Using nematodes to control fungus gnats on indoor plants

Has anyone here used nematodes to control fungus gnats? Looking for someone with actual experience using nematodes.. to control fungus gnats.

I see Steinernema feltiae being used for fungus gnats. I use the same (i think) on my lawn.. it is the Lawn Patrol nematodes to control fleas and to a lesser extent the white grub..

I have one pack left right now.. The application rates are for treating a lawn.. So I need to do a little reading and come up with rates for container gardening.

I have pots from 1 pint to 3 gal.. all need treated.

Sand is your answer

Apologies for the low tech camera to scope lens. Send me a USB scope and I'll get you better pictures!

Anyway, they have stayed alive stored in a mini fridge for months now. I noticed that the nematodes were very unevenly residing in the sponge.. It appears as though a small area is holding the majority of them.

This pic is a nematode solution, squeezed for the sponge they are packaged in, solution on a blue plate to see the white nematodes.

By the time these babes are up and running most growers have harvested

and are germing again ..tho this stuff is very useful indeed,

its best in an organic 'hot soil' mix even super soil to correct bug issues.

once you got these guys up and running, and should you ever suffer an itchy anus

avoid scratching you anus, for fear of crushing the mother nematode

against you buttocks and underwear, as you will inadvertently squeeze out the young

re-investing yourself again (true) ..good luck with this

I am making sure to keep the soil moist. If the medium dries out the nematodes start dying off.

The nematodes were quite active at the time of applying. I expect these to get to work right out of the gate.


With the fungus gnats life-cycle, I would expect results to take up to 2 wks to REALLY see.. That said.. I have already seen quite a reduction in population of adults. While a small part of this could be due to the nematodes, I have a hard time believing that they could have worked so well already. Knowing the life-cycle.. it seems unlikely.

I might have to redo this test at some point as it appears something else fixed the problem before the nematodes had the chance to.

OR, maybe they work faster than I imagined? Either way.. I shook about 80 plants just now and only saw 3 adults. Last week the same shake showed about 25-35 adults.

Ok.. lets search for some gnat larvae... the ol' potato trick. Will check them in a couple days to see if we have any living larvae in the soil.. we sure as hell did before nematodes were applied.

As most of you know.. the larvae will latch on to a potato slice over the period of a day or two. So we can check the potato slice after 2 days to see if larvae are present in the soil. If they are alive, they will show on the potato for sure.

vostok said:

By the time these babes are up and running most growers have harvested

and are germing again ..tho this stuff is very useful indeed,

its best in an organic 'hot soil' mix even super soil to correct bug issues.

once you got these guys up and running, and should you ever suffer an itchy anus

avoid scratching you anus, for fear of crushing the mother nematode

against you buttocks and underwear, as you will inadvertently squeeze out the young

re-investing yourself again (true) ..good luck with this

Click to expand...

@vostok

Steinernematid do not come out of a "mother nematode" they come out of a host. See illustration below.
Steinernematid would have no interest in a human anus. You are thinking of Rhabditiform or Round Worm. made for a good laugh though.

might clear some things up..
http://cal.vet.upenn.edu/projects/merial/Nematodes/nems_5.htm

Damm I got caught out .....lol but almost had you ...! lol

still you could be the first .....lol

I mighta panicked for a quick second..

So, 2 days later the potatoes had gnat larvae... I threw them out and put out new potatoes. I checked today..
No gnat larvae and NO adults.. I can't find a single gnat or larvae in my garden, a medium sized garden.

This was my first attempt at controlling gnats indoors with nematodes.. I can DEFINITELY say. These are MUCH easier and MUCH more effective than sticky traps, BT, cover substrate, anything else I have tried.

Nematodes very wonderfully.. I will now run them in all gardens, all the time.

I'll update as I find out details like how often the nematodes need reapplied.. maybe how some other products work.

I picked up a different package this time. Packaged by a local company that picked them up from a lab in MN. These nematodes are stored in vermiculite rather than a sponge.. Comes with a mesh funnel to wash the nematodes from the vermiculite. This tub covers 10,000 sq ft and costs just a little more. $27, rather than $20 for the 2000 sq ft coverage.

The new product I will try out with the 40 plants that will be up canned soon..

vostok said:

By the time these babes are up and running most growers have harvested

and are germing again ..

Click to expand...

@vostok
Sorry bro.. gotta call bullshit. I just got total control of larvae in 7 days.. If this was your experience you were doing something else wrong.

pseudobotanist said:

Sand is your answer

Click to expand...

@pseudobotanist

Not sure if you are repeating something you heard or if that was your experience. I've done sand, I've used tinfoil the same way. Honestly.. I had better success with Tin Foil as a blockage than I did with sand.

As someone who tried blockage, BT and nematodes on a medium sized scale I can assure you nematodes are a much much better way to go about controlling gnats than sand on the surface is.

Sand for gnat control does not control drainage holes. Also.. many other complications (and messes) with sand indoors. My experience (not something I heard, experience) with sand indoors was that it was a PITA. JUST sand does not work well.. the irrigation points break the surface of the sand and expose the surface to gnats.. at that point you have an even better habitat for the gnats than you did before.. Also, the sand and soilless mix just ended up mixing together.. didn't work well at all for me.

Now in a bottom watering or flood and drain container setup.. sand might work alright.. But they will still be all over your drainage holes. I can't honestly say I have tried blockage method in a bottom watering system.. It would solve the issue with media mixing and the need for a diffusion layer though.. I could see it working well that way.

To make sand to actually work in a top feed system. (not all that well I might add) you have to also put down a diffusing layer, above the sand. I used expanded shale. This diffuses the water before going through the sand and holds the sand in place.. still had some mixing of the sand and soilless AND still did not control the gnats as well as I need them controlled.. It just cut down there numbers for some weeks until the layers mixed and they came back in full force before harvest.

Not to mention.. try treating 150 plants with sand and shale... expensive and a PITA.

Sand isn't the answer in a top feed system.. if you haven't tried it for yourself learn from my experience and don't bother.. trust me.

http://www.internationalhempassociation.org/jiha/iha03111.html

"Organisms that cause continued irritation (disease) include viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasitic plants, and nematodes (Figure 1)."

Nematodes Nematodes are tiny roundworms, also called eelworms. Nematodes are not closely related to earthworms. Built on a much smaller and simpler scale, they have no respiratory nor circulatory systems. Their nervous system is so simple it can be described at the level of individual cells. Caenorhabditis elegans, for instance, has exactly 302 neurons.
Crop damage by nematodes is underrated due to their small size and the unseen (mostly underground) nature of their pathology. Above-ground symptoms consist of stunting, reduced yield and insipient wilting (drooping of leaves during midday with recovery at night). Farmers may misinterpret symptoms as mineral deficiencies or drought, mysteriously arising despite adequate nutrients and moisture. These symptoms do not occur uniformly across a field, but in pockets of scattered infestation. Below-ground symptoms are more distinctive, including root knots or galls. Six nematodes are known to infest Cannabis. All species attack roots except one.
Root knot nematodes embed themselves in roots and induce plants to form giant cells or syncytia. Syncytia swell into root galls and stimulate formation of adventitious rootlets, creating a bushy root. Compound galls arise on larger roots forming "root knots": hypertrophied roots with a rough surface. The southern root knot nematode, Meloidogyne incognita, has been reported on fiber cultivars in Europe, the former USSR, Brazil, and the southern US (Goody et al. 1965). M. incognita is the most widely distributed Meloidogyne spp. worldwide, and attacks hundreds of hosts. Two other species are rarely reported, the northern root knot nematode Meliodogyne hapla (Norton 1966; de Meijer 1995) and the Java root knot nematode Meloidogyne javanica (Decker 1972).
The stem nematode, Ditylenchus dipsaci, uniquely lives above the ground and does not infest roots. Initial symptoms arise in stems, branches and leaf petioles, which swell and become chlorotic. Stems subsequently become twisted and distorted with shortened internodes. Plants are stunted. D. dipsaci is found in North America, southern Africa, Australia, and temperate areas of Asia. But Cannabis disease has only been described from fiber varieties in Europe (Mezzetti 1951). Other nematodes are rarely reported: cyst nematodes (Heterodera schachtii, H. humuli), needle nematodes (Paralongidorus maximus), and root lesion nematodes (Pratylenchus penetrans)."

http://www.internationalhempassociation.org/jiha/iha03111.html

hotrodharley said:

Nematodes Nematodes are tiny roundworms, also called eelworms. Nematodes are not closely related to earthworms. Built on a much smaller and simpler scale, they have no respiratory nor circulatory systems. Their nervous system is so simple it can be described at the level of individual cells. Caenorhabditis elegans, for instance, has exactly 302 neurons.
Crop damage by nematodes is underrated due to their small size and the unseen (mostly underground) nature of their pathology. Above-ground symptoms consist of stunting, reduced yield and insipient wilting (drooping of leaves during midday with recovery at night). Farmers may misinterpret symptoms as mineral deficiencies or drought, mysteriously arising despite adequate nutrients and moisture. These symptoms do not occur uniformly across a field, but in pockets of scattered infestation. Below-ground symptoms are more distinctive, including root knots or galls. Six nematodes are known to infest Cannabis. All species attack roots except one.
Root knot nematodes embed themselves in roots and induce plants to form giant cells or syncytia. Syncytia swell into root galls and stimulate formation of adventitious rootlets, creating a bushy root. Compound galls arise on larger roots forming "root knots": hypertrophied roots with a rough surface. The southern root knot nematode, Meloidogyne incognita, has been reported on fiber cultivars in Europe, the former USSR, Brazil, and the southern US (Goody et al. 1965). M. incognita is the most widely distributed Meloidogyne spp. worldwide, and attacks hundreds of hosts. Two other species are rarely reported, the northern root knot nematode Meliodogyne hapla (Norton 1966; de Meijer 1995) and the Java root knot nematode Meloidogyne javanica (Decker 1972).
The stem nematode, Ditylenchus dipsaci, uniquely lives above the ground and does not infest roots. Initial symptoms arise in stems, branches and leaf petioles, which swell and become chlorotic. Stems subsequently become twisted and distorted with shortened internodes. Plants are stunted. D. dipsaci is found in North America, southern Africa, Australia, and temperate areas of Asia. But Cannabis disease has only been described from fiber varieties in Europe (Mezzetti 1951). Other nematodes are rarely reported: cyst nematodes (Heterodera schachtii, H. humuli), needle nematodes (Paralongidorus maximus), and root lesion nematodes (Pratylenchus penetrans)."

http://www.internationalhempassociation.org/jiha/iha03111.html

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@hotrodharley

Ah man.. you are going to confuse people dude.. If you don't know anything about a topic, instead of copy and pasting on a topic you are unfamiliar with just do a little reading first.. the last thing this place needs is more of the blind leading the blind.

What you crappy pasted information about above is plant parasitic nematodes.. root galls and root knots. Which would be expected when looking through the disease section of hemp literature.
These are not those.. These are beneficial nematodes (which most are), insect parasitic nematodes in this case.. They don't even harm earthworms. There are literally millions of different nematodes, most of which are beneficial. The thread is about Steinernema feltiae. I realize now I should have put "beneficial" in the title. I didn't think it was necessary.. I see now I was wrong.


Let's go waaaay back to the beginning ya'll..




What are nematodes?

Nematodes are very small, worm-like organisms, most of which are found living naturally in the soil.


What so I buy beneficial nematodes?

Click here for a list of suppliers. Suppliers of beneficial nematodes.



Why are these nematodes considered to be beneficial?

This group of nematodes attack and kill insects, mostly pests. They are safe to use since they do not endanger people, pets, or other desirable animals, even earthworms. Using living, natural biological control agents sustains and augments the natural soil diversity conserving other beneficial organisms that make healthy soils.


Are all nematodes beneficial?

Most nematodes are beneficial. If they are not part of the group that attacks insects, they likely belong the vast majority that are saprophytic, breaking down organic materials adding to richness and tilth of soil and helping to produce high quality compost. There are certain groups of nematodes that attack living plants, plant parasitic nematodes. Also, there are groups of nematodes that parasitize animals.



The insect parasitic, beneficial nematodes that we produce and sell are strictly parasites of insects and have been exempted from registration as pesticides by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency because of their host specificity and their general safety for humans and the environment.


How do insect parasitic nematodes work?

The nematodes live in the soil where they locate their hosts. The nematode infective stage enters the insect and begins to feed on its blood and internal organs. Soon after it begins to feed, it releases unique bacteria that it carries internally. The bacteria infect the insect, reproduce quickly, and kill the insect within 30 to 48 hours. The nematode thrives upon this food which becomes a decaying insect being broken down by the unique bacteria. The nematode forms an adult stage and begins to produce thousands of eggs. These eggs mature and about 2-3 generations of nematodes are produced in the decaying insect. Reproduction continues until the nematodes sense that the decaying insect will not support further reproduction by the nematode. At that time, all of the nematode offspring mature only to the infective juvenile stage and begin to emerge from the host insect to look for more viable, live insects to infect. The infective juvenile, IJ3, is the third nymphal stage of the nematode which has a double thick skin and which is best equipped to survive in nature until it can find a new host.

Are the bacteria in the nematode harmful to people or pets?

No. The bacteria and the nematode have what scientists call a “symbiotic” relationship. Neither can live without the other. The bacteria are not found in nature outside of the nematode or outside of the infected insect host of the nematode. Likewise, the nematode cannot live on insects alone, but must have food that is “digested” by the bacteria.



What kind of equipment is needed to apply beneficial nematodes?

These nematodes can be applied using the usual application equipment: recirculation pump sprayer, pump-up garden sprayer, watering can, hose-end sprayer, or injection into irrigation systems



Beneficial Nematode - Steinernema feltiae

Photo by Dr Jim Cate

How are the nematodes handled in preparation for application?

It is very important that the nematodes are living organisms so they must be kept out of direct sunlight and kept cool until they are applied. They should be stored in the refrigerator or a cold box at 50° to 65° F. from time of receipt until they are being prepared for application.


Nematodes will settle to the bottom of applicator tanks so it is very important to agitate or shake the tank every 15 to 20 minutes to assure that the nematodes are uniformly suspended in the water. Commercial sprayers having by-pass pressure regulation provide very good agitation of the water and do not require shaking or further agitation.


Nematodes are very hardy and can safely tolerate 100 to 150 pounds of pressure, but they can be damaged if pumped through filter screens that have mesh sizes smaller than 30. For best results, remove all filter screens.


Nematodes can drown, so it is important to make sure that the entire volume of spray in a tank is applied without delay.


Nematodes can safely tolerate a pH range from 5 to 9, but be careful of use of highly sulfonated water that depletes the oxygen upon its first exposure to the air. They can be tank-mixed with many insecticides, fungicides, fertilizers, and soil amendments. Normal chlorine amounts found in drinking water do not harm the nematodes.


What kind of site preparation is needed prior to application?

Again, beneficial nematodes are living organisms that live naturally in the soil. UV radiation and desiccation are the two greatest enemies to the nematode. Consequently, it is important that the soil or site to which the nematodes will be applied is damp and not dry. If the site to be treated it dry, one may apply a greater amount of water with the application to compensate. After the application is completed, we recommend that the treated area be irrigated with a moderate volume of water to assure that the nematodes have sufficient water to move them down onto and into the soil. It is best if applications can be made either early or late in the day to take advantage of lower sunlight strength and cooler temperatures.



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Questions? Contact [email protected]

@HeartlandHank

There is usually more than one solution to a problem, you found one the seems to be working for you so kudos and thanks for sharing.

pseudobotanist said:

@HeartlandHank

There is usually more than one solution to a problem, you found one the seems to be working for you so kudos and thanks for sharing.

Click to expand...

So true. Never is one way the best for everyone in every situation. And we both know there are situations that sand is the best option.. just not in my top feed system/situation..

Wasn't trying to be a dick.. Just trying to be very thorough.

Haha dick or not, I appreciate you keeping your thread alive and posting your findings even tho many havnt responded to it.

The thing about words on the Internet is that they can be meant one way and misinterpreted in another.

OK.. I spotted adults today.. roll back the "mission accomplished" banner.. damn.

I'll update in a few days.. reapplying potato slices to look for larvae again.