New Grower What do you add to your medium to prevent bug larvae?

[lunarman]

I had fungus gnats wreak a grow recently. To kill them I watered in crushed up mosquito dunks. Then I put a layer of sand on top to make sure no adults can get back in the medium to lay eggs. That seemed to work.

Now I'm loading up pots again for a new grow. I did add in a layer of diatomaceous earth. And was going to add in some mosquito dunks material but that company said it might not be great at prevention. It will deteriorate over time.

So looking for some other ideas to add in to the medium (coco) that will really help with prevention on top of the diatomaceous earth already in there.

 

[Rev. Green Genes]

Hi lunarman. I have heard of neem, and spinosad being used as a drench but don't know if it works. both are plant derived and biodegradable.. parasitic nematodes will total knock it out, and neem spray on leaves will prevent them from eating if there are adults anywhere. Yellow sticky traps will let you know if any are in the air. That with cleaning the area, and all the stuff you already did (good job by the way) a very comprehensive program. The only way to go farther is to bake the soil before use or give it a pH bath to like 10 for a few days.

 

[Rev. Green Genes]

I shouldn't say those are the ONLY ways, theres always chemicals. But I don't care for posting about those much.

 

[lunarman]

Hi lunarman. I have heard of neem, and spinosad being used as a drench but don't know if it works. both are plant derived and biodegradable.. parasitic nematodes will total knock it out, and neem spray on leaves will prevent them from eating if there are adults anywhere. Yellow sticky traps will let you know if any are in the air. That with cleaning the area, and all the stuff you already did (good job by the way) a very comprehensive program. The only way to go farther is to bake the soil before use or give it a pH bath to like 10 for a few days.

Thanks for posting some content on this @green genes
I can't get neem powder/cakes in Canada. Been banned. But I can get a neem oil that is in the healthy and beauty market. I mix that in with every optical foliar mix I make. Would prefer to put in the medium instead of spray. But at least I have DE in the medium. I think I should hopefully have done enough prevention in the medium. And I can always get a gardening sprayer/mister and nuke anything that shows. And apply DE or Sand on the top layer too.

Got to be diligent and give this to the bugs.

 

[Banjacked]

I had fungus gnats wreak a grow recently. To kill them I watered in crushed up mosquito dunks. Then I put a layer of sand on top to make sure no adults can get back in the medium to lay eggs. That seemed to work.

Now I'm loading up pots again for a new grow. I did add in a layer of diatomaceous earth. And was going to add in some mosquito dunks material but that company said it might not be great at prevention. It will deteriorate over time.

So looking for some other ideas to add in to the medium (coco) that will really help with prevention on top of the diatomaceous earth already in there.

I had fungus gnats, I looked for a means to get rid of them with just something I would have here at home and the Old Farmers Almanac gave me a good one that did work, believe it or not.

A very liberal dusting of Cinnamon on the surface, the adults hate the stuff (little wonder when you see the morons on YouTube shovelling spoonfuls into their mouths) and don't go to lay eggs. No eggs means no larvae means no gnats

Easy to get a hold of, no nasty chemicals to get into your plant and if you go to places like Chinese supermarkets you can buy the stuff in BIG pots for a lot less than in the regular supermarket.

 

[Rev. Green Genes]

you might be able to get spinosad instead of neem. If cinamon works than more power to ya, thanks @Banjacked I had never heard that one. It makes sense, it could overwhelm the scent glands and prevent the males from finding the females. Or any number of things like that.

It reminds of other oldSkool cures. Like adding copper strips at soil line to repel slugs. There's a million home remedies, and about half of them work.

 

[Banjacked]

I was sceptical, but thought "Why not, it's not going to hurt the plant" and, well, it's not as if it was found on some obscure blog with lots of underlined capital letters and exclamation marks.

Seemingly Camomile does the same, but maybe that gets them too chilled and relaxed to breed

PS. Trust me, they hate it. You should see how fast the adults get out of Dodge when it gets close to them

 

[Tommy McCain]

I had fungus gnats wreak a grow recently. To kill them I watered in crushed up mosquito dunks. Then I put a layer of sand on top to make sure no adults can get back in the medium to lay eggs. That seemed to work.

Now I'm loading up pots again for a new grow. I did add in a layer of diatomaceous earth. And was going to add in some mosquito dunks material but that company said it might not be great at prevention. It will deteriorate over time.

So looking for some other ideas to add in to the medium (coco) that will really help with prevention on top of the diatomaceous earth already in there.

Neem meal tea works great on the larvae. Pour it on and watch them squirm to the surface and die. I did not know it was not possible to get in Canada. Have you tried Neem Resource? The whole "cooking" soil in an oven...good luck. I do not know about you but the smallest soil container I use is 5 gallons. Tonight, do me a favor and try to cook just a 5 gallon bucket of soil in your oven. It will smell your house up (good luck convincing the wife or girlfriend) and it will take all night for a 5 gallon bucket. Plus you kill any good microbes.
You are better to put a fan on the soil surface and topdress. Also get some sticky traps.
I have also found that good top dress (inch or so) of homemade EWC's with a lot of microbe activity will take them out. But it has to be microbe rich.

One last thing. Dunks work great if used every two or three weeks while watering. I grind up the mosquito dunks with an old coffee grinder and water them on that way. It works better.

 

[McDee]

I have had great success with the mosquito dunks. I put in with all grows now haven't had issue with them. You can fill up a cup with water and they will drown themselves too. Someone correct me never used DE, but doesn't it only work if its dry? That's what I have read anyway, so not effective when you feed. May want to feed from the bottom while using DE. Cinnamon is a good idea may add that too.

 

[Delta9Heavy]

Nothing. Been using roots original. I noticed a sporadic flying bug once in awhile, but it never hurt the plant. Might have been fungus gnats idk I never looked into it because it never hurt the plant. Sorry if this doesn't help. I think bugs are more of an environmental/plant health thing.