scarid fly drench in soil?

[pipeman]

can you used scarid fly drench in soil? reading the bottle it appears to be intended for hydroponic systems. I was thinking water the plants with the solution and flush out 24 hours later

[Guest Field_of_Light]

Hi Pipeman...Im assuming you have tried everything else before using the drench?

 

I say that because of the insanely negative effect it can have on hydro systems....unless you flush it out really well....

 

The soil you are talking about is that indoor? If so do you think you will be able to flush it completely?

 

Id rather use flyspray and kill the hatching organisms....but that I dont recommend to others either....

[pipeman]

I have already given them multiple sprays of pyrethrum and mortein which damaged the plants pretty badly, they bounced back alright but so did the flys. (and mites for that matter) I'm gonna try some mite rid for the mites, but the scarid flys are still an issue. I also planted garlic but the mites are taking over so fast I don't think I can afford to wait it out and see if the garlic works.

 

they are in pots, and I plan to just sit them over a bucket and run a shitload of water through each one to flush after the scarid fly drench. what else can I do? unless I pull all the plants, get them going in a hydro system and ditch the soil....

[Guest Wilderbud]

Flies suck... they took over my soil so I transplanted into fresh stuff after cleaning roots and even cutting one to re-root it [again! - which is why I put it outside to rot - heh]. I suggest you move some soil away from your roots and see if theyve laid eggs on the stem - my stem had eggs all over it in the first inch below the soil so I chopped them all off.

 

I think prevention is the key to these suckers so Im doing the garlic planting on my next grow after cleaning everything again.

 

F it dude, start again with fresh stuff - unhealthy plants suck so if you have more seeds start from scratch IMHO. If youre already flowering then ignore the flies like theyre just a nuisance - my plants kept growing and I noticed an infestation starting up weeks ago.

[pipeman]

yeah I've had the flies for ages, a few months at least. but they seem to be getting worse and the plants are growing real slow, so I figure I got to do something about them. They're mothers which I got in clone form so I don't want to kill them.

 

I got nothing flowering at the moment, and I'm not even going to attempt anything until I get this infestation problem sorted.

[Luke Skywalker]

Hey there pipeman, can I offer some advice?

 

If you use something like white oil, pyrethrum or other surface sprays on plants, don't use them on the roots, they aren't designed for this and are probably going to harm your plants, as you found. The plants bounced back, like you said, but you also commented that so did the mites and flies.

 

When you spray with a surface insecticide, like white oil or pyrethrum, it isn't a one off application, and just spraying it every day for a couple of days isn't going to do much other than stunt your plants either. You need to plan your spraying out. So on the first day, let's say your using a horticultural oil spray for mites, (probably the safest for a vegetable or smoking crop, imho) you make 2 or at most 3 sprays on the plants, and also raise the lights away from the plants. Heat is something that plants sprayed with these things don't like, and they may well react very badly. Sometimes a small test spray can be beneficial, to get the light levels right and to see if your strain is susceptible. Anyway, as I was saying, once you do this first spray, you leave the plants alone for another 3-7 days, usually around 5. Then you repeat the application again, to kill the hatchlings from the last generation, and then after another 5 days do one more spray to kill off the stragglers. Then they haven't got a chance. Contact killers won't get rid of the eggs, in fact, not many will, and those that do are probably a very bad idea to use for something you want to smoke. So your sort of trading off the damage of the spray being used with the damage the successive generations cause before the next spray. After the third spray, you should have either eliminated or substantially decimated the population of mites/whitefly/aphids/scale, whatever. And contact sprays like white oil and eco oil aren't toxic to people, have very, very short withholding periods and are usually fairly good to the plants.

 

As to the scarid fly, well, you've got a doozy of a pest there. I can't say I'd advise you to use the scarid drench on the soil grown plants, unless you don't mind killing off just about everything else in there too. Mind you, you subjected these plants to a pyrethrum bath too, didn't ya, so there isn't likely to be much activity in there anyway. A couple of q's... Is the soil quite open and drains easily? Then you may be able to get away with it. This is only my uninformed opinion tho, and if they say it's for hydro, then I'd say it can't be used, or can't be used very well at least in soil systems. Another one, is there any chance of just giving up on these plants and trying again? It's just that scarid fly is one of the nastier of pests to get, and very difficult to get rid of without some serious damage to the plant, not to mention any residual pesticides which may be left in plant tissues at harvest, I don't think that's a good idea. IMHO of course. And one more mate... Do you know where the bugs came from in the first place? Removing the vector for infestation can make life a lot easier in the future for ya, wouldn't be very nice to finally suceed in getting rid of the blasted things to have your dog/cat/missus/hair whatever just bring it straight back in again....

 

Whew, didn't mean to write that much, oh well. I hope I've got the problem right here, you may already know a lot of this stuff, and quite frankly, I don't think I've been that much help.... But I hope something in there will assist.

 

Good luck mate, we're all rooting for ya....

[dazza]

pipeman, if you have a severe infestation the garlic may not be able to help by the time the bugs take over. Better plant with garlic from beginning next time, fucn bugs suck!! I have used scarid fly drench with coconut coir and it worked, but the plant did not like it at all.

[pipeman]

hey luke, nah I didn't apply pyrethrum to the roots or give em a bath or anything like that, but I sprayed the plants liberally so the stuff was everywhere and dripped in the pots obviously.

 

I sprayed every 2nd day for a week with pyrethrum, then a few days later I gave em a blast with mortein, then a couple days after another blast of mortein. The mites seemed to be gone, but have returned.

 

I'm gonna give the mite rid a try and the scarid fly drench. may as well, as the alternative is just to give up, so I got nothing to lose anyway. I'll root some clones before I attack em though.