My plants all look great but when I picked up one to look at the whole plant I saw little gnats in the soil. This is a new thing and I’m hoping to nip it in the bud… thanks for y’all’s help
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Hi Laura! I’m a newbie and asked this same question months ago. I’m sure others with more knowledge will chip in. Food grade D.E. (Demetrius Earth) Was suggested to sprinkle on the soil. I have purchased hanging fly traps that help as well.
Happy growing!
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@Lauraroach more than likely this is a cause from overfeeding… You can buy neem oil to control them. They have many organic ways to rid them… sticky strips do good also., just make sure they are not baited with chemicals…also you can get a tuna can put a 50/50 mixture of apple cider vinegar with water and a drop or 2 of dish soap. Just dont spill it in your media…i make my own organic spray in case such an issue would arise…rough up the top 2 inches of your media without damaging sensitive feeder rootz…
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DE, yellow sticky traps, neem oil/granules all work great, but you need to treat the base issue, too much dampness. Dry your soil back more before watering. You can achieve this by either watering less each time but stay on your same schedule or change your schedule. Either way you need to let your soil dry out more.
You can also top dress with perlite/sand/anything porous 1-2in deep and they will be less likely to breed in the soil.
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I have pearlite here so I’ll do that this afternoon. I have had workmen here all week renovating old bathroom to a disability accessible one so I have not been able to pick up the DE. Thanks for the advice everyone 
Go to hardware store and buy a bag of food grade de earth, let your topsoil completely dry bc it is powder, once topsoil is dry powder soil lightly leave for 72 hours, give a light flush and check ph, de earth will kill any pest with an exoskeleton cheaply and organically, once i even killed off thrips, you can wad up tp and lightly dust lower fans, dont dust any flower.
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Thank y’all for the step by step instructions. I’m kind of a dinosaur and this is learning a new language… but when I look at my healthy plants they bring me joy♥️
But, wait, there’s more… 
I have another idea you can try if you aren’t nervous to attempt new things and the other great advice doesn’t work out.
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@Lauraroach cycle wet to dry with watering. Predatory nematodes are your friend. DE works wonders. Sticky traps are great. BTI is effective but a last resort imo.
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I had to order the DE from Amazon so it should be here in a few days. All is well in Laura’s grow house.
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Always open to new ideas. Please feel free to share, being a newbie I listen to all the help I can get. My plants all look good because I’m in this community. I can’t wait for my first harvest. I started my first plants Jan 19… where am I in regards to the grow cycle?
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where you are at depends on what you have growing…so let us know the genus / strain…If these were Jan 19 seedlings, I assume the are Photo period plants, not auto flowering. Tell us the strain and that helps determine where you are at.
If these are photo period plants, you have COMPLETE CONTROL over where you are at. They will continue to VEG as long as the lights are on more than 13, 14 hours. Flipping (switching the lights to a 12/12 schedule) will prompt FLOWERING. So, depending on HOW TALL your grow area is (how much room between the light and the plants too), accounting for STRETCH (easy 12-16 inches, more if it is a Sativa dominant strain - easily up to 2 feet), you can FLIP any time you want. The longer you VEG, the larger the plants grow but do not overgrow them based on the space you have and the size of your containers.
And, BTW, your plants look pretty good. I would recommend defoliating the lower / inner fan leaves to allow air to circulate. It will help with the Gnat issue. Your leaves look like they could PRAY (stand up a little higher- usually a sign of overwatering…leaves droop downwards)
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I started with northern lights and gelato. If you remember I had the sprouts shooting tall when I didn’t put them close enough to the light. Then I was afraid they would die and I planted 3 challah rose acclaimed to the Santa Fe area. They are shooting up. I started with feminized seeds to not confuse myself between male and female. I got those challah seeds after and was told they are indica feminized seeds. Then when I went again they told me the seeds were mixed. Now I not sure to believe they are indica the way they are growing so tall like I read that sativa does. No more seeds from them. I can’t trust what they say. Only homegrown from now on. So every other day I take them out and check for males. So far so good. I have had my lights on from 7-7 I will switch to the new schedule tomorrow by putting the timer on now so the get what they need. Red or blue lights to flower? Or both still? My water ph is 6.8 and now I start to feed? I did read that great soil has enough nutrients to take them thru the veg state. I know I can’t believe everything on the internet 
So you get all the questions… and I thank you for the answers… tomorrow I will clean up the bottom leaves. Check for boy plants again and the last question is about banana peel tea and molasses in the water. I feel like I should be inviting y’all for a smoke to share the crop we are growing… lol thank you again
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For flower, we move to the RED spectrum…The blue is vegetative and to keep the plants SHORTER. When it is flower time, we increase the white (daylight) and in that range, the red is what helps flower the plants. It signifies a change from summer to winter as the temps cool, days get shorter.
So we go to 12/12…make sure no light leaks in that DARK PERIOD. You also LOWER the temps…and the Rh. We move from 75-80f to 65-75f and the rh should be down around 50%
Feeding - not yet…wait for the pistils to develop and if you have VERY GOOD living soil, you may not need to feed until LATE FLOWERING. When we get to flowering stage, it is usually when we start REDUCING the nutrients we are feeding the plants. Let the plants USE up what is in the soil…so HOLD off on any feeding
Tea - are we talking to water or foliar spray? For watering, the 1tsp per gal water…continue the molasses. As far as banana…I do NOT see a potassium issue so “IF IT AIN’T BROKE - DON’T FIX IT”
ph 6.8 PERFECT!
defoliation…never more than 30% of the plant at one time and wait at least 3 days to see recovery…
Indica / Sativa ----they look like a little heavier on the Indica side (based on leafs)
Can see the Sativa but appears to be leaning more to wards the Indica with a broader leaf structure
As we go to FLIP, STRETCH will help show which is the dominant strain. If they SHOOT real tall, like almost 2 feet…Sativa dominant. If they only go about another foot…Indica dominant
None of that matters…Get them to FLOWER and let the trichome and terpenes start developing
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You are the bomb!!! I’ll post as I grow. I love looking at people’s pics of their plants.
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I trimmed the lower big fan leaves to thin the bottoms. They told me no more that 30% so I went about 20%. Now today when I went to turn the lights off for the day and a few of the plants look a little droopy. Could it have been me trimming those leaves? My temp inside the tent is 74-78 and my humidity is 33% … now that has me worried😕
I don’t think I’ve seen this noted before. I didn’t realize this was a thing until third grow in. I thought I was doing something wrong by not requiring feeding at that stage, then got comfortable and had a fire drill at the end.
It usually takes 3 days or so for a plant to recover from the stress of defoliating…that is why you do not do more than 30%…too much stress is NO GOOD
Let them dry out a little and give them a chance to recover