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Fungus gnats

Pepperjack91

Pepperjack91

So I have a fungus gnat problem. I just transplanted about 12 of my seedlings for next year into red solo cups. I went and bought a new bag of potting soil because some other plants in my collection have them in the soil including some pepper plants and my avacado tree. I thought that the potting soil was the source but now I think it is a bag of compost because they are starting to show up around the new seedlings. Obviously I am going to throw that compost out. But now what can I do about the existing gnats? I know about the soapy water treatment. It hasn't worked well for me. I went to my preferred garden center and until January they are out of what they reccomend to use for fungus gnats. So does anyone have any other ideas?
 
These should work for you, azamax, a product called safer (both oraganic also), and let your soil dry in between waterings, They dont like dry soil. YOu can also hang some of those yellow sticky traps. I deal with them all the time and jsut a few aint to bad around, but I used safer last night and and only see 2, of about the normal 20 i see.
 
I had fungus gnats and bought some BT (a bacteria that the grubs eat and die) at great expense only to have them succumb to treating the soil with a soap solution for creepy crawly critters. If you have a big problem you can buy BT at a nursery they have a cutsy trade name for it. The mosquito dunks are BT available at garden centers. I have no precise recommendation for their dilution, I guess a quarter of a dunk per gallon would be ok.
BT is "organic" and a natural method of pest control or yellow sticky traps.
 
Yeah I have tried soap and it didn't seem to do much.. Slowed them down for a day maybe. Perhaps I wasn't aggressive enough with it. And I have been letting the soil dry out but they seem to hold on till I have to water again and then they get new life. I keep hearing about these mosquito dunks so I think I may have to try them and some fly strips..
 
This worked best for me and I tried all other suggestions.
 
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I'm definitely going to get some of them. But if I only used strips to catch the mature gnats I would feel like I was ignoring the actual problem.. So Chris, you didn't find anything that worked well in the soil?
 
Pepperjack91 said:
I'm definitely going to get some of them. But if I only used strips to catch the mature gnats I would feel like I was ignoring the actual problem.. So Chris, you didn't find anything that worked well in the soil?
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I wouldn't say that it didn't work but the fly trap paper was a must to eradicate my issue. I caught a few thousand adults. This year I shall place sand on top of my soil to prevent the issue all together!
 
I've heard about the sand as well.. I may have to try that too

I had to move my avocado plant out of the bedroom because they were swarming my girlfriend when she was on her phone at night. lol
 
What worked for me so far was of course fly paper for the mature gnats and a mixture of 3% h2o2 and water I believe it was 1 cup to a gallon of water. A good soaking with that and havnt seen a single gnat lately.
 
I'm with thirdcoasttx on this one. I used H202 this season and it worked great. Use the fly strips to catch the adults and the H202 should kill the larvae.
 
I've used fly paper as suggested and a product called nilnat bought from a local hydro shop for the soil larvae.
Another option for the larvae is to cut some uncooked potato and place cut side down in the pots as the little bastards love eating root matter and throw it out after a couple of days and keep the fly paper up.The nilnat I found to be really good but better as a preventative than a cure.
 
I can offer this bit of limited advice for the larvae at seed raising time:
 
When I noticed that I had one or two of the little buggers on the top of my jiffy pellets, I'd water them (yes - water them) and put them in a spare room or somewhere where you normally don't use any lights. That seems to bring them to the surface.
 
After being left in the dark for a few hours (preferably later at night), I'd light up the pellets with a powerful torch and dispose of the little buggers that can be seen with a toothpick.
 
Amazingly simple method of manual removal and it reduced their number to zero very quickly.
 
Regards,
 
Tim
 
I have a small issue with them too, not destroying the plants but mighty annoying to even see them! I have just ordered some fly tape and hope that it will solve the problem!
 
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