I'm sure now gnats put a hard knock on the growth on my girls and led to a nute problem here at the end of the grow. I thought I had them under control with early dunks. They came back, so I applied neem. LOL! Didn't do a thing or enough.I wasn't breaking the life cycle was the biggest problem. I heavily applied DE to the topsoil and only bottom watered for about 10 days to give the DE a chance to do it's work. DE must be dry for it to work. It did the deed! The biggest thing is to break their life cycle.I've seen so many growers lately having problems with those fungus gnats! There are products you can buy but I'm trying to find a cheap/free method. I keep a layer of quick-draining substrate atop my soil - so for your setup I think that would be a layer of perlite atop your coco. The gnats don't take any interest in dry conditions. That dry layer keeps them largely at bay.
I don't grow hydro but I believe it would be even harder to keep the top of the coco medium dry than it is for soil.
Neem oil is a blessing and all my houseplants get a foliar spray if I spot a mealybug anywhere on my property :smoking:
Hi hon...I had not even gotten them settled IN the autopots yet, i was still hand watering. I HATE those little things...Surprised by fungus gnat issue in auto pots, thought the bottom water system was supposed to help that? Feel your pain lost my last round to the lil buggers. Best of luck on rest of the grow!
Awesome job. Yes, they are relentless, and I guess us taking a little time at the start of the grow to deter them is a LOT easier than trying to get RID of them. I use a mask when i spread it around because it floats around in the air, but I dont think after that it should be an issue. One thing I learned, dont put much IN the soil because once it hits water it turns to thick MUD!~I'm sure now gnats put a hard knock on the growth on my girls and led to a nute problem here at the end of the grow. I thought I had them under control with early dunks. They came back, so I applied neem. LOL! Didn't do a thing or enough.I wasn't breaking the life cycle was the biggest problem. I heavily applied DE to the topsoil and only bottom watered for about 10 days to give the DE a chance to do it's work. DE must be dry for it to work. It did the deed! The biggest thing is to break their life cycle.
This should work on any style of growing where you can bottom water. I doubt if it will work on EarthBox grows though. I think the top of the soil will be too wet for the DE to work.
Just remember that DE is a very fine powder and can be an inhalant danger, but that's mainly possible when using outdoors. I don't see how it could be a problem in a grow when applied very heavily like I did, but I've only used it outdoors in soil, never used in a container. It is a source of silica. I just don't know if it's in a form available to the plant.
Anyway, it worked quite quickly. I should have used it FIRST in my grow. Lesson learned!
When I say I heavily applied it, I mean it looked like a blizzard had hit my topsoil! LOL!
DE= Diatomaceous earth
Long term solution especially if you reuse soil is nematodes. Short term is Mosquito Dunks. I like the idea of nematodes - a little army of worms fighting wormsHi hon...I had not even gotten them settled IN the autopots yet, i was still hand watering. I HATE those little things...
Damn! Thanks for reminding me about nematodes! I'll add them after I re-amend the current grow media and let it fire back up. Once it won't heat back up, I'll add those little buggers! I've used them quite a lot in the past in my veggie garden.Long term solution especially if you reuse soil is nematodes. Short term is Mosquito Dunks. I like the idea of nematodes - a little army of worms fighting worms