Nematodes are a microscopic worm. They feed on larvae the way the monster in “Alien” fed on the crew. It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen any flyin’ fuckers around my plants. I usually see them when I am sitting at my computer and they fly right past my face. Thrips, like gnats, are attracted to a human’s breathing.
I’m hoping that if I continually give them scheduled feedings containing nematodes, eventually they must go extinct. I’m keeping NaturesGoodGuys.com in business for now.
I no longer grow in dirt. My flyin’ fuckers problems lead me to do all sorts of things differently. I even tried drilling my pots. I’ll takes some pics to post. I was so sure that ventilation would solve the wet soil problem that attracts the little bastards, that I painstakingly marked and drill more than 40 pots. All that did was give the vermin more places to attack my poor plants from. It actually made my problem worse! Although, during the very short period after I tossed all my soils and bagged and disposed of infested root balls, that I dared to believe I solved it by using coco and better quality feeds, that my plants grew so hard and fast that I had to destroy full grown plants because I had no place to put them. During that time my growth rates increased to almost an inch per day, and my flowering cycle reduced by 30%.
I was so sure I had the problem solved that when I saw the trials of flyin’ fucker shit surrounding all the holes, I wrote it off as using too much feed in my water. Fortunately, I didn’t get completely stupid, but it did take me precious days to get it. You see, I was sure I had gnats. I had a hell of a time figuring out that the tiny “gnats” were actually a different, more agonizing problem. They are so small that I thought all the dust I was seeing in the air was actually thrips. I found out about them by trying doggedly to identify the hundreds of larvae I kept finding. I knew they weren’t gnats because gnats and their larvae are extremely well documented on the web. Thrips on the other hand, weren’t. Not well at all.
But, fingers crossed, It all over except for the fat lady singing…