Gnats

[vapor]

has anyone had experience with application of product called aqua-bac for hydroponics ??? any thoughtThanks wondering about foliar applications as well

[Carpet Muncher]

hey vapor.. that's what i used <in bio-buckets> and it worked great.. one shot.. bye-bye. (but i'm sure it works just as well as any other BTi product, like Dunks.) the only exception will be if your gnats are immune to it.

smells good, eh?? lol

i can't think of any benefit from foliar feeding, because the product will never make it down to the roots. though it might kill a rouge catapillar, if it's the right kind?

[vapor]

clones are dieing after 5 days turning yellow and dieing the larvee are everywhere my friend is have some problems, at what rate did you apply???

[Carpet Muncher]

good question. i was about to say at 'manufacturers recommended dosage', but i just looked at the bottle, (hose ready) and it says a <32oz> bottle can be diluted to 16gal.

so, 32oz/16gal =? (32/16=2oz per gal) GG.. or anyone from the mensa group.. is that math right? :)

[Carpet Muncher]

about your clones.. ime, if the mothers are stressed, so goes clone production.

[vapor]

my bottle says a hundred granuals for a m2 ....did it effect your plants at that rate applied??

[Carpet Muncher]

good luck with the math. :)

low-IQ thought process.. what is the application rate per meter? a meter sq = about 9sq'.. given that you seem to be an outdoor fella, i would first disolve my best guestimate per gal of water and see what happens. if the numbers don't decrease rapidly, i would up the dose and do it again. from what i can tell, it won't hurt your plants at all. iow, there isn't a toxicity level.

how does your garden grow? dirt/water/inbetween?

have you tried No Pest Strips for the adults?

been to their site for more info?

[hydrorascal]

vapor.. at that level of infestation .. your friend has more problems than just gnats. I would suggest relocating the plants, cleaning them AND the media while a full ceiling to floor bleach type cleaning is done in the normal growing area. If they are in soil.. I would add 1/4 to 1/2" of sand at the top. If hydro, cover the media with black plastic.

[country boy]

CM-while those 'no pest strips' DO kill flying gnats, they aren't approved for 'kitchen' use.
don't get me wrong-'better living through chemistry' is my motto, but i've got doubts...

It's the maggots that do the damage...and i've 'heard' they only eat dead material...this is NOT my experience...

[vapor]

This is a problem in hyrdo bubble buckets they are all plummed togeather,the only thing is they started to be effected by the 3rd week of flower, they are at the 6 week know so he is just trying to get them to the finish as best he can.the room will be torn down and nuked.. the moms are in soil for outdoor, but the clones are taking beatings from the gnats...thanks for your help it is much appreciated i will let you know which way it goes all in all the buds are still looking killer....

[hydrorascal]

ahh shit... the infamous 'all tied together bucket system' . Rather than race to finish...

I would suggest ... dump the res... refill with 10/20 gallons of plain water... flush for at least an hour .. 2 is better. While that is going on... spray the plants to the point of dripping with dishwashing liguid in a spray bottle. As I said earlier, 1/4 of the bottle full of soap. When finished refill the bottle with standard 3% hydrogen peroxide... the cheepie dollar store stuff. Spray the plant media .... getting on the plant base wont hurt either...

Your gals are hurting.. so I would start back with a nute solution of about 75% of normal strength. Make damn sure the res is PH balanced before it ever is turned loose on the plants.

again.... cover the media with black plastic.

[Carpet Muncher]

CB.. you of all people?

here's one thing everyone needs to get straight.. because if you don't, you're going to continue to misdiagnose, misinform, mistreat, and misuse pesticides.

for starters, in varying percentages, all the biggies are immune to NPS. period. that includes mites, whiteflies, aphids and fungus gnats.. and a bunch of others i’m sure i’m missing, that DeltaNugz can fill you in on.. he wrote the book on different borgs and their various immunities.

in fact, i just got re-lessoned on it recently.. (put 4 nps in my room for an hour and forgot about it.. haha!) my loss.

second, in varying percentages, all of the biggies are immune to everything we have to throw at them, chemically. (but since they haven’t adapted to suffocation, dehydration, being eaten, etc.. all the ‘organic’ methods of killing them will always work.. ime, to control them at best.. whatever that means? “give you some feeling of control to keep you from going completely out of your mind??” lol)

so before you go crazy hosing down the walls and ceiling with your favorite neurotoxin, isolate & treat your vector so you can observe it’s reaction. (did it live or die? ps; drowning your mite in avid doesn’t count.)

if it’s immune, try something else until you find something that works. or give up and start over. which there’s no shame in, imo. be it mites or tobacco mosaic virus, sometimes you just can’t win the battle. thankfully the war is another story..

[c-ray]

great article about gnats from http://www.doityourself.com/stry/fungusgnats

Fungus Gnats
By Shelly Stiles

Family Sciaridae (Dark-winged fungus gnat family, in the order Diptera, flies).

Genus and Species: Bradysia species, especially Bradysia coprophila

Size and Color: Adult length 1/8; dusky wings; dark, hairy body. Larva (a maggot): 1/16-3/8; clear-bodied with black head capsule. (Egg and pupa are microscopic.)

Range: Nearly cosmopolitan. May be present indoors year-round throughout the U.S.

Crops Affected: Young, tender plants of most species grown in moist conditions. Primarily a potted plant and greenhouse nuisance.

Prevention and Controls: Avoid overwatering and provide adequate indoor ventilation. Avoid potting mixes containing young composts. Drench pots with Bt israelensis, Bt H-14 or neem extract. Release predatory mites and predatory nematodes.

Fungus gnats are as common as dirt wherever plants are grown, but like dust balls under the bed we only notice them when they get out of hand. So far as we know, this never happens in the garden, where natural predators and the vagaries of weather and the seasons keep their populations in check. But indoors in hobby greenhouses or on potted plants, fungus gnat numbers can sometimes soar, and a spray from the watering wand or routine sanitation among the pots on the windowsill can stir up a fruit-fly-like explosion of winged insects.

What Triggers Outbreaks?
Although the linkage isn't fully explained yet, researchers agree that high fungus gnat populations are linked to high humidity and soil moisture levels. It may have something to do with the insect's vulnerable egg stage. (Like all flies, fungus gnats have four developmental stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult.) Millie Casey, research assistant at the Ohio State Agricultural Research and Development Center insect lab in Wooster (where she and her colleagues have been studying fungus gnats for several years), says fungus gnat eggs "are very much subject to desiccation. On the other hand, each adult can lay up to 200 eggs, and when the moist conditions that favor egg development are present in a species that goes from egg to adult in only 10 to 14 days, populations are likely to boom.

Another theory is that high humidity and soil moisture encourage the growth of the larval stage. Under normal conditions, larvae feed on soil fungi, just about any soil fungi. Fungus gnats are very closely associated with fungi and highly attracted to them, says Mary Harris, a doctoral candidate working on fungus gnats at the University of Georgia in Athens. (Some people call these insects "fungus-feeding gnats" to call attention to this characteristic.) When moist conditions favoring fungal growth are present, larval food sources can also increase, and with them larval populations.

Fortunately for indoor gardeners whose plants also depend on moist conditions and adequate soil organic matter content, fungus gnats - and then only the adults - are usually just a nuisance. A cloud of tiny insects that appears when pots are moved or plants are disturbed may look like a pest problem, but it usually only indicates a living soil.

Some Threat of Disease
When fungus gnat populations explode, however, and larvae exhaust the limited fungal food resources in a greenhouse bench or plant pot, they can turn to feed on plant roots and sometimes stems. Again, under most circumstances this feeding is only a nuisance with no visible plant symptoms. Casey says "If you have a strong, healthy plant with a healthy root system, fungus gnats pose absolutely no problem at all." Young plants, however, are sometimes set back by damage to their already-limited root systems.

Many indoor gardeners can live with even this relatively minor threat to the health of their plants. But now, after reassuring growers for years that the gnats were largely a cosmetic problem, researchers have found the threat doesn't end there. In a recent breakthrough, Harris has shown that both fungus gnat larvae and adults occasionally transmit a variety of diseases. She's proved they spread black root rot and Pythium wilt and suspects they transmit many other fungal pathogens as well. It's akin to discovering dust miites carry the common cold.

Controls
Water management is crucial to controlling fungus gnat buildups. Harris says to absolutely avoid overwatering, particularly of young plants. This is especially good advice for the winter months when air circulation, light levels and growth rates - and therefore evapotranspiration - are lower.

Potting mixes also seem to make a difference. Harris says that fresh potting mixes seem more attractive to fungus gnats than older mixes (another reason to be vigilant over your young plants, which are usually potted up in fresh materials). Dr. Richard Lindquist, professor of entomology at Ohio State in Wooster, and Casey found that potting mixes containing higher percentages of compost, especially compost less than six months old, were more likely to breed larger numbers of fungus gnats.

But you don't have to reserve your compost for the garden. Bruce Steward, integrated pest management coordinator at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, says they grow their bulbs "in a soil type the gnats like." Simply take advantage of the fungus gnat larvae's preference for the upper soil layers and add a half-inch layer of sand to the tops of their bulb pots. "It really works," says Steward. "The eggs probably dried out, or perhaps the adults couldn't emerge."

For routine fungus gnat control, Steward drenches pots and flats with Gnatrol (Bacillus thuringiensis H-14), applying it weekly for two or three weeks. (The B. t. israelensis strain, usually marketed for mosquito and black fly control, is also effective against fungus gnats.) Results aren't immediate. Bt doesn't kill egg-laying adults, so "you've just got to keep at it," Steward says. Harris agrees that it takes time to get control with Bt, and suggests using it to prevent infestations rather than cure them. "A rule of thumb with biologicals," she says, "is you can't wait until you get an infestation. All these organisms seem to work best when pest populations are lower." She recommends watering new transplants with a B.t. israelensis or Gnatrol solution.

Many commercial greenhouse growers use synthetic growth regulators to control fungus gnats. Azadirachtin, an extract from seeds of the neem tree, seems to work in the same way, and is available to home gardeners. Like Bt, it's usually applied as a soil drench. It appears to have little impact on beneficial organisms.

Beneficials are a focus of Stanton Gill's five-year integrated pest management research program at the University of Maryland's Central Maryland Research and Education Center in Ellicott City. His greenhouse trials have shown that a predatory mite, Hypoaspis miles, and a nematode, Steinernema feltiae, offer good control of fungus gnat larvae. The combination of mite and nematode seems to work very well, says Mary Harris. Beneficials can't always be counted on for the long run, because once they've consumed their pest hosts, they'll die or depart, leaving the plant unprotected. But when fungus gnat food resources are exhausted, Hypoaspis mites will turn to feed on the nematodes -- and be present when fungus gnat populations rise again. Harris stresses that only the nematode Steinernema feltiae really works against fungus gnats. Indoor gardeners who use the more common species S. carpocapsae will be disappointed with the results, according to Harris.

You can, as Harris recommends, use Bt and other beneficials as preventive measures before pest levels build up. Or, like Longwood's Bruce Steward and many commercial growers, you can wait until monitoring indicates it's time to act.

Steward uses yellow sticky cards to monitor fungus gnats. Stanton Gill monitors the larvae with a one-inch-diameter potato ball laid on the surface of the growing bench or pot, a technique suggested by Mary Harris. It works as long as the greenhouse mice don't pack the potato pieces away.

[cabron]

I feel that most people don't treat fungus gnats with the same level of respect in regards to a threat as the borg,,,spider mites...

I do,I can tell you first hand that fungus gnat larvae will utterly destroy
every clone and valuable seedling you have before they even develop roots
or make it's head above the soil line..

I've had high dollar seeds in the past,,,eaten and left for skeletons in a shell
by the time I unearthed them to find the fuggin lill white worms devouring everything,,,they LOVE seedlings roots,embryos and stems .

They will lay the eggs after infiltrating the most airtight domes and highly
secure rooms....the lil shits are definltely special forces man!!!

rockwool split open will reveal the lil bastards hard at work munching on all your freshly sprouted roots on clones...the cutting finally just gives up and dies.

I have just recently found some in my area flyin around after having been free of them for a year....all it took was some fresh bag of premium soil,,from home depot, the manufacturers can't control the lil bastards when dealing with the quantities they do...


My solution is simple,,,Green Light Neem oil,,fruit tree spray...
It has the magical pyrethrins and neem oil in it...
Mix up a nice strong batch and soak the top layer of the soil...and spray the
plants with it also,,the neem is bad ass and it keeps the plants healthy and happy,and free from many molds and bacterial attacks...

I've used mosquito dunks in the past lotsa times and concentrated amounts they never help quick enough and never seem to work.

I'm not gonna stay in a room with no pest strips ever,,that shit is like drinking agent orange,,,,onlly a fool would hang them in any area you may be near....

FUG that!!!

[cabron]

You'd be best NOT germinating any seeds of value with any gnats present ,the only way to clone cutting with these bastards is with an ez cloner where they can't congregate their larvae in the root zone.

In soil you're best keeping the top layer of 1.5 inches totally dry and using a
big ass syringe that can be purchased at walmart for injecting spices into
turkeys and beef,,,inject the water and nutes down around the seedling but 2-3 inches from the surface...

The lil devils won't lay eggs in a dry media.

The sprays that have a concentrate of pyrethrins the hydro store sell for 25 dollars will burn your plants and destroy the foilage,,,don't get it on your babies,,,,seedlings will be toast....the same shit in a bigger can and 4 dollars
is what is sold at home depot,walmart etc....as flying insect killer just look for the active ingredient to be pyrethrins....save money be smart...


Sand on the top layer only prevents oxygen from getting into the roots ,,,just keep the top layer dry.... simple enough.

It's also beneficial to take a tin or plate and make a nice thin layer of clean motor oil,or olive oil,vegetable oil etc... maybe 1/8 " deep...white and bright plates are best, they love bright colors ...keep these laying around the infected area,,,you'll shit when you see how many hundreds are drowned in there in a few days...

This will help kill the parents quickly that fly around laying eggs as you deal with the larvae with pyrethrins. and neem oil and dry soil...


I've tried it all trust me this system works and is cheap...

[cabron]

You can skip the gnatrol and BT (mosquito dunks ) and just go down to the locale store and get some of that brown brick the rednecks chew on...

It kills gnat larvae dead in a water solution...doesn't hurt the plants
redman,beechnut,etc...

I personally have a plug of Levi Garret I pinched a big chunk off and boiled it in a gallon of water and let it reach room temps,then gave each infected media a good dose ....

Make sure the soil is already dry enough to warrant a watering...lil cock nuckers will turn green and drown in their vomit....like momma Cass did
with a hot dog...

Kinda makes you wonder how those fat dumb rednecks are alive doesn't it?

[Kali]

Powdered Diatomacious Earth. THE cure for all the things BuGGin ya out.

http://www.ontariogrowerssupply.com/Detail.asp?pid=1362&Key=

Taken from the website link.

Your plants will not only benefit from being protected from pests, but the silica in the diatomaceous earth will also be made available to your plants. Diatomaceous earth (DE) is composed of microscopic sharp edges that cut into, and penetrate the exoskeleton of an insect. The tiny cuts cause the insect to lose moisture, resulting in the insects demise from dehydration within hours of coming into contact with the Pest Control Powder. Insects that eat the dust will experience the same end.

If your garden or pet is adversely effected by ants, roaches, box elder bugs, crickets, silverfish, caterpillars, grasshoppers, spiders, carpet beetles, fleas, ticks, slugs, snails and earwigs, and you are looking for a safe non-chemical alternative,

• When applying Bio Dust Pest Control Powder simply lightly dust the affected area of the plant as well as its base. Reapply the powder after heavy rains
• Household Pets-Fleas and Ticks Apply the Pest Control Powder by dusting pet beds, carpets, cages, resting areas, or any other area these pests are found. It can safely be applied directly onto your pet by rubbing it thoroughly onto your cat or dogs coat. It is completely non-toxic and safe for your pet to ingest, saving your pet from being exposed to possibly harmful chemicals.

[caddis]

Larvae versus aquabac, I hope. Can you see the little shites?

Aquabac going to brew for one hour then I'll dowse them.

[purplehaze2]

dowse them bastards. yes your math is right just divide 32 by 16=2 oz per gallon.

[JAG]

You can skip the gnatrol and BT (mosquito dunks ) and just go down to the locale store and get some of that brown brick the rednecks chew on...

It kills gnat larvae dead in a water solution...doesn't hurt the plants
redman,beechnut,etc...

I personally have a plug of Levi Garret I pinched a big chunk off and boiled it in a gallon of water and let it reach room temps,then gave each infected media a good dose ....

Make sure the soil is already dry enough to warrant a watering...lil cock nuckers will turn green and drown in their vomit....like momma Cass did
with a hot dog...

Kinda makes you wonder how those fat dumb rednecks are alive doesn't it?

Thanks for the homemade brew it worked like a charm, i had some plants that were infected i boiled some chewing tobaco two days later thier nice green and growing again.

[c-ray]

here's a nice gnat trap:
http://www.autosuficiencia.com.ar/shop/detallenot.asp?notid=1085
it says mosquito trap but they are basically the same thing

for those who don't speak spanish basically the recipe is:
50g sugar
1g yeast
200ml water
and a pop bottle with covered with something dark to block out the light
melt the sugar in the water, add the yeast and put it the bottle, cut like in the pics
change the water every coupla weeks

[vapor]

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7448.html

so used some BTK from safers.,,. the yellow stickies were just not doiing it for the coco .,.,

[vapor]

so seems as though the btk and yellow stickies are not cutting it.,., i think i will try some red neck baccy.,., so a big chunk in a gallon of water eh, going to try this tomorrow on one planty and see about strengths..,peace