little white bugs in soil

Discussion in 'Growing Marijuana Indoors' started by indicalover, Apr 23, 2008.

  1. i just went to water my plants, and when i poured the water in i noteced lots of little white bugs in my soil.what the hell are they?they are just a few days from 9 weeks,should i jst cut them down?
     
  2. I dont know...

    But you can't receive PM's so i can't reply back to your PM from B4.

    But i havent started the grow, i will let you know when i do.

    thanks.
     
  3. i once saw a few white bugs crawling around in my soil, but they never did anything to the plant. and they went away in a couple of weeks and never saw them again (without doing anything special to the plant). obviously i have no idea if we are talking about the same thing, but that's all i can say. :)
     
  4. WIthout a picture it's gonna be hard to identify your pest with 100% certainty. However I'm willing to bet that those small white bugs are springtails. Do they "hop" around? If so I'm pretty sure they are springtails. Springtails are attracted to water sources and eat dead organic matter. Springtails usually appear in the spring but in certain conditions(indoor grow rooms) they can thrive year round. I wouldn't worry about them too much. They've never given me problems.
     


  5. Are they springtails ? - No real threat if they are

    http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles1200/springtails.asp or google search for springtails
     
  6. yes they jump around but my friend told me that they eat yor roots,he said he had them in a hydro set up and they ate his root mas from about 12 inch till there was nearly no more left?
     
  7. i've got these. eat my roots, plants went really yellow. ruined my crop. howeer one plant doesnt seem to be infected......
     
  8. Put some garden grade Diatomaceous (spelling?) earth on top of the soil. It will kill anything that crawls in the soil. You can get it at a major garden shop and it's 100% organic, not a poison.
    Good luck!
     
  9. fungus nats battle these fuckers for 2 years go away in flowering veg there a bitch
     
  10. hi guys, i spent days stressing about this problem and if they jump and come to the surface when watering then they are definately springtails.
    this is the most accurate information you will ever find on the subject.
    took me a long time to find it but is 100% accurate.

    Not only are springtails harmless to the garden, but their presence
    indicates good soil health. Their diet consists of decaying matter,
    fungus, & bacteria, & their activity helps keep nitrogen in the soil. A
    radical explosion in their population might be an indicator that something
    in the organic balance is out of wack, though it probably means only that
    there are excesses of mushroom spoors which can increase springtail
    populations since springtails go after the mushroom spoors like kids after
    halloween candy, & a black springtail called "snowflea" even hops around
    after snowfall gathering up fungal spoors from the surface of the snow. If
    springtails vanish that means the microflora is probably also missing or
    that soil is never sufficiently moist to support either springtails or
    microflora. In which case the plants will be at great risk too.

    Attempting to get rid of them by drying out the garden would be equally
    harmful to microflora, only the springtails would weather the drought
    better by moving to moist areas & estivating, or in unusual cases "heading
    for cool shelter" which will mean the house, where they will accumulate in
    bathrooms & kitchens, & not leave until it's moist outdoors again. A large
    indoor infestation without an outdoor drought can be a warning-sign of
    mold problems inside the structure or leaky plumbing somewhere undetected.
    Insecticides won't get rid of them if there are condensation or moisture
    problems in the house, but correcting leaks & moisture problems or
    installing a dehumidifier gets rid of them.

    Some springtails are so small they will never be seen by the even
    moderately farsighted. Tinier-than-average varieties are encountered in
    potted indoor plants, but they restrict their activity to the soil & don't
    spread elsewhere in the house, & are not harming houseplants.

    There is ONE North American exception to the general harmlessness of the
    genus. A rounded stumpy flea-like springtail (Bourletiella hortensis) eats
    the delicate roots of evergreen tree seedlings, so if you are growing
    evergreen seedlings & had a population explosion of this flealike pest,
    that could be bad news. Few are the gardeners with lots of tree seedlings,
    so the primary bad history for this critter is in tree farms & ornamental
    tree nurseries of the Pacific Northwest, where their feeding habits reduce
    emergence or cause deformities of western hemlock, sitka spruce, & other
    evergreens, & cause lesions in developing bark where harmful fungus can be
    established. They are most active in summer & would be dormant now. When
    present & active they are easily detected by laying a white piece of paper
    on the soil & then blowing on or fanning the soil around the edges of the
    paper; if they are present in sufficient numbers to be harmful to
    evergreen seedlings, several will jump onto the white surface of the
    paper. But if what one sees are ELONGATED springtails (& most of the
    numerous species are elongated) then these are invariably harmless.

    A similarly primitive insect (far older than true insects) is the jumping
    bristletail. They're very nocturnal & feed primarily on the types of algae
    & lichens that grow on forest floors in leaf & needle litter. They can be
    very common in moist coastal forests where fallen leaves & debris are
    thick, which material jumping bristletails help turn into topsoil. They
    are rarely numerous in gardens. If there were many, you'd see them by
    turning over a piece of lumber or flat piece of bark. As with springtails,
    bristletails are harmless, & though they do eat living plant matter, it's
    only algae & lichens, not higher plants.

    Although springtails are a sign of good healthy soil & ideal plant
    conditions, many vendors of various pesticides recommend getting rid of
    them. Because chemical vendors don't care to distinguish between what is
    helpful & what is harmful, they just want to sell more of their products.
     

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