oldschooltofu
Well-Known Member
there are three main soil bugs people deal with
Thrips (long fast crawler, eats roots, easily treated with spinosad)
Fungus gnats (small worm with black head, black flyers adults look like gnats, use BTI or gnatrol)
Root Aphids or Root mites. looks like a small spider mite or aphid with ridged back) most difficult to deal with, there are threads on other boards over 100 pages long about these pests.
so you think something is wrong and you might have soil bugs, or you see a gnat flying around.
here is what you do:
take a potato any type will work, cut in half and put cut side down on the soil
12 hours later look at cut side with a scope and see what bugs you have first
if you have small worms with black head = fungus gnats. get some BT! (gnatrol) water in as directed.
if you have little might/aphid looking bugs, then you have Root aphids. and need to go to war.
aphids suck and there are a lot of things people are trying some work some dont, most work for a little while but they tend to keep coming back.
it depends on you if you want to go chemi or organic. but organic is very difficult with RAs, the key is rotating treatments. (imid) merit 75 or bayer citrius works great, but is systemic up to 50 days i heard.
Thrips (long fast crawler, eats roots, easily treated with spinosad)
Fungus gnats (small worm with black head, black flyers adults look like gnats, use BTI or gnatrol)
Root Aphids or Root mites. looks like a small spider mite or aphid with ridged back) most difficult to deal with, there are threads on other boards over 100 pages long about these pests.
so you think something is wrong and you might have soil bugs, or you see a gnat flying around.
here is what you do:
take a potato any type will work, cut in half and put cut side down on the soil
12 hours later look at cut side with a scope and see what bugs you have first
if you have small worms with black head = fungus gnats. get some BT! (gnatrol) water in as directed.
if you have little might/aphid looking bugs, then you have Root aphids. and need to go to war.
aphids suck and there are a lot of things people are trying some work some dont, most work for a little while but they tend to keep coming back.
it depends on you if you want to go chemi or organic. but organic is very difficult with RAs, the key is rotating treatments. (imid) merit 75 or bayer citrius works great, but is systemic up to 50 days i heard.
