Hey everyone.....I posted this in my journal, as well in organics...but I think I will save people a lot of stress with what I found out....please rate and star this posting!!!! It seriously works.....for further details or to check my current grow...please visit the link below...
I have had a running battle with fungus gnats that infected one of my plant's soils and layed hundreds if not thousands of eggs. When I first spotted the fungus gnats, I saw that there was only 3 to 5 adult ones that somehow had gotten into my house, and into my grow tent. I immediately killed all the flying ones with the hand clap method...lol and hung up yellow sticky sheets. I also hit the plants with a leaf bath of Neem oil...(learned a noob mistake of not to do this with HID lights on...burned the hell out of my leaves, but they eventually survived) I also at that time did a Bti (mosquito dunk) and neem soil soak and thought that would have done the trick.
About 2-3 weeks went by and I noticed one of my plants, my Chemband, was having very weird growing leaves...almost looked like heat burn but different...no discoloration, but very wrinkly distorted looking leaves. I checked soil ph, and eveything was good...right in the 6.6 zone so I knew it wasn't a nutrient issue, plus I am giving them a full regiment of macro and micro nutrients so I knew that this was not the case. Upon watering them that week I discovered, hundreds, maybe even thousands of fungus gnats infesting the soil of my Chemband plant...no others were effected, just the one with the wrinkled, distorted leaves.
Wow, I thought, these little larvae must be having there last supper on my roots...what to do now...After further frustration, reading and research I decided to up the strength of the treatments but still stearing clear of chemical pesticides, I really wanted to stay organic. I picked up some Safer End All spray, based of pyrethium and neem, and started cultivating the top 1" of my soil, with each turn uncovering hundreds of little white/silvery larvae!!!! I began directly spraying the soil with the safer making sure the top 1" was completely saturated in END ALL. It didn't seem that this was directly killing them either. I followed up with another soil soak of Neem, mixed in some END ALL, and also a 1/2 of a mosquito dunk....with my hopes up...
Next day...still more fungus gnats....maybe my spraying wiped out 20% of them, but they were still all over my soil......time for stronger products...I went out and bought a single use application of AZAMAX and also one of Azatrol. I mixed up another soil drench of both AZAMax, AZAtrol, neem oil, mosquito dunk and drenched the soil. After waiting a few hours, decided to cultivate the top of the soil again, Still more fungus gnats!!!!! I mixed the same mixture of Azamax, Azatrol, Neem, mosquito dunk and also added some End All and began to "spot treat" the soil. With each turn of the soil, I would directly spray the little buggers and they didn't seem to like it, but it wasn't killing them either....very discouraging...!!!!!
At this point I was searching all over the web for solutions, but nobody really had a dead set way of killing them (besides harsh chemical pesticides). Then I came acrossed one post on a gardening forum, that said that near boiling, hot water will instantly kill them. I thought about what this would do to my microbes in my soil, as well as the roots by just dumping on boiling hot water on my soil....not going to try it.....but then.......last night while pretty medicated....I thought of a solution.....I have a steamer used to iron clothes!!!!! This thing gets really damn hot and I thought it might work...
This morning...pulled out the steamer.....fired it up and .........my circut breaker popped in my apartment!!! guess I know what the system can handle...which was quite a bit, 1000W of lights, plus fans etc...a 600w computer and then whatever the steamer was pulling was just too much.....Also learned a valuable lesson about my magnetic ballast and conversion MH 400w bulb....If the power goes out...this ballast and bulb take at least 15 minutes to fire up....good thing I was home...couldn't imagine being gone and having it go out on my and not refire up....My electonic lumatec ballast though fired right back up as soon as the power was restored...looks like a replacement is due soon!!!
Anyways, back to the fungus gnats..... So the steamer was going, and I started to cultivate the top 1" of soil again on my infected Chemband plant's soil....a lot less larvae from previous days so I know that my treatments of neem, bti, pyrethium and azamax seemed to work somewhat, but still there was a good 100 or more larvae still crawling around....This time, with each soil turn, I would hold the steamer to the soil for 5-10 seconds and the larvae would freeze up immediatly and die!!!!! IT worked!!!! Finally somthing safe that will not harm people, or the plant, that kills these larvae on contact!!!! I worked the entire top soil of the pot killing hundreds of these things....and it felt wonderful to finally know I had the upper hand and my plant would be saved!!!!! I would highly recommend using steam to kill these larvae instantly......I know I will have to probably do this a few times to make sure that all of them are gone...but it works!!!!!!!!
Please star, flag, rate this post for everyone to learn...I would hate for someone to have this amount of struggles with these pests!!!!!
I have had a running battle with fungus gnats that infected one of my plant's soils and layed hundreds if not thousands of eggs. When I first spotted the fungus gnats, I saw that there was only 3 to 5 adult ones that somehow had gotten into my house, and into my grow tent. I immediately killed all the flying ones with the hand clap method...lol and hung up yellow sticky sheets. I also hit the plants with a leaf bath of Neem oil...(learned a noob mistake of not to do this with HID lights on...burned the hell out of my leaves, but they eventually survived) I also at that time did a Bti (mosquito dunk) and neem soil soak and thought that would have done the trick.
About 2-3 weeks went by and I noticed one of my plants, my Chemband, was having very weird growing leaves...almost looked like heat burn but different...no discoloration, but very wrinkly distorted looking leaves. I checked soil ph, and eveything was good...right in the 6.6 zone so I knew it wasn't a nutrient issue, plus I am giving them a full regiment of macro and micro nutrients so I knew that this was not the case. Upon watering them that week I discovered, hundreds, maybe even thousands of fungus gnats infesting the soil of my Chemband plant...no others were effected, just the one with the wrinkled, distorted leaves.
Wow, I thought, these little larvae must be having there last supper on my roots...what to do now...After further frustration, reading and research I decided to up the strength of the treatments but still stearing clear of chemical pesticides, I really wanted to stay organic. I picked up some Safer End All spray, based of pyrethium and neem, and started cultivating the top 1" of my soil, with each turn uncovering hundreds of little white/silvery larvae!!!! I began directly spraying the soil with the safer making sure the top 1" was completely saturated in END ALL. It didn't seem that this was directly killing them either. I followed up with another soil soak of Neem, mixed in some END ALL, and also a 1/2 of a mosquito dunk....with my hopes up...
Next day...still more fungus gnats....maybe my spraying wiped out 20% of them, but they were still all over my soil......time for stronger products...I went out and bought a single use application of AZAMAX and also one of Azatrol. I mixed up another soil drench of both AZAMax, AZAtrol, neem oil, mosquito dunk and drenched the soil. After waiting a few hours, decided to cultivate the top of the soil again, Still more fungus gnats!!!!! I mixed the same mixture of Azamax, Azatrol, Neem, mosquito dunk and also added some End All and began to "spot treat" the soil. With each turn of the soil, I would directly spray the little buggers and they didn't seem to like it, but it wasn't killing them either....very discouraging...!!!!!
At this point I was searching all over the web for solutions, but nobody really had a dead set way of killing them (besides harsh chemical pesticides). Then I came acrossed one post on a gardening forum, that said that near boiling, hot water will instantly kill them. I thought about what this would do to my microbes in my soil, as well as the roots by just dumping on boiling hot water on my soil....not going to try it.....but then.......last night while pretty medicated....I thought of a solution.....I have a steamer used to iron clothes!!!!! This thing gets really damn hot and I thought it might work...
This morning...pulled out the steamer.....fired it up and .........my circut breaker popped in my apartment!!! guess I know what the system can handle...which was quite a bit, 1000W of lights, plus fans etc...a 600w computer and then whatever the steamer was pulling was just too much.....Also learned a valuable lesson about my magnetic ballast and conversion MH 400w bulb....If the power goes out...this ballast and bulb take at least 15 minutes to fire up....good thing I was home...couldn't imagine being gone and having it go out on my and not refire up....My electonic lumatec ballast though fired right back up as soon as the power was restored...looks like a replacement is due soon!!!
Anyways, back to the fungus gnats..... So the steamer was going, and I started to cultivate the top 1" of soil again on my infected Chemband plant's soil....a lot less larvae from previous days so I know that my treatments of neem, bti, pyrethium and azamax seemed to work somewhat, but still there was a good 100 or more larvae still crawling around....This time, with each soil turn, I would hold the steamer to the soil for 5-10 seconds and the larvae would freeze up immediatly and die!!!!! IT worked!!!! Finally somthing safe that will not harm people, or the plant, that kills these larvae on contact!!!! I worked the entire top soil of the pot killing hundreds of these things....and it felt wonderful to finally know I had the upper hand and my plant would be saved!!!!! I would highly recommend using steam to kill these larvae instantly......I know I will have to probably do this a few times to make sure that all of them are gone...but it works!!!!!!!!
Please star, flag, rate this post for everyone to learn...I would hate for someone to have this amount of struggles with these pests!!!!!
Did you ever try the hydrogen peroxide?
