I found some small yellowish bugs under the surface of my soil. I'm not sure if they are root aphids or something different. They dont seem to have a pear shaped body like a root aphid so I don't know what they are. Its my first grow and after about a month and a half from sprouting my plants are only about 6 inches tall. I'm not sure if the plants are short because of the infestation, but they look healthy. I do have fly gnats that im trying to kill with neem oil. If you can identify this bug, please let me know what it is and if and how I should kill them. I will attach a link to a video of one of the bugs i found. Thanks in advance. Sorry for the low video quality. It downgraded the resolution when I uploaded it. If you can't see the bug good enough give me some suggestions on how to upload a video without the resolution suffering.
really hard to tell from the video but that could be Hypoaspis miles. The good thing is they are fast. Predatory mites usually are fast, and sap suckers are usually slow. Here is a video I made a while back of some Hypoaspis
yea i agree basically with what @HUMBOLDT H as said ,,,thats what i learnt at collage about the insects that were fast moving were usually predators on the slow moving insects that were causing trouble..( but again i aint to sure but it seems right) mac..
I use Dr zymes juice. U can put it in roots and do foilar. It's citrus acid based and can use day of harvest Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk
Why would you put chemicals in the soil to kill something beneficial? The video was super fast on my phone. I’m assuming it is playing fast and the mite (or whatever it was) wasn’t moving that fast. Does look like a predatory mite, Stratiolaelaps scimitus (formerly known as Hypoaspis miles). They are excellent and probably controlling fungus gnats and a swath of other pests like diapausing spider mite and pupating thrips. Maybe can you take a closer-up picture of up instead of video?
The bugs I found look very similar to the Hypoaspis in the video HumboldtHomesteader posted, but there is much fewer in my garden. Although it looks like their numbers are increasing. The video I posted is not speeded up either. I can try to post a close up picture of one of the bugs tomorrow, but I don't have a very good camera. Thanks for all the responses to my original post.
Ya that’s a crazy big population in Humbolts’ video. Lol. Either lots of prey and that’s the end result or you put way more in than necessary. Either way, bet you don’t have any fungus gnats. If the speed isn’t altered, then it’s not a Hypoaspis/Stratiolaelaps. You should try to collect some. If it is a predatory mite, it could be an excellent, undiscovered biocontrol agent. Could even have it named after you! Depending where you are, there’s probably a State university entomologist that could ID it for you. Or in Canada, Ag Canada in B.C. or Ontario. Or, it could be a pest. Hard to tell from the video. Crazy fast though. Anyone else recognize it? If you get a better pic up on here, I can have one of our entomologists look, but usually they don’t speculate and say they need to look at it under the scope.
I tried to get a better video and pictures of one of the bugs. I also don't think they are hypoaspis because I dug 3 inches down into the soil and found the bugs down there. From what I know hypoaspis only live in the top half inch of soil. I noticed some of the bugs crawling on the surface of the soil today. They have 6 legs and 2 antennas. And I can see a little black dot inside there back if I look at them from a certain angle under a light. I have been using black gold soil for the last month and these bugs just showed up out of no where. I haven't introduced any new plants to my indoor garden so I'm guessing they came in the soil.
i dont think them insects are doing any damage they look like they are just eating what you are growing in EG compost,soil, Dont think they would disturb or damage the roots ,,,mac,,
They’re soil mites, so if they leave fhe pots they’ll go downward in search of soil. Indoors probably end up in cracks in the floor and eventually die/starve. Unfortunately the difference between species of mites can just be the length of their legs or the hairs on their backs, so no way to be sure. I agree they look like Stratiolaelaps or some other commercially available predatory mites, so odds are they are beneficial predatory mites eating fungus gnat eggs/larvae and other soil pests. Unless you see a decline in the plants’ health I recommend leaving it and just watching. Also recommend you contact a local entomologist and let them know you have a mite thats extremely fast in the soil and they may encourage you to mail them a sample (dead and floating in a bottle with isopropyl alcohol) to identify. Or, you can look at pics of some of the commercially available mites and make a guess for yourself. Main producers to google: Applied Bio-nomics Beneficial Insectary BioBest BioLine Koppert
I haven't noticed any outside of the planting pots, but there is not a very big population of them right now. I will keep an eye out for them outside of the pots though.
I noticed some deficiencies in my plants after I noticed the bugs in my soil. It started with yellowing of the very bottom leaves then yellow and black spots started showing up. The population of the bugs has also growen a lot. I increased the amount of nutrients on there last watering but I don't think it helped. I also ph the tap water I use to 6.8 - 6.9. I'm using black gold natural and organic soil which seems to be acidic soil. The water runoff ph comes out a little more than 1 lower than the ph of the water that went in. I also water them every 6-8 days and give them neem and nutrients every other watering. Should I kill these bugs because I'm not sure what else is causing the deficiencies? There is also still some fungus gnats in the soil.
Tough call. I’d say if the plant has noticeably declined then yes you should kill the bugs. Still possible that mite is eating the fungus gnats and would eventually win the battle but because we aren’t sure you better play it safe and follow the advice of the nozzle-heads. Next time get Stratiolaelaps/Hypoaspis in as soon as you plant so you don’t have an issue like this. Where’d you get the contaminated soil?
I special ordered the soil from a true value hardware store. And they shipped the soil in from an unowken location. I'm on the West coast of the US if that helps any.