migrate to other pots. Those flying aphids are what are easily mistaken for fungus gnats. I have/had this same problem, and I can tell you what is working for me. It is now about 2 weeks after treatment in veg and in flower, and the difference in my plants is night and day, I have pics if you'd like.

First of all, in veg ONLY do a 20ml per gallon medium (we use coco and perlite) flood with a product called Bayer Tree and Shrub (Imidocloprid), Note: this product is systemic, you cannot use it on ladies in flower. You can purchase this product at the Home Depot. My man also treated the ones in veg with a product called Spectracide (Triazicide), I'm not sure the ml per gallon though, will get back.

Now, in flower you have to religiously, faithfully every three days do a medium spray with per 500ml water 8 ml Azatrol with 1ml SM-90, and you have to stay on top of it, to break their life cycle and keep em at bay. You won't get rid of them completely in flower, but they can be manageble if it is worth it to you to manage. Good Luck

 

[ojd]

i have had a fugus gnat problem in the past and found a layer of sand(i get sand from garden centre used as a tod dressing)will shred them all to pieces
as you water they float to the top and get shreded by sand(which is like broken glass to them)
then get some yellow sticky traps to catch remaining adults flying around and your good to go

peace

 

[Seamaiden]

Ok, I believe from what you've described you don't have fungus gnats (we thought we did too, and went through many packs of mosquito dunks), but what are called root aphids. When the infestation is bad enough they grow wings to migrate to other pots. Those flying aphids are what are easily mistaken for fungus gnats. I have/had this same problem, and I can tell you what is working for me. It is now about 2 weeks after treatment in veg and in flower, and the difference in my plants is night and day, I have pics if you'd like.

First of all, in veg ONLY do a 20ml per gallon medium (we use coco and perlite) flood with a product called Bayer Tree and Shrub (Imidocloprid), Note: this product is systemic, you cannot use it on ladies in flower. You can purchase this product at the Home Depot. My man also treated the ones in veg with a product called Spectracide (Triazicide), I'm not sure the ml per gallon though, will get back.

Now, in flower you have to religiously, faithfully every three days do a medium spray with per 500ml water 8 ml Azatrol with 1ml SM-90, and you have to stay on top of it, to break their life cycle and keep em at bay. You won't get rid of them completely in flower, but they can be manageble if it is worth it to you to manage. Good Luck

This needs to be stickied right here.

 

[oskiwosky]

ever find out the spectracide dosage for veg?

and is this the same spectracide i spray outside my house to keep the bugs away? ie from home depot?

 

[cemchris]

ever find out the spectracide dosage for veg?

and is this the same spectracide i spray outside my house to keep the bugs away? ie from home depot?

I used 11ml per gallon. Yes same stuff black bottle.

 

[PButter]

Any ideas what the 'small centipedes' are? I have found them on and off throughout the last year or so. I cannot find any definite information about them as they are hard to describe as anything other than 'small centipedes'.

PB

 

[neverbreak]

I've also tried Dipel, it's supposed to be a good treatment for FGs, but I ended up going back to Azatrol.

dipel is no good for fungus gnats. it's the same species of bacterium used in other products to kill gnat larvae, but a different variety, one which attacks and kills caterpillars. ya need bacillus thuringiensis var israelensis for fungus gnats.

neverbreak

 

[Pimples]

Old post but i gotta comment. Fungus gnats...if they get outta hand....will most definitely delay harvest and make for loose more airy buds than usual. At least in my experience. I got buds from clones ive grown for years and i know these varieties very well. I just didnt realize how bad the gnats were until very recently. Banging my head on why my 6 week buds look like week 4 buds. Sucks. For bad infestation. Mosquito dunks dont do shit either. Brand new bulbs. Decent distance. Heat had been a little high last few days but this has had me stumped for a couple weeks now. Thought it was a light leak. Nope. Its not perfect but its damn dark downstairs. Thought maybe small pots. 2 gallon fabric pots are a tad small and packed with roots for these bigger plants. But its coco and ive done this a million times. Iam pissed.

 

[Pimples]

These are gnats iam sure of it. Not root aphids. According to my sticky cards
Root aphids look nothing like gnats. Lemme go check to make sure. God dammit iam pissed.

 

[Pimples]

These little fukers are quick on top the soil. But the stickys say gnats. Sum bitch. I might have ra.