Wise advice right there.first you need to identify the little bugger correctly, so that you can apply the correct treatment.!
plus it mixes like a dream!! never have i ever mixed a neem product so well, and i take pride in my mixes. honestly thats the hardest part with neem oil. other than that god awful smell. i worked as a greenhouse laborer on and off over the years and it seemed i was the only one dumb enough to make 50 gallon drums of it. my neem mix didnt seem to kill powdery mildew tho, but its been awhile since ive had to try luckily.solid advice from mushead in my opinion. quantum apocalypse is a cold pressed neem oil that is by far the most effective and safest spider mite killer on the market. not only does it work for mites but it also takes out thrips, whitefly, mealybug, and diseases such as powdery mildew. the other nice thing is that it is fairly inexpensive. 25 bucks for the concentrate that makes 3-6 gallons of spray is at least half the cost of other less effective products out there. no need for any grower to ever worry about losing a crop to spider mites again.
I have soil mites and springtails, I treat the soil daily with a few sprays from a spray bottle with garlic, habenero and soap; seems to kill the gnats and does nothing to the springtails, I have been finding only a handful of gnats per day and havent seen any the last few days, so I think I am on the offensive now.Did you have soil mites? what kind of pests did you have?
how did you manage the fly traps? did you use those coiled paper things? cause i had traumatic experience with that few weeks ago! in my hair and on my face and everywhere! is that what you were using?i also discovered tiny nearly impossible to see, without at least 30x loop, little critters on my soil tonight. they are in some seedlings that are about 4 weeks old now. I also have some fungus gnats flying around which can go hand in hand with these root aphids that someone mentioned above.
I however think that i have determined it to be soil mites and here is why... they are moving very slow and are very small, all of them are translucent or white with pointy mite like head (but so small even at 30x i cant make out how many legs or face and what not). I see no quintessential tail pipes on the back that aphids usually have and they are on top of my coco soiless mix not down in the roots. Well they are probably everywhere in the pot but they dont seem to be exclusively near the roots. i dug down and because it is a young seedling not hard to find roots, they look fine. i checked my fly traps and only have fungus gnats i dont see any black flying root aphids also judged by tail pipes and body type.
Seems like i have soil mites and they are good, i have seen them in my compost bin before. im trying not to worry, as i have already been battling spider mites this round but havent seen any for two weeks maybe three. How is my logic on this?
they move slow, i see no mature dark tail piped aphids, they dont jump so that means they are not the other beneficial, they only thing i dont know is what they would be feeding on in coco, i guess it is organic matter and as a result of young plants the coco stays wet for a few days after watering it could be breaking down, or maybe they are feeding on fungus gnat shit, im not sure. i havnt seen the gnats for a few days either. I regularly spray soil and plants with neem or hot pepper/garlic/soap sprays too. doesnt seem to bother these little devils they just keep slowly moving about nearly invisible to naked eye unless clustered up.
cheers,
haha... i cant imagine it on my face...Yeah they are nasty. I put a few of the cheap coiled paper things up around the room but like up where i dont go. they trapped probably 20-50 gnats or so, ive just been keeping the soil dry and using the pepper spray on the surface it seems to kill the adults and small but flying ones, also tried the potato slices and threw them away every 3rd day and they would have a few larva on them. i havent tried putting the fly traps down by the soil or hanging low or anything, i figure i dont have to bad of a gnat problem yet.how did you manage the fly traps? did you use those coiled paper things? cause i had traumatic experience with that few weeks ago! in my hair and on my face and everywhere! is that what you were using?