hey guys as some of you may have seen ive been having a gnat problem with my soil that i bought... well anyways heres my question... i put the soil in my garage hoping itd get hot enough to kill the gnats and their larvae i was wrong theres even more in there now... i was told to put it in the oven at 180 degrees for 30 minutes which i will do... but itd be pointles ti do it now wouldnt it cause i wont have my seeds for a couple weeks... if i did it now wouldnt they just infest it all over again in that time period? i hate having to wait to do it cause their just gonna keep gettin worse and worse... so what should i do should i put it on the oven now and right before i plant... or just right before i plant? if i wait a couple weeks to do it will the soil be worthless cause of the shitton of gnat larvae eating up all the organic shit in the soil? "The pharmacuetical industry doesnt create cures, they create customers"
They can re-infest the soil if they have multiple sources (drains, old beer bottles, garbage, algae, old food) If you sterilize your soil, make sure to clean everything else completely, Bleach in your drains, change the trash, etc. ...not that you have a dirty place, but they can hide where you least expect them. They can even live off small amounts of algae in hydro systems or reservoirs, re-infesting everything around them after you think they're eradicated. I'm going on almost a year gnat-free using all organic methods, no baking soil or anything like that. Neem meal works great for me, but if I thought that they'd be a problem I'd go spinosad on their sorry asses.
Don't worry about the soil in the bag personally yes sterilize it in the oven but wait till you get your seedlings started and you have the pots and such you can pre treat soil for fungus gnats and just prevent the problem in the soil with your plants and just put the bag far away from everything. Only do this step a day or two after seed sprout go buy dichotomous earth the food safe verity Home Depot or Walmart this has little glass like pieces in it to small to actually tell but they cut the larvae and kill them right as they come out of the soil and also the ones that are flying and landing on the soil you can do more reading on this stuff I suggest it but it gets rid of your gnat problem never had another problem again with gnats a bag of this stuff isn't that expensive either while the smaller bag anyways but good luck gnats are the pest of the devil lol
thanks i heard sand works great for gnats by putting it on top of your soil to prevent them from getting into the soil "The pharmacuetical industry doesnt create cures, they create customers"
I would try this before anything else neem doesn't kill them so don't try that the only two methods that actually work for long term are dichotomous earth and pre washed playground sand that you can find at Home Depot people put a 1-2" layer on top of there soil it keeps them from getting into the soil and laying eggs most people freak out about watering over the sand but the water just drains through lol