Hey growmies! just realised I have some infestation going on, had a lot of tiny white eggs under the leaves and these tiny insects living in the coco/perlite soil,
Any help on what they are and best way to get rid of them, they don’t look like aphids/aphid eggs.
She is a gelato auto flower,
just starting to preflower
Didn’t get a photo of the eggs but have a quick video, would be great if you could download it and let me know what you think, or is there a better way to upload a video?
@Thrillhouse those look like root aphids or rice root aphids to me. They’re an aphid family that can survive in soil and they’re a lot like fungus gnats in the damage they can do to roots. It also appears that you have fungus gnats and some other type of mite I couldn’t identify. That’s a pretty gnarly infestation. I haven’t seen one that bad in a long time.
As far as the leaves without seeing a photo I can’t be 100% certain but it sounds like either white flies or another breed of aphids or thrips.
As far as control for the root aphids and other soil pests your best bet is a neem oil soil drench if you want to stay natural/organic. Then prevent by cycling soil wet to dry and using DE as a preventative.
For the leaves just mild soap and water and wash them really good before anything hatches. After washing if you continue to have issues use a neem oil spray and make sure you do it right before lights out so the plants don’t burn to a crisp.
Cheers for the quick reply. I know right! Need to contain this shit ASAP!
I had a look at the root aphids not sure it’s them they still have quite a round body.
These things are longer in shape like thrips.
Only thing I have on hand is pyrethrum but I dunno what will be like on the soil.
Are there any downsides of using neem oil to drench the soil?
What would they been feeding on? As it is only coco /perlite… the plant itself or nutrients in soil?
@Thrillhouse most soil pests feed on the roots and suck nutrients from the plant. Pyrethrum will work but I haven’t ever used it myself since I only use organics so I’m not sure about the application rates.
A neem drench will kill pests but it’s also possible that it will lower soil pH and a flush might be needed afterward. It all depends on if the drench solution is mixed properly. Other than that a neem drench is usually fairly safe. The oils that aren’t absorbed by the plant will just wash out of your soil over time and break down naturally. For bad infestations like this it’s usually used every other day with waterings/feedings until the problem is solved and you can return to normal waterings and feedings using the neem as a weekly preventative if you want.
It shouldn’t affect your flowers either. Neem can sometimes make a harvest bitter but if you just now went into preflower you still have another 4-6 weeks so all of the neem in the plant will be gone by then.
If neem isn’t your route you can just use the pyrethrum you have.
If I’m being honest though it might be hard to get that under control. If it doesn’t get better within a few days to a week of treatments I’d personally toss it so it doesn’t infect the other plants.
A last ditch effort if you’re doing coco Hydro though is to just uproot the plant and wash the roots and leaves before transplanting back into a fresh sterile container with fresh substrate and just toss the infested soil and container.
Thank you sir! This has helped a lot!
I will give her a hit with the pyrethrum and will get something to drench the soil.
I found this product that looks pretty decent which is called PureCrop1 – One Organic Formula
I checked the other plants for eggs and couldn’t find any and will keep a very close eye on them.
First thing I did was separate her into her own tent.
Hopefully I can eliminate and keep it under control
@Thrillhouse quarantining is smart. I can’t believe I forgot to mention it. It’s usually one of the first things I suggest when diagnosing and treating pest issues.
I’ve heard of purecrop1 but never used it myself yet. If you get it and try it out let me know how it works. I almost got some last season because I had gnats and caterpillars out of control but I managed with safer brand insecticidal soap with seaweed extract and DE.
I went with biocrop1, definitely worked!
Had to keep applying to fend off more unwanted friends. Managed to see this girl threw till the end, just finished drying her and ended up with just over 100g dried. Not bad considering how bad the infestation was, also have saved all
My other girls and just give them a Foliar spray once a week, so far so good
