Little Fly thingies...

[silverdelange]

Hi.

Can anybody identify these little guys and how to get rid of them? There are thousands flying around my grow room. Can they be the cause of the spots on my leaves?

 

[EvenSteven]

Looks like fungus gnats, never dealt with them before not sure if that leaf damage is being caused by them

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

@silverdelange

what's up man, 

yeah you got a typical fungus gnat there. eggs that was in the top 5cm of soil hatched. go check your pots for larvae in the top soil.

First off, is the plant healthy? A fully healthy plant should be "unfavourable" to insects, molds and diseases.

as for the spots on the leaves, I think you might be dealing with another kinda insect. mites or thrips. 

2 ways to mend your soft bodied insect infestation that will benefit the plant also. Get 2 or 3 heaped table spoons of Diatomaceous Earth, sprinkle it on the top soil after watering as to not get it soaked, but have a dry layer of it on the top soil, can be mixed in lightly. The plant will benefit from the calcium, silica and other forms of nutrients the DE will add to the soil. This will kill the larvae and other insects that move around on the soil surface. Other way is to get some BioNeem and Pyrol, spray the Pyrol to help kill off the infestation, use the BioNeem on a weekly schedule to keep it under control. the plant benefits from the Neem oil ⁶helping it build a strong imune system so it can fight back against pests and diseases by itself. 

NB - this can NOT be done during flower. hope you still vegging?

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

another thing to concider is the grow space itself. is it a tent? was it owned by someone else? do you have good FAE and circulation? hows conditions?

[Prom]

hang some sticky fly traps around the plants to reduce the reproduction too... not to difficult to get rid of those.

Check with some proper magnifiers, what is going on with those spots. Can be pests to calcium issues.

[Stinger96]

Diotomacious earth also sort them out quick.. It's now standard practice for me to mix it in my soil before pot up or potting.. No more issues..

[Dr. Green]

Looks like you have thrips and fungus gnats both not too difficult to get rid of. The damage on the leaves look like thrips to me I had my first unfortunate encounter with them in my last grow. 

For the thrips get some swirsky predatory mites biobee and livingseeds is where I got mine. 

 

For the gnats I spray some Margaret Roberts Biological Mosquito insecticide on the topsoil then ad a layer of Diatomaceous Earth when top soil is dry and hang some sticky yellow traps. Make sure you don't overwater gnats love moist soil

This way you don't have to spray anything on your plants and can treat like this even in flower 

[Pants]

I double the DE. Was struggling with gnats for weeks until I found that.

For the thrips I ended up with Ludwig’s spray that got them sorted


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[silverdelange]

@Naughty.Psychonaut.

I am growing in my garage, a small space I created to grow 4 plants at a time. Unfortunately I am flowering, but it is a fem breeding project I am busy with. Breeding Gorilla Glue with Wedding Cake and Banana Kosher Kush. I hope these goggas did not stuff around with my pollination because I haven't seen any seeds developing yet....

I will try the above recommendations. Thanks for everyone's input thus far! 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

@silverdelange aha I see, garage setup, do you have tech telling you the RH and temps close to your plants? Also very important here, good air circulation, like a fan blowing the stagnant air between the leaves and branches of the plants and sufficient fresh air for the plants?

hows the breeding regime working?

I assume there is a CS or STS thing going on if you're crossing fems, which means you will not be able to smoke the buds of the plant that you're treating to make pollen anyway, you might aswell dust that whole plant with DE. only if you not gona smoke the buds. the plants you wana smoke I will say make a 50% Neem mix and keep spraying the plants weekly to keep the bugs away, till say about 3 weeks before harvesting then you will NEED to wash the plant with water 24hrs after you spray it with neem. just to change the taste of the leaves and make it unfavourable for the buggers, don't let the neem sit on the buds. You will also NEED to wash the buds once dried. a 3 phase dunk bath with baking soda, citric soda and clean water to get rid of bugs and the neem that'll still be on the buds. don't wana smoke that. 

hope this helps bud, fuck can't loose a breeding project to a couple of bugs! 

[silverdelange]

@Naughty.Psychonaut to be honest, my air circulation could be improved a bit. Did not really worry about this as I am not really stressed about a good yield, just breeding this round, no smoke. I am monitoring the RH and temps, hovering around 50% and 23 deg Celsius.

I STS'd a plant on the previous round, and stored the pollen in the freezer for breeding this time around. I may have stuffed it up somewhere, because it does not look like the pollen is working. It has been about 3 weeks and no seeds visible yet.

Anyway, I will give it another week or two.

Thank a lot for the tips. Learning more and more each day.

 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

yeah the 50% RH with insufficient circulation is for sure a contributing factor in creating a breeding zone. the plants need to be "dancing in the wind" so you know the air that gets trapped between the branches and leaves gets blown away.

if you're not worried about flower you might aswell dust the whole plant with DE.

also I forgot to mention that Pyrol and other contact insecticides will shrivel up your pistils and hinder your breeding a lot!!! Bioneem might also do this. so stay away from these when already in flower!

I think you'll be best off spraying some homemade bug deterant like tap water with chopped up chillies and garlic ans few drops of soap, let it sit in the sun 12 to 24hrs and spray every couple days. plus dust the plants with DE. 

only a pleasure bro, that's why we all here 

[Prom]

3 hours ago, silverdelange said:

I STS'd a plant on the previous round, and stored the pollen in the freezer for breeding this time around. I may have stuffed it up somewhere, because it does not look like the pollen is working. It has been about 3 weeks and no seeds visible yet.

Did you properly dry your pollen and mix with flower? If the pollen was wet, is a dead sentence in the freezer.

[silverdelange]

@PromYup. Mixed with flour and all. Might have been a bad batch, I struggled a lot to get a small amount from that round of STS treatment. I changed the STS recipe after that run and it seemed to work great with an autoflower breeding project I did.

 

[Prom]

No difference between autos and photos to my knowing. 

3 weeks... give it more time 

[CreX]

i have also battled with storing pollen.

tried with and without flour... everything seems to cake up or mold eventually.

even pollen finer than talcom powder when i stored it eventually stops being powder like.

from my experience, a home grower should make and use the pollen in a short amount of time - as its harvested for best results.

my best result is using pollen that was still powder, but was 2 months old... i must have used about a quarter teaspoon of pollen on a plant only to yield 4 seeds.... which were all male in the end hahaha.

fresh is best!

[Bos]

Best to use pollen fresh. Had better success drying or dehumidifying my pollen before freezing, stays fluffy/powdery, but prefer rice above flour though. Plants have a pollination window when the tips of the pistils are just starting to brown, but its best to chuck more than once to increase your chances.