Jump to content

Pest Control and Biological ways to control them.


greenkush
 Share

Recommended Posts

I seem plagued with thrips.  Having a partner that had recently completed her PhD in the field of agricultural biological control agents we decided to embark on a experiment in terms of controlling different forms of insect control. Her research primarily focused on that of specific nematode species. These are tiny worms that live in the soil and exert specific types of host seeking behavior in order to track down their pray. This got me tracking down a few companies, notably Jamies garden which I was not that impressed with in terms of feedback, delivery and other factors. 

In any event, living seeds sells these IPM's (integrated pest management) solutions, however their prices are borderline criminal. So this led me to find Koppert,  they do take some time to reply to emails so its best to really investigate in advance if you would like to use one of their control mechanisms.

So these are the products I specifically queried on:

Swirski-Mite - 1L bottle (contains 50,000 mites)                  R422

Sportnem-T rather Capasanem 2 x 25Mil                               R256

Thripex-Plus  , 500 sachets                                                           R1246

Thripex-V 1L                                                                                       NA (price not provided as Plus was)

My approach for future grows will be that of a two attack approach, I will use steinernema carpocapsae, which is a nematode species referred to as SportNem-T, this will be used as a soil drench you will notice the amounts you get (50 million), they are very small and barely noticeable with the naked eye. They will seek out soil born insects such as larvae and potentially even fungus gnats yet to start flying. They do this  by action of entering the opening of the insect and releasing a bacteria into the host insect and slowly begin to digest it. These nematodes in particular are harmless to the plant and humans and pose no environmental risk at all , in fact you most likely have them in your garden already, or some other specific species of them such as steinernema feltiae.

The other approach will be the use of Swirski mites, 50,0000 of these go for 422 where living seeds charges 89R for 250.... These are predator mites and will hunt down thrips, and various other broad mites.

Anyways, thought i'd share some info on this and the company I will be getting my biological control agents from.

Edited by greenkush
  • Like 3
  • Thanks 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
1 hour ago, Trailblazer420 said:

Is there a sure fire chemical way to get rid of gnats? Plants are in early veg, so I'm sure toxins would be gone by the time flowering starts.

Sent from my CLT-L29 using Tapatalk
 

Well you could try a systemic pesticide, but it would need to be done very early in the grow. Complete 350 SC is pretty powerful, but yeeah I'd rathe rjust deal witth the gnats to be honest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, SkunkPharm said:

There is a biological spray on Jamie's garden shops website. And bioleaf sells insects but their delivery fee is more than the cost of the insects.

Sent from my VTR-L09 using Tapatalk
 

Don't bother getting insects from third parties get directly from the source. Refer to my original post.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

On 3/6/2019 at 12:07 PM, greenkush said:

I seem plagued with thrips.  Having a partner that had recently completed her PhD in the field of agricultural biological control agents we decided to embark on a experiment in terms of controlling different forms of insect control. Her research primarily focused on that of specific nematode species. These are tiny worms that live in the soil and exert specific types of host seeking behavior in order to track down their pray. This got me tracking down a few companies, notably Jamies garden which I was not that impressed with in terms of feedback, delivery and other factors. 

In any event, living seeds sells these IPM's (integrated pest management) solutions, however their prices are borderline criminal. So this led me to find Koppert,  they do take some time to reply to emails so its best to really investigate in advance if you would like to use one of their control mechanisms.

So these are the products I specifically queried on:

Swirski-Mite - 1L bottle (contains 50,000 mites)                  R422

Sportnem-T rather Capasanem 2 x 25Mil                               R256

Thripex-Plus  , 500 sachets                                                           R1246

Thripex-V 1L                                                                                       NA (price not provided as Plus was)

My approach for future grows will be that of a two attack approach, I will use steinernema carpocapsae, which is a nematode species referred to as SportNem-T, this will be used as a soil drench you will notice the amounts you get (50 million), they are very small and barely noticeable with the naked eye. They will seek out soil born insects such as larvae and potentially even fungus gnats yet to start flying. They do this  by action of entering the opening of the insect and releasing a bacteria into the host insect and slowly begin to digest it. These nematodes in particular are harmless to the plant and humans and pose no environmental risk at all , in fact you most likely have them in your garden already, or some other specific species of them such as steinernema feltiae.

The other approach will be the use of Swirski mites, 50,0000 of these go for 422 where living seeds charges 89R for 250.... These are predator mites and will hunt down thrips, and various other broad mites.

Anyways, thought i'd share some info on this and the company I will be getting my biological control agents from.

I also get plagued by thrips every so on, and i dont find Bioneem to be that effective. I see you mentioned Koppert, they are not local am I right? So you will obviously ship them to SA?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, RedEye said:

 

I also get plagued by thrips every so on, and i dont find Bioneem to be that effective. I see you mentioned Koppert, they are not local am I right? So you will obviously ship them to SA?

Koppert have a regional office based in Lanseria.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Another agent that can be used for control of fungus gnat larvae is bacillus thuringiensis israelensis , this can be found in  https://www.futurama.co.za/kirschhoffs-margaret-roberts-organic-biological-mosquito-insecticide-50g/ , you will notice the primary constituent being :

ACTIVE INGREDIENTS: Bacillus thuringiensis subsp.israelensis………..3000 ITE/mg

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4014730/

Quote

Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. israelensis (Bti) is the first Bacillus thuringiensis to be found and used as an effective biological control agent against larvae of many mosquito and black fly species around the world. Its larvicidal activity resides in four major (of 134, 128, 72 and 27 kDa) and at least two minor (of 78 and 29 kDa) polypeptides encoded respectively by cry4Aa, cry4Ba, cry11Aa, cyt1Aa, cry10Aa and cyt2Ba, all mapped on the 128 kb plasmid known as pBtoxis. These six δ-endotoxins form a complex parasporal crystalline body with remarkably high, specific and different toxicities to Aedes, Culex and Anopheleslarvae. Cry toxins are composed of three domains (perforating domain I and receptor binding II and III) and create cation-selective channels, whereas Cyts are composed of one domain that acts as well as a detergent-like membrane perforator. Despite the low toxicities of Cyt1Aa and Cyt2Ba alone against exposed larvae, they are highly synergistic with the Cry toxins and hence their combinations prevent emergence of resistance in the targets. The lack of significant levels of resistance in field mosquito populations treated for decades with Bti-bioinsecticide suggests that this bacterium will be an effective biocontrol agent for years to come.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Love it!! I bought swirskii mites from living seeds and I didn't get enough.. You are right on the money there man, thanks for the new supplier! 

As I was saying, I really went through a discouraging patch of growing and almost threw in the towel completely.. 

I left my indoor grows to grow and they got out of hand... It was mostly due to the pests I had.. Thrips and white flies then.. Eating my plants terribly. 

When I eventually got my vigour back, I found that thrips were on the decline... Whiteflies were all gone... But fuck I had spider webs!! I thought... Here we go... Fuck this all to hell... And started closing shop so to speak... As I investigated further... I found that they were just general house spiders and daddy long legs spiders webs... 

I put two and two together and realized that I need to preserve this relationship somehow... So I left the spider webs..even if they were on my plants (web development is very very different to spider mites) 

Obviously one isn't going to abandon their grow to get this right, but you can build it up slowly by leaving the random webs in your grow tent corners... 

I go further and bring in other predators into the grow from the garden, namely male and female praying mantis, lady bugs when I find them.. 

I must note that I have a small population of midge flies... I don't get rid of them as the spiders eat them too

I have found a balance in my grow space and now I just need to maintain it. 

But if this isn't an option... 50000 swirskii mites from koppert will sort you out ❤️

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

What a trying grow this has been. Gnat infestation, followed by aphids and now thrips. In all the years of growing, I have never experienced how cruel mother nature can be. She has a twisted sense of humour :(

I'm going to have to look at predatory mites, both my tents are infested, veg and flower.

Sent from my CLT-L29 using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What a trying grow this has been. Gnat infestation, followed by aphids and now thrips. In all the years of growing, I have never experienced how cruel mother nature can be. She has a twisted sense of humour :(

I'm going to have to look at predatory mites, both my tents are infested, veg and flower.

Sent from my CLT-L29 using Tapatalk


The fungus gnats lay their eggs in the soil and then the larvae eat the roots of your plants.

Margaret Roberts has a mosquito pesticide, it's nematodes. Try some of that in your soil to eat the larvea and then the predatory mites sounds good.

Otherwise try Neem or Pyrol instead of the mites - but might I think may be better. Gotta spread them all over the plant as they're a little lazy.

Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...