seeds Seedling are dying. Looks like a pest need help to fix or start over.

[Pfeffer]

It seems like a terrible infestation. With an infestation this bad I would get a big bucket of hand warm water, unpot your plant and submerge completely and vigioursly rins all the stuff of the leaves and roots (you should have clean white roots without yellowish grains or soil) As it's damn near impossible to perfectly cover all spots, so you'll always end up with survivors. They also nest in the soil for cover/humidity and that is the hardest to clean out. As it might originate from eggs in your soil, microwave the soil thoroughly before use. This will also kill of beneficial microorganisms but it's the best of two evils. Let it Cool down well before use.

This will get rid of 99% of the aphids so that you have a fighting chance again. Keep monitoring the plants 2-3 times a day for a week until you don't find aphids/gnats anymore.

Rinse of your hands between each plant/before repotting as the eggs that float around in the water might stick to your hands.

Good luck, this is going to take a lot of patience, nerves and swearing.

 

[pwb]

When I buy plants from the nursery I drop them in a 5gal bucket of 1/10 strength 3% peroxide and organic soap. let em soak pot and all for a min and rinse and replant them. 
 
Plants usually look pretty happy after too. 

 
Could the bucket with the water and peroxide be stored and used again later?

 

[Pfeffer]

No, peroxide will degrade rapidly. Especially when contaminated.

 

[CAPCOM]

It seems like a terrible infestation. With an infestation this bad I would get a big bucket of hand warm water, unpot your plant and submerge completely and vigioursly rins all the stuff of the leaves and roots (you should have clean white roots without yellowish grains or soil) As it's damn near impossible to perfectly cover all spots, so you'll always end up with survivors. They also nest in the soil for cover/humidity and that is the hardest to clean out. As it might originate from eggs in your soil, microwave the soil thoroughly before use. This will also kill of beneficial microorganisms but it's the best of two evils. Let it Cool down well before use.

This will get rid of 99% of the aphids so that you have a fighting chance again. Keep monitoring the plants 2-3 times a day for a week until you don't find aphids/gnats anymore.

Rinse of your hands between each plant/before repotting as the eggs that float around in the water might stick to your hands.

Good luck, this is going to take a lot of patience, nerves and swearing.

Eggs are not the method of procreation this time of the year with aphids, during the spring through summer they give live birth. All the aphids during this time are female. Further all the birthed aphids are also female, already pregnant and capable in a short period of time to repeat the process of reproduction. Male aphids do not begin to appear till in the fall when mating occurs and eggs are laid for the following season.

 

[Pfeffer]

Hi Capcom,
 
I understand, however the soil is the most likely cause of infection in the first place. Also, indoors male (i.e. winged) aphids also start to appear quite fast (compared to outside grows). In my experience eggs can hatch over months, so they don't all hatch when the conditions are good.. even when you cut the life cycle. So the soil changing is not really to fight the infestation itself, more to cut the life cycle that's going on in the soil. It's probably crawling with eggs and gnat larvae.
 
Else you would just keep fighting the symptoms up in the leaves whilst they are happily hatching in the soil. With such bad infestations you will have to go full on you want to fight it. It's a case of everything or nothing here I'm afraid..
 
This is based on European aphids though, it's possible that you have different breds of aphids over there, though they all seem a like.

 

[sirex]

Would neem oil fix this? I used neem oil last year and i think it was almost as good as the pyrethrin based i used first.

neem don't seem to do jack for me

 

[moruga welder]

It seems like a terrible infestation. With an infestation this bad I would get a big bucket of hand warm water, unpot your plant and submerge completely and vigioursly rins all the stuff of the leaves and roots (you should have clean white roots without yellowish grains or soil) As it's damn near impossible to perfectly cover all spots, so you'll always end up with survivors. They also nest in the soil for cover/humidity and that is the hardest to clean out. As it might originate from eggs in your soil, microwave the soil thoroughly before use. This will also kill of beneficial microorganisms but it's the best of two evils. Let it Cool down well before use.

This will get rid of 99% of the aphids so that you have a fighting chance again. Keep monitoring the plants 2-3 times a day for a week until you don't find aphids/gnats anymore.

Rinse of your hands between each plant/before repotting as the eggs that float around in the water might stick to your hands.

Good luck, this is going to take a lot of patience, nerves and swearing.

yes do microwave all soil before planting , a good o' veteran grower friend on T.H.P. taught me that . will kill eggs and such thats in the soil ! i      

 

[PrimeTime]

Yeah it sounds like your over winters might have started this. I find all potting mix is full of critters as well. I started sterilizing mine in the oven this year and couldn't be happier.
 
2-3 inches deep in a foil roasting pan covered in foil. bake at 180-200. You need to hold an internal temp of 180-200 for 30 minutes. Don't go over 200.
 
Smells like death when you uncover it.

 

[Pfeffer]

Good soil doesn't need it.. But certainly doesn't hurt with b-grade potting soil or older quality soil.

 

[PrimeTime]

I use what Im sure most folks in the US are using. The best the big box store offers.

 

[Dougthehead]

The answers and outpouring of efforts to help OP with the bug issue is what makes this community one of my favorite places on the internet.  I love helping out people that love helping others.  We are better when we work together, collective knowledge sharing is where it's at!

 

[Blister]

Thanks demonic. Just in case it is aphids. Dumped my daughters lady bug farm on the lot. Not many only about forty ladybugs but it might help till I get to Home Depot or find time in the next day to redo the seedling. I'll make it up to her. Scored on amazon and got a few hundred for under ten bucks. Might just have yo order another bunch tommorrow. I sprinkled the rest on my other plants I'm overwintering and tomato plants this last week.
Anyone have any input on what it could be? Still confused if it aphids or fungus gnats.

It's definitely aphids. As already mentioned, the white bits are shed shells of the aphids. The yellow spots are live aphids. Your picture quality is good enough that you can actually zoom in and see the legs on the old aphid shells.

You did the right thing with putting the lady bugs on them. I've tried all sorts of different home remedies from spraying them with the kitchen sink hose to garlic and dish soap. While they worked "ok", they never took care of the problem. I've tried safer soap and had similar results. I went full on pesticide by using a product called Sevin. While it did a much better job than the home remedies, it didn't take care of all the aphids. More would appear down the road. Lady bugs were the only thing to really take care of the issue - as long as they stay on the plants!

If you are going to hit the plants with some sort of home remedy, spray from the kitchen nozzle, or pesticide make sure you take the lady bugs off it. You don't want to kill them as you try to rid the aphids. You'd be surprised what just a few lady bugs can do.

Neil

 

[Geonerd]

Okay just to recap. The problem I'm having is with aphids? I've looked under the leaves and did not see any. Not to many plants to lose but looking for a further solution to address the issue if it continues with my other plants. Just disappointed seeing as these were my more mature seedlings and quite a few of my WANTED varieties to munch on. But I have some back up seeds to redo but would like to try and save. I'll run out to Home Depot tomorrow and get what I need to get but want to make sure I'm getting the correct thing. Organocide is sold there but not sure if that helps with aphids. Is pyrethrin sold there? Either way I'll check back and keep you updated. Thanks you guys.

 
A redo won't help; aphids are everywhere and will always manage to infest your plants to some degree.
 
Most foggers and spray-can bug sprays are based on synthetic pyrethrins.  Get get the smallest, cheapest can available.  (I found some PowerHouse Flying Insect Killer at the 99 cent store. A mix of Tetramethrin, Permethrin, and piperonyl butoxide, FWIW)  That stuff works great with my q-tip application method, and is a vastly less damaging (I think I caused one or two tiny burn spots at most) to the plants than spraying them with neem oil or insecticide, or completely immersing them in some witch's brew.
 
Hopefully the ladybugs will offer an ongoing cure...

 

[SL3]

Sent PM

 

[pwb]

What about hot water? Sink the hole plant in hot water. Its done on strawberry plants and i think i have seen on this forum that other have done it on chiliplant.

 

[Geonerd]

What? you don't use straight H2O2?

 

What about hot water? Sink the hole plant in hot water. Its done on strawberry plants and i think i have seen on this forum that other have done it on chiliplant.

 
Boiling concentrated hydrogen peroxide will definitely take care of the little buggers!

 

[D3monic]

I've never had luck with neem either and I'm fully with pfeffer, give em a good soak in a peroxide bath, rinse all dirt off the roots and plant into a inert soil thats been either microwaved or oven baked. Hot water most likely will kill the plants

 

[bucdout57]

It seems like a terrible infestation. With an infestation this bad I would get a big bucket of hand warm water, unpot your plant and submerge completely and vigioursly rins all the stuff of the leaves and roots (you should have clean white roots without yellowish grains or soil) As it's damn near impossible to perfectly cover all spots, so you'll always end up with survivors. They also nest in the soil for cover/humidity and that is the hardest to clean out. As it might originate from eggs in your soil, microwave the soil thoroughly before use. This will also kill of beneficial microorganisms but it's the best of two evils. Let it Cool down well before use.
This will get rid of 99% of the aphids so that you have a fighting chance again. Keep monitoring the plants 2-3 times a day for a week until you don't find aphids/gnats anymore.
Rinse of your hands between each plant/before repotting as the eggs that float around in the water might stick to your hands.
Good luck, this is going to take a lot of patience, nerves and swearing.

Picked up some sprays from Home Depot earlier before coming to work. But will kinda jumped the gun last night and bought some more lady bugs and bought the insecticides this morning not thinking the insecticide would kill the lady bugs. Thinking now it would be wrong to use both. Gonna check my plant this evening and see if there is any improvement. Then try both demonic and Pfeffer reccomendations.

Here is what I bought.
http://imgur.com/CzY8t3T

Thank god for THP and it's experience professionals. Thank you all for the fast responses and informative suggestion. I will post back in a week with an update. Thanks again.

 

[CAPCOM]

 
A redo won't help; aphids are everywhere and will always manage to infest your plants to some degree.
 
Most foggers and spray-can bug sprays are based on synthetic pyrethrins.  Get get the smallest, cheapest can available.  (I found some PowerHouse Flying Insect Killer at the 99 cent store. A mix of Tetramethrin, Permethrin, and piperonyl butoxide, FWIW)  That stuff works great with my q-tip application method, and is a vastly less damaging (I think I caused one or two tiny burn spots at most) to the plants than spraying them with neem oil or insecticide, or completely immersing them in some witch's brew.
 
Hopefully the ladybugs will offer an ongoing cure...

they will be of little effect unless they stay and lay lots and lots of eggs

 

[CAPCOM]

Hi Capcom,
 
I understand, however the soil is the most likely cause of infection in the first place. Also, indoors male (i.e. winged) aphids also start to appear quite fast (compared to outside grows). In my experience eggs can hatch over months, so they don't all hatch when the conditions are good.. even when you cut the life cycle. So the soil changing is not really to fight the infestation itself, more to cut the life cycle that's going on in the soil. It's probably crawling with eggs and gnat larvae.
 
Else you would just keep fighting the symptoms up in the leaves whilst they are happily hatching in the soil. With such bad infestations you will have to go full on you want to fight it. It's a case of everything or nothing here I'm afraid..
 
This is based on European aphids though, it's possible that you have different breds of aphids over there, though they all seem a like.

I dont know that I would consider an in the garage grow in L.A. California an indoor grow. But all that aside, I have been here over the last 2 years and once you get to this point there is a 95% probability you dont get to win, at least not with these plants.