Fungus gnat's eat leaf?

Johnou833

Active Member
Today I noticed a tiny black fly on my leaf and on 2 leafs it does look like somethings been eating it. To my understanding fungus gnats only bother the soil (coco in my case) and dont eat leaf?
I will deal with the gnats and their certainly isnt any snails or slugs been eating the leafs.
:wall:
Cheers,
 

thepaan

Member
Today I noticed a tiny black fly on my leaf and on 2 leafs it does look like somethings been eating it. To my understanding fungus gnats only bother the soil (coco in my case) and dont eat leaf?
I will deal with the gnats and their certainly isnt any snails or slugs been eating the leafs.
:wall:
Cheers,
Although Fungus Gnats do not eat leaves you should be worried.

1. Overwatering attracts them to the soil, so you are probably overwatering your plants.

2. The larval stage of the insect burrows inside the roots near the sirface (read: the base of the stem) and eventually kills your plant.

I have had success combating Fungus Gnats using a two-pronged attack. First, I use whitefly traps. These are sticky sheets of paper (usually yellow) which you can arrange near your plant. The adult flies land on them but cannot fly off so they die (like those 'humane' mouse traps). These work on fruit flies and some aphids too. Second, I use mosquito dunks. IIRC there is some kind of microorganism in those that eat the larval stage of mosquitoes. They come in little rings and I just break off 1/4 ring and put it at the base of the stem so when I pour water in there it gets wet. If you have a watering system you can dissolve them in the water.
 

Johnou833

Active Member
Thanks mate, I'll look into purchasing both of those. +rep.
Should I be concered that somethings been eating the leaf ( not loads but its noticable) It is definetly not slugs or caterpillas
 

thepaan

Member
Thanks mate, I'll look into purchasing both of those. +rep.
Should I be concered that somethings been eating the leaf ( not loads but its noticable) It is definetly not slugs or caterpillas
I don't think anyone can say, with a description of the damage, what the problem is. Perhaps if you could upload an image of one of the damaged leaves....
 

Johnou833

Active Member

It does seem to be worsening very slowly but I want to get it under control at this early stage. (plant is recovering from a N def, few leaves yet to recover from it as you can see.)
 
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