Houseplant 101: How to Control and Eradicate Fungus Gnats — Ep. 124

okay fungus snap people this episode is for you because I have six solutions to dealing with your pesky fungus gnats in your home now some of you may not be familiar with fungus gnats you may actually think that you have fruit flies in your house or you may be googling black flies around my plants these are actual fungus gnats now fungus gnats are not something that really affects your plants I mean sometimes they do but they really are only feeding on the fungus in the soil not really your plants sometimes on occasion they will eat plant roots if there's not enough fungus in the soil but typically fungus gnats are a sign of a couple different things one if you're somebody who tends to overwater or if you have a lot of plants that love water or kind of semi aquatic or aquatic environments fungus gnats like to be around those situations because they're eating the fungus in and around the soil so you might want to consider using alternative ways or a little bit more well-draining mix or a little bit more like sterilized potting medium I found that when I was using vermicompost and some kind of organic amendments that it was encouraging fungus gnats to be in my home and ever since I stopped doing that the fungus gnats have dropped precipitously I also got a lot more fungus gnats when I was growing microgreens in organic medium and that I have eliminated and I've moved all of my food production outside and again that really eliminated my fungus gnats problem now the first solution that I had that I introduced back in episode 15 is mosquito bits sometimes also called mosquito dunks this is bacillus thuringiensis which is a type of naturally occurring bacteria and soil and it actually infects flies and fly larvae so this is perfect for not only mosquitoes but also fungus gnats in many ways I think for indoor people it should be called fungus gnats bits I think more of us would actually buy it and not get thrown off by the fact that the name is mosquito vets now I have had a number of you write in and said that they started using mosquito bits and some it was a little less effective than others I had a number of people who keep vivarium Xand pallid areum's which are these semi-aquatic to aquatic habitats and they usually have isopods and shrimp and frogs in that habitat and they get a lot of fungus gnats and people have said thank you so much because I wanted to get something that wouldn't harm any other life and mosquito bets is that they it is selectively bred specifically for flies so it's not going to harm any of your other beneficial insects unless you're bringing in like maybe a beneficial fly which I can't think off the top of my head there's parasitic wasps and there's things that like have wings but aren't flies like green lace wings and things like that but mosquito bits is not going to harm anyone of those beneficial insects so if you're bringing beneficial insects in in order to deal with some of your pestiferous insects then mosquito bits is the way to go it's also not going to harm your pets or your kids or you or anything along those lines so the way that I use this is or there's a couple different ways that you could use this so you'll see that there's some that are called dunks which you let soak in water you can let these soak and water and actually I encourage you to that if you're somebody who tends to just water normally or under water your plant or if it's a plant that doesn't need a lot of water I think mosquito bits are less effective because the way that it works is that you spread these on top of your soil and as you water that bacillus thuringiensis actually goes down into the lower layers of the soil and it takes a little while for the fungus gnat larvae and everything to get killed it's not going to kill the adults it's more about the adults laying the eggs in the soil and then the larvae feeding in the soil and that's how BT or bacillus thuringiensis actually works so you could either put them on the soil dry and then water it that way but like I said if you have that problem that's happening in like a succulent or cacti or something that doesn't need to be watered as regularly then I would actually take a few teaspoons of this or a few tablespoons and actually put it in water it doesn't really specify how many that you use but I would let it sit in water for about an hour to two hours and then pour that and their remaining mosquito bits onto your plant and again make sure you're watering thoroughly and we already went over this in one of the basics episodes which I'll link to above and below but you want to make sure you water thoroughly all the way to the bottom so that the this BT is not just sticking on top but it's going into those lower layers because the fungus gnats if you've ever seen them they're kind of like coming up out of the soil and they do lay their eggs a little bit more sufficiently but a little bit under and then that their larvae actually burrow a little bit deeper into the soil so you want to make sure that you're watering that thoroughly now some of you have written in specifically from Australia and say you can't get mosquito bits where you are but I did look into Australia and you can actually get BT or mosquito bits however it's only distributed it seems by one company called Yeates and it's it's marketed not as mosquito bits but as like Dipple or something like that I'll get you the name and splash it up on screen but you do have bacillus thuringiensis for you there now I think most agriculturists use it for caterpillars so I'm not sure if it's a specific subspecies of BT that just deals specifically with caterpillars versus flies but I think that's something for you guys to look a little bit more deeply into additionally they usually sell it in bulk so oftentimes you might have to go in with a bunch of your houseplant friends and maybe try to get that in your home because I think fungus gnats is a worldwide problem especially for those of us who have a lot of high humidity moist environments and are using organic mediums so again there's a lot of preventative measures that you could do in order to curtail fungus gnats coming into your home but once you have them let's figure out the next ways on how to deal with them so the second one on my list is actually horticultural spray and you could also get an Eames pray now this is again something that's not systemic meaning it's not going to exist in the system it's going to only effect on contact and this is more for the larval stage and also some of the adult stage now if you're if there's a fungus gnat adult or the larvae and the soil you're going to spray this and it's going to coat it and that insect is going to suffocate but it's not going to deal with anything if there's like eggs in the soil and this doesn't reach you know the lower layers of the soil then it's not going to tackle the fungus gnat so you're really only going to get this on contact this is very similar to this product called go gnats and it could be careful on the way that you say that this is also another insect control this is a more concentrated form and this is cedar wood oil now again this is just like a horticultural spray on the back of this I have not used this yet so I can't tell you how good it is but it's I'd imagine that this works very similarly to horticultural spray because it's just another oil and you could use this on things other than that so again don't let this you know name fool you because you might be able to use this for you know your spider mites or your thrips or anything along those lines so this one says 1.7 fluid ounces per gallons so that is roughly probably around 10 teaspoons per gallon of water so if you this you would put it into like one of your sprayers like this and you mix that up and then again you spray it in a very similar manner as you would this horticultural oil but again this is primarily cedar wood oil I've heard it's been very good but again you are only going to be using it and you're going to have to reapply multiple times now the next on my list is yellow sticky traps now this is only good for the adults of fungus gnats they are really attracted to yellow sticky mats and I know it is not attractive having yellow sticky mats like around your house because especially if you have guests in or if you're entertaining people and all of a sudden they see all these like flies stuck to this yellow sticky card you're you're kind of like bro stout but I have to say it's super effective at getting some of the adults and taking down some of the adult population next on my list is integrated pest management and using beneficial insects and this one is called aptly named fungus gnat predator now again sort of similar to go gnats is that it works in a range of different predators but focus is a little bit more on fungus gnats and this is a very microscopic mite that you release and you should have moistened the soil top already because it's easier for these mites to patrol the soil environs and these focus more on the larvae and the eggs of the fungus gnats so you might see what I'm kind of doing here is that you want to be able to get the fungus gnats both at the adult stage as well as in their egg and larval stage so you might want to use a variety of of these solutions so maybe you're using fun mosquito bits with the fungus gnat predator and you're using yellow sticky traps and that would be kind of an amazing tour de force against your fungus net problem okay so now my final one is a fun one for all of you crazy plant nerds out there it is a butterworth otherwise known as penguin Cola this is a carnivorous plant and it is incredible at getting fungus gnats this one doesn't have any fungus gnats on because I don't have a fungus net problem so this plant is probably going to starve unless I get some fungus gnats here typically when I had fungus gnats these are amazing they just fly somehow they maybe they look a little bit like yellow sticky traps I don't know but the fungus gnats are just like attracted to these and again this doesn't crawl over into your plant and start eating the larvae and the eggs of your fungus gnats this is more like a sticky trap but I'll be a prettier one that will feast on your adult fungus gnats so they're relatively easy to come by you could find some sellers online who sell them I don't typically see them in my garden centers and nurseries but where you are you might be able to have a spot you might have a specialty nursery that that sells them so let's recap on the six solutions for dealing with fungus gnats the first is a mosquito bits or mosquito dunks otherwise known as bacillus thuringiensis or otherwise known as BT and this is a naturally occurring bacterial organism that specializes on flies and will eliminate flies including mosquitoes fruit flies and fungus gnats the second is using a horticultural spray and again this is only works on contact so if you have larvae in your soil or if you have an adult this is going to smother them but again it's not going to deal with the ones who haven't been sprayed similarly its cedar wood oil which is a more concentrated version that you could actually make yourself with water and in this particular product it's called go nuts and very works very similarly to horticultural oil as a spray next on my list is yellow sticky traps very good at managing adults but not necessarily for the larvae in the egg stage and then if you are not squeamish you could use integrated pest management this is a type of predatory mite known as fungus gnat predator which you could just put on Moi's soyal and spread it around your particular plants that you have a problem with and the final solution is nature's very own sticky trap which is known as penguin Cola otherwise known as Butterworth so the adult fungus gnats will fly onto these sticky leaves and get digested which is whoa what a way to go but hopefully these six solutions help you in your arsenal of dealing with fungus gnats and eliminating them totally a couple folks have written in about using beneficial nematodes on fungus gnat larvae this is not something I would recommend only because you could inadvertently hurt other harmless soil arthropods and isopods like millipedes and pill bugs for example however nematodes are an option if you don't have the other options I presented here at your disposal let me know what you thought of this episode in the comments below and hit the subscribe button if you want to help the channel grow subscribing however doesn't necessarily notify you have newly released videos so if you want those then be sure to click on the notification spell you

Channel: Summer Rayne Oakes

Views: 161,588

Keywords: Summer Rayne Oakes, Homestead Brooklyn, Plant One On Me, houseplants, indoor plants, house plants, houseplant care, plant pests, houseplant pests, fungus gnats, fungus gnats in soil, fungus gnats control, fungus gnats neem oil, black flies on soil, fungus gnats in house, fungus gnats larvae, fungus gnats houseplants, fungus gnats diatomaceous earth, fungus gnats nematodes, black flies on plants, black flies on indoor plants, fruit fly infestation, fruit flies in house

Id: FLHQa1ccOM0

Length: 13min 52sec (832 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 16 2019