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Fungus gnats


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I know it's not pretty, but I've found good old fashioned, low tech fly papers, as sold by Ronnie Barker in Open All Hours, seem pretty effective, though of course they need stringing horizontally near to the top the compost for best results (they can also be bought from Amazon - other online retailers are available) .

Phil

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I just use mexican Pings in my CP greenhouse and yellow sticky flypapers in my cactus/succulent greenhouse (in Winter only to avoid catching beneficial insects like lacewings).  I cut the sticky papers into 3 and make an upside-down V then stand them between pots.  What plants are you growing?

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Great idea Gary, sounds a much neater solution than stringing them in unsightly horizontal coils.

How do you manage to fold them into v shapes without becoming entangled in yards of gloopy yellow fly paper, I only have to give them the gentlest touch and I feel like I'm never going to escape( it can't be a pleasant end , even for a fungus gnat). Do you have Ninja origami skills?

Phil

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14 hours ago, S Krelbourn said:

Do you have Ninja origami skills?

:laugh:….no not exactly Phil. Sorry, I should have made it clearer, mine come in double-sided sheets not those hanging twirly coil things. I'm fairly sure I got them from Amazon.  What I do is leave the non-sticky backing on while doing the cutting and folding.  Once I have my upside-down Vs I cut the backing away so as to leave a strip along the bottoms for handling, you only need to leave a bit on one side, remove it completely from the inner side of the V.  Hopefully you can see the example I grabbed from Amazon.  you're looking at £7 for 20 sheets.  I'll try to take a picture when I get home.

Sticky Paper.jpg

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here's an example, showing how I left a strip of the backing paper on each outer side for handling.   I'm only using them in my succulent house and have about half a dozen dotted around mainly amongst my Haworthias, I let the Pings take care of things in the CP house.

There seems to be a lot more options on Amazon these days.  Good luck

Fly Trap PAper.jpg

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Good point, well made Stephen. I only have a couple of capensis which are potted by themselves, the rest are self sown in the sarracenia pots in the main greenhouse. I only seem to suffer from fungus gnats in the winter in my indoor seedling grow box, the few potted capensis do help, but they need backup! 

Phil

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Sorry Steve, got a bit sidetracked there, never used neem oil , so I'm not sure how it affects cps. The general consensus being the purer the substrate you grow the cps in the better. Repotting would also help eliminate the eggs and larvae of the fungus gnats. I suppose it also depends on how many plants are affected.

Phil

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 1/21/2020 at 9:07 PM, Gaz said:

I just use mexican Pings in my CP greenhouse and yellow sticky flypapers in my cactus/succulent greenhouse (in Winter only to avoid catching beneficial insects like lacewings).  I cut the sticky papers into 3 and make an upside-down V then stand them between pots.  What plants are you growing?

I have about 18 succulents varying from Haworthia, euphorbia, crassula, echevaria, ponytail palm, various cactus. I have 11 spider plants. Drosera capensis,  drosera capensis alba, drosera schizandra, venus fly trap and pingicular grandiglora. 

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On 1/23/2020 at 10:16 PM, S Krelbourn said:

Sorry Steve, got a bit sidetracked there, never used neem oil , so I'm not sure how it affects cps. The general consensus being the purer the substrate you grow the cps in the better. Repotting would also help eliminate the eggs and larvae of the fungus gnats. I suppose it also depends on how many plants are affected.

Phil

I plan to repot them all in spring as it's about time :)

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4 hours ago, Steve.g said:

I have about 18 succulents varying from Haworthia, euphorbia, crassula, echevaria, ponytail palm, various cactus. I have 11 spider plants. Drosera capensis,  drosera capensis alba, drosera schizandra, venus fly trap and pingicular grandiglora. 

I find they're more of a problem among my Haworthias, this is mostly where I place the sticky paper sheets.  For these and the other succulents maybe you could try to limit the amount or organic material in the composts.  If all else fails perhaps you need to stock up on more Pings and Droseras  :wink:

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Buy a package of "Mosquito dunks" at the garden center. Put one quarter of one in your watering can. This will kill the larvae in the soil and stop future generations. It is all natural and safe. But give it some time to work. Use sticky traps and manually kill the adults.

 

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4 hours ago, Tommyr said:

Buy a package of "Mosquito dunks" at the garden center. Put one quarter of one in your watering can. This will kill the larvae in the soil and stop future generations. It is all natural and safe. But give it some time to work. Use sticky traps and manually kill the adults.

 

That's what is recommended on the US carnivorous site. I purchased some a couple of months ago and am now waiting for the time to use them and watch the gnats drop like flies 

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My wife likes lots of indoor plants, and always seems to get fungus gnats. She pinches my Pinguicula Tina and puts that alongside the affected plants. Seems to do the trick nicely (judging from the lack of fungus gnats on her plants, and the black bodies on the leaves of the Ping.

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