pests Bug ID.. what the bloody heck is this?

Super Hots Canada said:
 
Garlic bomb? I think I have a bit of an idea of what that might entail, but could you provide details?
 
Keep in mind, this is in my basement and I do have cats.. Right now the beneficial insects I have are those baby ladybugs. I'm leaning towards giving them a chance and see how that goes before I try anything extreme. :)
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Check out cayennemist, he is having good result with tea sprays (ah crap I just shot my own foot) and I was going to follow suit with a similar plan.
 
Wulf said:
Well, the good news is that you have now officially killed every single beneficial insect you could possibly find on your plants.  If you see something with 6 legs that you haven't killed before, feel free to kill it.
 
Disclaimer:  Arachnids are not insects.  Do not kill arachnids.

Re-disclaimer:  My statement isn't entirely true, but here in Canada the odds of you finding any other beneficial insect indoors are extremely low.
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Arachnids include mites.  DO kill mites.  With extreme prejudice ;)
 
 
we have hordes of lady bugs every year that get into the screened in porch, they go straight into the grow area, dozens at a time.  didn't work so well during winter, I had an aphidpocalypse.
 
ikeepfish said:
Arachnids include mites.  DO kill mites.  With extreme prejudice ;)
 
 
we have hordes of lady bugs every year that get into the screened in porch, they go straight into the grow area, dozens at a time.  didn't work so well during winter, I had an aphidpocalypse.
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Thankfully, I only encounter spiders.. Bloody glad I haven't encountered mites. Even more glad we haven't scorpions in our area - they freak me out. lol
 
Sounds like a good way to collect up ladybugs. I figure I'll have to work on collecting up some from the windows in the house, somehow, and try and catch some of the buggers outside.
 
Super Hots Canada said:
 
Thankfully, I only encounter spiders.. Bloody glad I haven't encountered mites. Even more glad we haven't scorpions in our area - they freak me out. lol
 
Sounds like a good way to collect up ladybugs. I figure I'll have to work on collecting up some from the windows in the house, somehow, and try and catch some of the buggers outside.
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There are both scorpions and rattlesnakes in Virginia (rather fat, large, and intimidating ones that don't rattle when you're close to them), quite rare though.  I saw an eastern woodland scorpion a few years ago, I carefully removed it from the patio and put it in the woods.
 
ikeepfish said:
There are both scorpions and rattlesnakes in Virginia (rather fat, large, and intimidating ones that don't rattle when you're close to them), quite rare though.  I saw an eastern woodland scorpion a few years ago, I carefully removed it from the patio and put it in the woods.
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I'm not aware of any actually dangerous arachnids or snakes in our province, except for what ends up coming in with shipments of fruits & vegetables (apparently they sometimes find black widows in the crates that get delivered to our local supermarkets). We're rather lucky in that way. On the down side, we certainly have much shorter warm seasons.
 
miguelovic said:
Check out cayennemist, he is having good result with tea sprays (ah crap I just shot my own foot) and I was going to follow suit with a similar plan.
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Yeah, I've got a couple of plants in particular that are getting hit hard by the aphids. I'm of two minds here, because on one hand, I've never found teas even the sligthest bit effective against pests, unless they contained oils - which wipe out both bad and good bugs. On the other hand, the plants are growing spectacularly well. And I'm seeing tons of aphid mummies on my plants - despite the fact that I've yet to actually see any wasps. Don't think aphids bloat like that unless they're parasitized, but if anyone knows any better, speak up. (most of them have that little ass flap, so I'm pretty sure they've been invaded) So I've eased up a bit on my squashing efforts. Right now, I'm just putting garlic and citrus at the base of my plants, and observing.

Has anyone ever tried putting a bag over their plants, and inflating it up with CO2? The theory being that the CO2 would replace the available oxygen to the insect, yet not create a toxic environment or by-products for the plant. I don't think it would take any longer than about 10-15 minutes to treat a single plant...
 
solid7 said:
Yeah, I've got a couple of plants in particular that are getting hit hard by the aphids. I'm of two minds here, because on one hand, I've never found teas even the sligthest bit effective against pests, unless they contained oils - which wipe out both bad and good bugs. On the other hand, the plants are growing spectacularly well. And I'm seeing tons of aphid mummies on my plants - despite the fact that I've yet to actually see any wasps. Don't think aphids bloat like that unless they're parasitized, but if anyone knows any better, speak up. (most of them have that little ass flap, so I'm pretty sure they've been invaded) So I've eased up a bit on my squashing efforts. Right now, I'm just putting garlic and citrus at the base of my plants, and observing.

Has anyone ever tried putting a bag over their plants, and inflating it up with CO2? The theory being that the CO2 would replace the available oxygen to the insect, yet not create a toxic environment or by-products for the plant. I don't think it would take any longer than about 10-15 minutes to treat a single plant...
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I've not heard of anyone doing that with CO2 before, but at first-thought it does sound as though it could be rather effective. And in addition to (hopefully) suffocating the bugs, the pepper plants would probably enjoy it since (if I'm not mistaken) they make use of CO2 in their processes.
 
Since I noticed these baby ladybugs on my Brown Naglah a couple of days ago I've already seen a noticeable difference - the aphids seem to be gone already from at least half of the plant and all over the plant fresh new leaves and buds are growing very rapidly (just as they did for the longest time before the aphids landed on the plant). I noticed the change last night so I carefully moved a couple of the larvae onto non-topped Habanero and already they've cleared out a ton of the aphids from that plant as well (which had many, many more than the Naglah had).
 
I think I'm starting to love lady bugs. lol
 
CO2 and Aphids
 
CO2 concentrations of 15000ppm for a period of an hour or more has been shown to be an effective control against various mite species and whitefly, with greater effect by supplementing with sulphur dioxide and nitrogen to further displace oxygen. Multiple treatments are required to ensure complete control as eggs are generally unaffected. How well this will work against aphids in an uncontrolled environment (bag) is unclear, but they appear more resistant to CO2 fumigation. That particular study achieved a 50% reduction in population with 80000ppm. Without a safe way of controlling CO2 levels there is a risk of damaging the plant at high concentrations.
 
There are obvious personal safety concerns with using CO2 as a fumigant. I'm a fan of remote ventilation control and the buddy system (it's not just a safe way to get back from the bathroom or cross the street!).
 
Aphids are heat-intolerant and perhaps cooking the room (a la 115* F @ 30 min for broad mites) would be effective.
 
Super Hots Canada said:
 
I'm not aware of any actually dangerous arachnids or snakes in our province, except for what ends up coming in with shipments of fruits & vegetables (apparently they sometimes find black widows in the crates that get delivered to our local supermarkets). We're rather lucky in that way. On the down side, we certainly have much shorter warm seasons.
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The only venomous critters we have to worry about here are widows (no brown recluses here thank god), various hornets, copperheads, cottonmouths, rattlers, and the red velvet ant (cow killer ant, actually a parasitic wingless wasp that reproduces by invading the egg clutches of cicada killers)  Cow killers won't kill you but make you WISH you were dead if you step on them barefoot.  The little suckers are hard to kill too...you have to stomp them 400 times to get the message across to them "DIE ALREADY"
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To get back on topic, my outdoor plants already have aphids and where we usually have TONS of lady bugs this time of year, I haven't seen a single one in about a month :(
 
ikeepfish said:
The only venomous critters we have to worry about here are widows (no brown recluses here thank god), various hornets, copperheads, cottonmouths, rattlers, and the red velvet ant (cow killer ant, actually a parasitic wingless wasp that reproduces by invading the egg clutches of cicada killers)  Cow killers won't kill you but make you WISH you were dead if you step on them barefoot.  The little suckers are hard to kill too...you have to stomp them 400 times to get the message across to them "DIE ALREADY"
cimage2013_07n6092_w720.jpg

 
 
To get back on topic, my outdoor plants already have aphids and where we usually have TONS of lady bugs this time of year, I haven't seen a single one in about a month :(
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Ouch.. Very glad we don't have any bugs like that around. Worst that I've encountered in our area are referred to as "digger wasps". They're probably related to your cicada killers - only ours don't dig up mounds on the ground. Instead, they tend to build small nests out of mud or on the sides of houses/buildings using mud and the wood of the building (which they dig into). I've already killed one that got into my room in the past week or so. Every summer since I was a kid there's been at least a dozen or more that have made it into my bedroom (upstairs of the house).. The joys of a house that is our a century old. lol
 
Our digger wasps seem to be pretty death-resistant in much the same way as you mention your cow killers are... but luckily I've gotten the art of the plastic fly swatter down in a way that I know -just- how to kill them in one or two shots. Before I got it down to an art I used to smack them to the floor and then drop 3-10 hard-cover encyclopedias on the damn things.. only to find they were still - SOMEHOW - alive.. Even used to spray them with WD40 - that just pissed them off to the point they'd shake it off and try to fly at me. Hell, even WD40-fueled fire had trouble taking them out.
 
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Damn.. *crosses fingers for you* Sure hope some ladybugs show up for you.. Aphids outside with no ladybugs in sight just seems cruelly backwards. lol
 
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