Tact
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Not springtails as originally thought.
Check out this thread regarding root aphids (the true plague of MJ), best on the web as of now, and for those in SoCal this is apparently becoming a common occurance lately, potentially due to tons of infected soil, I have FFOF personally, in the mid-west.
hXXp://www.mjp.com/ic/showthread.php?t=159960
Subcool gave me some feedbank when I pointed him towards my intial thread in which I was speculating on having springtails in my soil (but they dont spring, so it wasn't adding up), yet look slightly like spider mites, but are not. Not a single insect in the plant above the soil, all leaves/branches/buds clear, they are in the soil, but not fungus gnats, or white fly larvae. Though the damage they can do can beckon opportunitistic fungus gnats due to the wound left on damaged roots.
The first sign of bugs being present were dead ones that were in the water runoff on thursday, after I watered 1G water per 5G pot the runoff collects in a tray under the plants which I then shop-vac up, when I came back 20m water to vac up all the runoff there was a ton of dead white specks, some were moving.
Upon closer inspection and churning the top few inches of soil they started to 'emerge'. I never would of known they ever existed much less by the 1000s apparently, absolutely writhing when you stop and look for a solid minute. I highly suggest anyone with any phantom nute lockout, or mag/cal defficiency that does not seem to improve completely as well as 'rust' spots check their soil by churning the top inch around a bit with a fork and looking for these visible-by-the-naked eye bugs. These are different then regular aphids, these are root aphids, they live completely under the soil by roots and in the top 2 inches of soil. They eventually can becoming winged black adults that look very similair to fungus gnats but are simply a late-stage metamorphisis of a stressed population of root aphids that are trying to expand. They can be any color from white to red (slight similairty to spider mites without 100x mag) in the pre-winged stage, not all infestations will produce 'winged' adults, it only occurs if there population can not be sustained by their present enviroment.
I was not at the adult winged phase, it appears they are almost all nymphs, though obviouslly adults are around as they exist right, so in short who knows how long I have had them? I treated them with Dia. Earth today, 4 pound bag with 2 cups of the powder spread evenly over the top soil of all pots, used all 4 pounds of one bag. Since I am only 13 days from harvest I may have to water them two-three more times, so I have another 4 pound bag but might try and take them the distance and not water them for a week and let the soil get really dry and hopefully they climb up to escape through the death trap of powdered razor blades. Typically I have had to water every 4 days due to them wilting badly at 5 days, my soil is FFOF with 4 cups per 5-gallon pot of FF chunky perlite, great drainage.
Link to original thread which was intially thought to be springtails:
http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=53621
Link to dia earth applied:
http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=156212&d=1268438014
I was surprised to not find any posts regarding root aphids specfically, so here you go. Within 12 months a few people have to google it, and this will get hit. So here is the knowledge. Apparently the best way to treat them is a combination of predatory nematodes, a few very specific insecticides, and luck, you can't eliminate them but you can slow them down potentially long enough to harvest, depending on your infection rate. The original link I posted above has a plethora of information, photos, and treatment results. Everyone check your soil just to be sure from time to time, they get flustered if you poke around with your finger or an object in the top soil.
Check out this thread regarding root aphids (the true plague of MJ), best on the web as of now, and for those in SoCal this is apparently becoming a common occurance lately, potentially due to tons of infected soil, I have FFOF personally, in the mid-west.
hXXp://www.mjp.com/ic/showthread.php?t=159960
Subcool gave me some feedbank when I pointed him towards my intial thread in which I was speculating on having springtails in my soil (but they dont spring, so it wasn't adding up), yet look slightly like spider mites, but are not. Not a single insect in the plant above the soil, all leaves/branches/buds clear, they are in the soil, but not fungus gnats, or white fly larvae. Though the damage they can do can beckon opportunitistic fungus gnats due to the wound left on damaged roots.
The first sign of bugs being present were dead ones that were in the water runoff on thursday, after I watered 1G water per 5G pot the runoff collects in a tray under the plants which I then shop-vac up, when I came back 20m water to vac up all the runoff there was a ton of dead white specks, some were moving.
Upon closer inspection and churning the top few inches of soil they started to 'emerge'. I never would of known they ever existed much less by the 1000s apparently, absolutely writhing when you stop and look for a solid minute. I highly suggest anyone with any phantom nute lockout, or mag/cal defficiency that does not seem to improve completely as well as 'rust' spots check their soil by churning the top inch around a bit with a fork and looking for these visible-by-the-naked eye bugs. These are different then regular aphids, these are root aphids, they live completely under the soil by roots and in the top 2 inches of soil. They eventually can becoming winged black adults that look very similair to fungus gnats but are simply a late-stage metamorphisis of a stressed population of root aphids that are trying to expand. They can be any color from white to red (slight similairty to spider mites without 100x mag) in the pre-winged stage, not all infestations will produce 'winged' adults, it only occurs if there population can not be sustained by their present enviroment.
I was not at the adult winged phase, it appears they are almost all nymphs, though obviouslly adults are around as they exist right, so in short who knows how long I have had them? I treated them with Dia. Earth today, 4 pound bag with 2 cups of the powder spread evenly over the top soil of all pots, used all 4 pounds of one bag. Since I am only 13 days from harvest I may have to water them two-three more times, so I have another 4 pound bag but might try and take them the distance and not water them for a week and let the soil get really dry and hopefully they climb up to escape through the death trap of powdered razor blades. Typically I have had to water every 4 days due to them wilting badly at 5 days, my soil is FFOF with 4 cups per 5-gallon pot of FF chunky perlite, great drainage.
Link to original thread which was intially thought to be springtails:
http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=53621
Link to dia earth applied:
http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=156212&d=1268438014
I was surprised to not find any posts regarding root aphids specfically, so here you go. Within 12 months a few people have to google it, and this will get hit. So here is the knowledge. Apparently the best way to treat them is a combination of predatory nematodes, a few very specific insecticides, and luck, you can't eliminate them but you can slow them down potentially long enough to harvest, depending on your infection rate. The original link I posted above has a plethora of information, photos, and treatment results. Everyone check your soil just to be sure from time to time, they get flustered if you poke around with your finger or an object in the top soil.