GrOwThMoNgeR
Well-Known Member
I just made up a pot of chili water. The fungus gnats definitely didn't like it but we'll see what happens to the RA.
Root Aphids?
- Thread starter paparov
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GrOwThMoNgeR
Well-Known Member
If they are jumping then most likely whitetails but RA just crawl around constantly when not feeding.
No need to be freaking out before identifying 100% the issue. And even then, freaking out won't do anything...If they are jumping, they are most propably springtails. Put a potato slice on top of the coco and check what you found the next day with a microscope. If you haven't already, lay out a couple of yellow traps near the grow lights or on top of the coco. Are you in veg or flower?
I'm talking about prevention, not eradicationRosemarythey laugh off neem oil and rosemary even more.
. Although an analogue of rosemary+clove oil (SNS203) has been shown to be pretty effective at holding them back according to many anecdotal testimonials. The essential oil that is the shit for RA is cedar oil. Good results have been mentioned by spraying the top 2 inches of the soil/coco with a diluted mixture of that. Careful! Do not drench with it, you are going to damage the roots. Cedar oil kills them on contact and it's absolutely recommended for spraying surfaces and the pots. Check out PCO Cedarcide. I found an interesting paper on kaolin. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257432292_Effect_of_Kaolin_Particle_Film_Formulation_Against_Populations_of_the_Aphid_Lipaphis_erysimi_Kalt_Homoptera_Aphididae_in_Cabbage
It's about cabbage aphids but like RA, those small demons are considered equally if not more hardy opponents. Gonna be trying a root drench with 5% kaolin - could be a good additive to Botanigard/pyrethrum. I'm gonna look up more into that before I start mixing it into my next soil mixes along with DE.
printer
Well-Known Member
Just heard a music program from a local guy teaching in China. He broke out his spring jacket because it got cold out. The Chinese said it got so cold they could not remember it ever getting as cold. The guy said about the Chinese, "You ain't seen nothing". I threw out flowering plant onto the deck as the aphids were ready to go into the flying stage. They did freeze, a few days ago at night it got down to -43 with the wind chill. It is warmer now. Still your 50's sounds like spring.
Anyway, enough of the chit chat. I should have spent more time getting the oil off the plants. I did swish them around in a bucket of soapy water but a film of it was still on the leaves (killed all the bugs) but did a number on the plants. That is why I waited as long as possible to get them big (relatively speaking) and healthy so they will survive the process. I ended up doing another dunk in soapy water last night. Hope I got enough of it off.
GrOwThMoNgeR
Well-Known Member
Biggest problem I have here is lack of options. In the great North it is nearly impossible to find those amazing products. I would otherwise not be having such a hard time. So far some thrips died from chili water but the rest went under the leaves to hide. So many eggs! Arggghhhhhhhh!
I found the source of the problem. EWC that I added brought them. Now I guess I will switch back to biobizz since it's way more pain to use EWC obviously. Nice to only really need one fert with EWC but too many potential problems.
printer
Well-Known Member
Had a guy offer me some guitar related stuff but I told him by the time it gets over the border it hardly makes sense to ship it. $20 limit. What happened to YMCA or whatever Trump called it?
GrOwThMoNgeR
Well-Known Member
GrOwThMoNgeR
Well-Known Member
I wish I could find them here. Customs takes forever here so no point in ordering those things. Too bad ladybugs don't eat RA. I can actually get them.
Sade
Well-Known Member
Should be able to find most bugs online. Hell just found out they have packs of prying mantasises
printer
Well-Known Member
Same weather I guess though.Not that great Northup past latitude 60
tstick
Well-Known Member
What worked for me:
Place some pieces of brown paper (like from a grocery bag) that have been soaked in water on top of the soil. Soil-based bugs seem to like it and start crawling on it after several hours. After a day, take note of the number of bugs that are on the paper and then discard the paper -far away from the grow area!
Mix 1/2 cup of 5% concentration hydrogen peroxide (the regular stuff you get at the grocery store) per gallon of pure water.
Place the infected pots in large tub or bucket and water the plants with the solution
Wait a minute or two and then drain out the water and discard it (don't reuse it).
Then replace some fresh brown paper again and repeat the process for the next 2 or 3 waterings and monitor the resulting bugs (if any)
This will almost definitely cause some yellowing in the leaves, but, in my experience, the plants will rebound quickly once the bugs are gone and you return to regular watering/feeding. Hydrogen peroxide will kill any and all bacteria -both good and bad, so you will have to switch to chemical ferts after you do the hydrogen peroxide treatments. I have read that the hydrogen peroxide does not remain active in the soil for very long and quickly breaks down to water. The extra O2 molecule may even give roots a charge. But it's always a balancing act and too much hydrogen peroxide for too long can also do damage.
Place some pieces of brown paper (like from a grocery bag) that have been soaked in water on top of the soil. Soil-based bugs seem to like it and start crawling on it after several hours. After a day, take note of the number of bugs that are on the paper and then discard the paper -far away from the grow area!
Mix 1/2 cup of 5% concentration hydrogen peroxide (the regular stuff you get at the grocery store) per gallon of pure water.
Place the infected pots in large tub or bucket and water the plants with the solution
Wait a minute or two and then drain out the water and discard it (don't reuse it).
Then replace some fresh brown paper again and repeat the process for the next 2 or 3 waterings and monitor the resulting bugs (if any)
This will almost definitely cause some yellowing in the leaves, but, in my experience, the plants will rebound quickly once the bugs are gone and you return to regular watering/feeding. Hydrogen peroxide will kill any and all bacteria -both good and bad, so you will have to switch to chemical ferts after you do the hydrogen peroxide treatments. I have read that the hydrogen peroxide does not remain active in the soil for very long and quickly breaks down to water. The extra O2 molecule may even give roots a charge. But it's always a balancing act and too much hydrogen peroxide for too long can also do damage.
GrOwThMoNgeR
Well-Known Member
So I found out they're not RA at all, but are actually mold mites. Little f'ers are literally seeming tougher than RA but I dosed again hardcore with h2o2 and chili water/neem. It was a massacre but always only enough to hold them back.
printer
Well-Known Member
I pretty much killed mine, found one flying around some seedlings I have upstairs that I haven't touched. I did have to dunk them and swish them around to get the rest of the oil off the leaves. I am guessing it suffocates the leaves also. They seem to be rebounding and have some new growth.
Roosterclay
Member
So I am reading this thread because I have root aphids. I dont see them on the plants at all. I noticed a plant here or there looking weak and totally different from the others of the same strain. I thought it was over watered or something due to never seeing any bugs of leaf damage. The other day I pulled some clones out of my dome and saw the bastards on the roots. Ordered a wireless scope and got some good close ups. They are Aphids no doubt. So far I have lowered my RH, added yellow traps to every plant and soil drenched with SNS 203. The stunted plant issue has been going on for at least 2 full cycles with 1 out of 6 plants each round. The other 5 have been some of my best results to date right next to the baby stunted plant. Is there a difference in aphids and "root aphids"? You guys are talking about flyers and finding them on leaves. Mine stay in the soil until late flower then I only find a few here and there on traps. I know the redish one with the tailpipes is an aphid. I suspect the flyer might be a gnat?!? Thanks guys
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Roosterclay
Member
Nevermind I am pretty sure the flyer is an adult female root aphid.
Well, RA are notorious for selectively infesting plants. Propably this has to do with them infesting primarily the slightly stressed plants. In general healthy specimens are more more difficult to get infected - although you could have them in your other plants as well but due to their SAR mechanisms and other processes I ignore, they may be staying surpressed. I'm certain it wasn't my first rodeo with them as well. The cuplrit for their rage was that more than ever, in this round I "played" with RH+high temps because of using high concentrations of CO2.
Usually you see flying RA when they "conquer" a pot and they are looking to mitigate their bitchiness to other plants. But even that isn't absolute. They can perfectly crawl from one pot to the other or get there from run off watering. Yeah, there is certainly a difference between aphids and root aphids. Aphids suck the leaves, root aphids suck the roots. Many times RA are going "hand to hand" with fungus gnats. It's good that you finally identified the issue.
No matter what you do, if you wanna fuck them up (not eradicate them but put major blows into their populations), make sure to give a good soak to the pots with your weapon of choice. That means submerging the pots under water for ~20 minutes. You have to do that for 1 time at least in order to get to the RA central - the area under the stem of the plant which is difficult to reach. In my case, after using many different weapons, the best approach was to drench with pyrethrum (4 ml/gallon with a 5% concentration) and then soak under water with a mixture of Botanigard ES (15 ml/l). Make sure to include some aspirin and root stimulators too. Eradicating them completely usually means you shut down completely and do thorough disinfections. You must cut off any "outside" sources of RA which bring back the RA to your plants.
Ironically, while everyone was praising the chem solutions, I found that natural solutions worked best. This may be due to the fact that I had plants in every stage of life and I didn't want to give up on them. Treating some with chems and other with natural weapons didn't cut it for those that were treated with the chems.
Best of luck, let us know how it goes.
GrOwThMoNgeR
Well-Known Member
So after many doses of chili water and neem oil mixed it became pretty toxic but 2 weeks of neem oil also damaged the leaves so been doing some normal alg-a-mic, co2 microbes, and aminos/K to wash them a bit. Hopefully they will recover nicely. Don't see nearly as many. You can see the amount of chili I added in the front, they're not very happy haha. Luckily I think my girls have a chance now so NO MORE NEEM!
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Roosterclay
Member
Thanks for the info guys. Heres some background on my set up. I run 2 rooms. In veg I have everything from clones to mothers and everything in between. Flower room is split in half with 6 plants in and out every 4 weeks for a total of 12 plants under 3 lights. 2 Fluence Spydr 2i and 1 hps 1000w. So yeah I can't exactly shut down either so I am going to fight tooth and nail!! Going for more fly strips and some sns209. Considering using imid for early veg plants if things don't improve after a few doses if these natural products dont do what I need.
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I live in South Europe so...
For the next two weeks temp is going to be 55 - 70 F (lowest - highest). I have a big east balcony - the more days pass by, the more it seems a no-brainer to me to throw at least in the balcony the plants that have been hit the most. I just have to throw away 600 gallons of soil that were housing multiple plants like basil, lavender etc, haha fun times indeed. I have already unloaded ~500 gallons, who needs a fucking gym with this and that. And then gotta cover the plants with nets. Make sure you wash the plants off with PH'ed water when you are using soaps. Especially if you ever use them for soaking the roots, they wreak havoc on the PH - flush immediately after treatment with lots of Ph'ed water otherwise recovery takes forever.Nice tips, especially about the paper brown bags man! I'm inclined not to use H2O2 because it kills off the bennies and bennies are really needed in this fight. Defeats the purpose of organic soil if I do it like that. Gotta admit it's a cheap approach that should work well though. And it's true that after the love these fucking bitches show to the plants, mineral nutrients is the way to go for the first waterings. H2O2 could be combined with salicylic acid in order to make up for the healing to the roots that could have been done by the bennies.
Your girls look pretty pale, of course that's normal after the treatments. Look into foliar feeding. Check out "The Lost Art of Foliar Feeding" here in rollitup. I did it the other day and results are good. Make sure to include 325 mg of plain aspirin (not coated)/ gallon. I used aloe gel to help the nutes sticking to the stomata, mostly I watered the undersides of the leaves. Also, if you want a relatively cheap weapon into your arsenal check pyrethrum (5% - 4-5 ml/gallon).
@ Roosterclay: Really nice rooms man!! In my case Imid did appear to be effective for like 2 weeks, then problems started arising again. I attribute this to not treating all the girls simultaneously with the poison - seems like you are in the same position. Your mileage may vary though, different "strains" of RA etc. Check into pyrethrum as well ,it's not toxic to the roots if used moderately, especially with drenching versus soaking. Best bet for the flowering girls is a pyrethrum drench and then soaking in a B.Bassiana (Botanigard) mixture for like 20 minutes. Of course make sure to use non-chlorinated water.