Pest control (gnats)

1st time grow, 4 weeks in and just noticed loads of gnats. Do not want to use chems. What is the best organic sloution to my issue?

Fungas gnats won't harm your plants, they will annoy the shit out of you though. Their larvae are what you need to worry about. Get some diatomaceous earth and place it on your soil. It will kill any larvae that could pop up. As far as the gnats themselves get some sticky traps.

i had this problem, i just put a layer of perlite on top soil and i havent seen any flying gnats for months
But when you cover the top soil you need to also cover the drain holes, because they come out from there once top soil is covered

go to your hydro store and get these yellow sticky things and i used some go knats or something like that worked good.

fly strips are good for controlling them as well.

I use fly strips in my greenhouse and they work great. I also transplanted a couple of orb weaver spiders into there and even the fly strips are looking bare now. Their web locations can get annoying but they're always quick to rebuild if torn down-- spider, whom are web weavers, are perfect. Of course if it's not an enclosed area they'll probably just leave. I've also heard of people putting a thin layer of sand on top of the soil since the larvae grow out of the soil, but I haven't used this method. Good luck to you.

Yeah I've hung sticky traps and have seen them fill up very fast. The diatomaceous earth doest hurt the plant? and where would I find something like that.

allhazedout said:

Yeah I've hung sticky traps and have seen them fill up very fast. The diatomaceous earth doest hurt the plant? and where would I find something like that.

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Diatomaceous earth won't hurt your plants at all. You should be able to find it at any garden center and some hardware stores. You shouldn't use the stuff for pool filters. I'm not sure why but it's not suitable for our purposes. Best of luck.

i use HOTSHOT NO STICK PEST STRIPS works great!!

greenpeace31 said:

i use HOTSHOT NO STICK PEST STRIPS works great!!

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This is bad advice!!!! The hotshot no pest strips are supposed to be used in areas which are not occupied by humans for more than 4 hours a day. I've heard of them making people very sick. Here is a website which explains why you shouldn't use the DE for pools. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for explanation.

http://www.dirtworks.net/Diatomaceous-Earth.html

Thanks for all the suggestions, I found a neem oil spray that worked really well.