Plant rescue, soil to hydro. Chaos & Disorder 2020

Sick Plants & Problems
#1

I’ve been embarassing myself plenty with an indoor micro-grow this winter & recently threw LITFA out the window. The upside is I’ve been learning from some of the mistakes, just not taking pictures. :sweat_smile:

The current predicament is a lone surviving Skunk91 female that had the worst Fungus Gnat infestation I’ve seen. Mosquito Bits bT & H2O2 + sticky traps didn’t do much. Vaccuming the gnats up was great but defoliated the crap out of a few plants… so I threw away a few plants, saved the Skunk91 & a ragged Dank SinatraF2. Also started some more seeds in 80% perlite 20% peat & burned them with H2O2 drench. :blush:

The 2 plants were transferred to plain filtered water with an air pump(no stones at the moment).

Skunk91 looks OK but the DankSinatra is drooping & may have to go.

Should I try to get the last plant into coco? (my only fear being more gnats & never using coco/nutes). Small DWC? Take all the existing branches as cuttings & forget it?

:confused:

thanks as always

:evergreen_tree:

4 Likes
#2

No pics? As long as there’s life, there’s hope. Have one droopy with a water to soil transplant rejection:

WhatsApp Image 2020-01-31 at 23.32.31.jpeg1419×1463 215 KB

Trimmed all the big fan leaves, then lot’s of TLC and here she is actually:

WhatsApp Image 2020-02-15 at 22.37.42.jpeg1099×1288 240 KB

I would trim and keep her in a small DWC, hope it helps … :sunglasses:

6 Likes
#3

I would begin by not overwatering. Gnats only thrive on decomposing, wet, organic material. If you have a dirty spot with lots of leaves on the floors, etc. Its time to clean up.

You really should only have to treat a few times as the life cycle of a fungus gnat is short.

Skip the bits and H2O2 drench. Go to Home Depot and buy a small bottle of Thuricide by Southern Ag. Its liquid BT, same as the bits. Once your victims have dried out a bit, do a drench with your new friend. Once it dries out again, drench again. Do this 3x over a week+.

This is the stuff: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004QJ33B4/ref=cm_sw_r_em_apa_i_f2AsEbN285XRD

Now, let’s talk about engineering controls. We have big brains and are smarter than those little specs of fly paper pepper!

Put out more yellow traps. These clean traps will be your lighthouse beacon. Replace them during your drench process to determine progress.

Keep soil around 90-100mbar. Not dry, not wet.

Warm your space if its cold. This can help you control your soil moisture.

Proper drainage! Line your pots with rocks, netting, or both. Consider a plastic pot stand if your pots sit in standing water!

With the battle! I know your close so just text if you have questions.

7 Likes
#4

:sweat_smile: yeah :sweat_drops: :ocean: learned the hard way. again.

:wastebasket: :fallen_leaf: :leaves: pretty good description of my house!

…Pressure?! :microscope: Hmm. That’s new metric for me.

It just seems ironic to me that DWC doesn’t drown a plant but overwatered, boggy soil/mix will. Crazy. [smh]

:evergreen_tree:

3 Likes
#5

Here is your moisture meter: https://www.kisorganics.com/products/digital-moisture-meter

Don’t think about it as too much water, think of it as not enough oxygen. In DWC O2 is prevalent from bubbles in water. In soggy soil, life quickly moves from aerobic (O2-loving) to anaerobic (ZERO oxygen) with just a little too much water.

4 Likes