Root aphids!!!

So I have plant that I'm just about to flower. Was going to switch to 12/12 last week but i noticed what seemed to be a deficiency where there shouldn't have been. I though she might be getting root bound so i popped her out the pot and BAM!!. Fucking root aphids..... Their population doesn't seem to high and the plant is still getting good growth. I want to pick up a systemic, does anyone know of one that I could use so close to flowering?

good luck getting rid of the bastards...i've used azamax before with ok results, have also used the dr. doom spray. If you are ok with systemic bayer advanced seems to be the best solution. I use either go-gnats, sns 217, sns 244 or neem oil, applied to the top layer of soil almost every day. Numbers are way down maybe 20-30 in flower room and 0-1 fliers in veg room at any given time. Would love to find out an organic solution to the problem.

Yeah I only noticed 4 or 5 when I up rooted, but wanted to nip it in the butt. I gave it a slight flush with a concoction I came up with after doing some reading. I didn't measure because it was going be really LIGHT. Boiled some water and put in some cloves, ground red pepper, orange extract and a little horseradish. I let it sit for an hour to cool and blend. I covered all the holes in the pot and flushed. Let the flushed pot sit for about 15 mins then flushed about 4X the pot size with just water. I had a few yellowing bottom leaves and they haven't yellowed at all since that flush. I transplanted because it needed it and it's seems to be doing alright. I certainly don't think that my diy method there is going to do much beside piss them off, but I wanted to try and figured it couldn't hurt and hasn't lol. I haven't seen any fliers at all and there wasn't even the waxy deposits they're known for, so I think if I can get it done soon, I might be okay.

hey james whats your deficiencies look like? i have been stressing about these things cause a couple buddies had em, now im thinkin i haves em too... lol

It's very similar to an N def or Mag def. They destroy the roots so the plant can't take up nutrients. Here's a tip, don't get clones from a dispensary, especially in cali. I've seen that alot of infected clones are coming from them. I think there may be a thread on here about phantom deficiencies, very informative. But so you know, root aphids are the worst pest you can get in a grow. They're incredibly hard to kill and it only takes on living to re-infest your grow. They reproduce asexually and each one is a female that gives life birth to other pregnant females..... fucking evolution....

sounds like a pain, but nothing like what im experiencing, lol

lol @ evolution

Fuck these aphids!

they will get worse and ruin your harvest if you dont take care of them in veg.
read my thread about fungus gnats vs root aphids.

you should take clones and throw out all your soil. this is the eaisest way to remove the population. while cloning in a clean area, clean your rooms.
get some MET 52 and when your clones root, plant in MET innoculated medium. works great. i have been aphid free for 3 months now. just had my first harvest. plants started with aphids and ended up without.

when i first got them i did mighty wash drenches...worked pretty good. dont know if it killed them all off but it def did some dammage. if you have the $ i would fill up a rubbermaid and dunk your pots/roots in for a few min....

also make sure after do a safer insectidal soap drench to wash the roots of oils and shit from the bugs.

good luck
yes these are the hardest bugs to get rid of. the best way is to remove all soil and treat new clones early

and never, never get clones from dispensaries. i honestly dont know how the disps. are having sucess cloning with RA infestations. they eat the roots quickly.

I got mine from a friend. The thing is I'm only growing this one plant. I did take a few clones to throw outside when the time comes, but I'm going to be moving sometime this spring and just don't have time to restart a crop ATM. But since I took the clones I really need to get in under control. I think my friend may have them and just not know. He's been getting rather shitty yields for his set up so I've been trying to contact him to see if he wants to go in on some Met 52 since I'll never need all of it. And I have a rubbermaid to use for dunking which is exactly what I was planning to do. Actually I did check out your thread before I made this one. However if I can get my hands on some ortho or bayer would that work? The clone is NL and I know they're around 8 weeks flower. Would I be able to use anything systemic in the next week or so and still be able to harvest? I read on another site a dude got an infestation the first week of flowering, used bayer and just did and extra week of flush and it came out fine but idk about that..... Yeah the hardest.... It broke my heart when I saw those little bastards. I had one plant a few months back that seemed to have some problems late in flowering and i just attributed it to its own natural processes.... guess I was wrong...

i only used systemic once and it was on a mom i took clones from, never flowered it
you will never know if its safe unless you got it tested.
i dont like smoking pesticides.

JamesQuall said:

So I have plant that I'm just about to flower. Was going to switch to 12/12 last week but i noticed what seemed to be a deficiency where there shouldn't have been. I though she might be getting root bound so i popped her out the pot and BAM!!. Fucking root aphids..... Their population doesn't seem to high and the plant is still getting good growth. I want to pick up a systemic, does anyone know of one that I could use so close to flowering?

Click to expand...

desolve a half of a mosquito dunk in a 5 gallon bucket and apply as a soil drench once per day for 5 days. Its safe to apply alongside you're other nutes. when it comes time to flush dont use molasses because it can trap some of the MB in the plant. Flush for 10 days with 6.3PH H20 to ensure clean, smooth, smoke. Useing water that is slightly acidic seems to clense my plants better than neutral or alkaline h20.

really? mosiquito dunks do nothing to root aphids.

they barely work for gnats. they are only 10% bti.

mighty wash and liquid pyrethum with a contact fungus like met 52 or biotaniquard is the only way besides chemy avid or systemic imid

I'm going to finish up these last few I have in flower and close up my room for a couple weeks with some no pest strips in there and my hit my veggies with the bayer and dr. doom before I put them in there. I have managed to eradicate them from the veg area, just worried about them reappearing when put in to flower. I am all about not using chemicals but its been about 6 months now, thought I had them gone once and I am tired of thinking about root aphids all day.

Read althors thread if ur tired of fungus gnats and root aphids..they will be gone in 1-2 days fucken guarentee it! I did it it worked like a fuckin charm! Do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the future...try micro waving your soil. Kill all those little bastards before you have a problem.

JMHO

So I was going to transplant her because she needed it, seemed to bet getting root bound. I said had already done it but I decided to wait and see if I could find a solution before infecting a while new batch of soil. I took her out of the pot and didn't see one single bug... is that normal at all??? from my understands of their reproduction shouldn't there have been more? Now when I first noticed what those bugs there were only a few and were only on the one spot. There is no waxy residue they are said to leave behind... I dunno man.... wtf did I see?? Gonna transplant her tonight and see how it goes. I had been lowering the lights for the past week or so to get down to 12/12 and apparently lowering it below 18/6 was enough to induce flowering as today I noticed some nice pistils and early formations. I guess since it's in flowering, which I wasn't planning on, if there is an infestation I'll just have to see how it works out. But really, how I could I see them there a couple days ago and see absolutely none today? Could I be wrong?

put out some traps either yellow stickies or put a cup with vinigar
if you have flyers you will see them. if you have crawlers you will see them on the outside of the pots...look at drainage holes and rim.

cup of vinegar with dish soap guareenteed to work bubble it up with a water spray into the cup to get it bubbled up

I've even vacuumed all loose soil on the top of my pots out and sucked up all the crawlers a couple of times. I've been letting them get very dry between waterings,going to try watering from the bottom and see if that helps. Have you tried the vinegar with dishsoap? Seems like a terrible thing to put on your roots but I would sacrifice a plant to try it at this point.

the sticky traps work well if you are trying to keep numbers down but doesn't do anything for the crawlers eating the roots. Go gnats soil drench really seems to knock them back more than anything I have tried.