Steamboat Today: Gardening: Managing fungus gnats on plants
Three products for controlling fungus gnats are Knock-out Gnats! to hand from Gardens Alive, Gnatrol and Vectobac, biological larvicides, and EPA approved for use on fungus gnats. For more low-down about this winter problem, stop www.colostate.edu/Depts/CoopExt, and assign to two reality sheets: Flies in the Home No. 5.502 and Bacillus thuringiensis No. 5.556. Steamboat Springs Here in northern Colorado, what we may awake fruit flies flying around preferential our homes or hopping across the ground of our houseplants in winter all things considered are fungus gnats.
They could have entered your habitation with open-air plants that have been brought also gaol for the winter or on rude tools. They are nurtured by watering too mcuh and the fungus created by downright and decaying leaves of the plants. They provision on the besmirch fungi but do dollop or no hurt the roots of the plants.
Two fundamental authority methods include allowing at least the culmination inch of the soil of your houseplants to dry out before watering again, and ceasing use of fish emulsion fertilizer. Clean each factory of callous leaves and delete any fallen leaves from the soil surface to daunt the growth of fungus and hiding places for not only gnats but other insect pests, as well. Placing a little wheel of sweetened water or mouthwash near the plants will pull the gnats, causing them to drown in the liquid. Several insecticides are on tap to target either the flying podium or the larval stage.
Houseplant sprays of pyrethrum, applied at two- to three-day intervals for three to four weeks, treats the adult-stage gnats. Yellow hairy traps may be old for monitoring as some gnats will get stuck, giving you an work out of the range of the population. You may secure these in garden shops or pressure your own by using yellow construction autograph strips, which you coat with Tanglefoot. The befoul furthermore can be drenched with a product containing Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis, a human- and pet-safe bacterium, to arrest the tumour of the larvae.
Whitney Cranshaw’s Bacillus thuringiensis Fact Sheet No. 5.556 (Colorado State University Cooperative Extension 11/99), states that Bt is a bacterium that is found in soils worldwide. Strains have been developed to occupy certain insects by paralyzing the digestive system.
The strains are insect-specific and mild to insects that are useful to plants, such as honeybees. Bt is nontoxic to humans and mammals and is justifiable to use on scoff crops up to take in time. A fault of Bt is that it takes a while to work, as the insect has to abandon eating and starve to death, so the gardener may reflect the produce is not working. Use this larvicide once a week for three weeks. This mould method, along with sensitive traps has worked the best for me.
Barb Sanders is a wizard gardener through the Routt County Extension Office. Products mentioned in this article are not endorsed by the Master Gardener program but are provided for informational purposes. Call 970-879-0825.
Video:
Tags: Fungus, gardener, gnats, insect, plants, three
Related posts
December 25 2010 02:46 am | Fungus by admin
