Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Help...Fungus gnats?

market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Market Farming

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: KAKerby AT aol.com
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Help...Fungus gnats?
  • Date: Tue, 3 May 2011 09:07:43 -0400 (EDT)

Sorry this is a day later, but I figured someone else would answer and then no one answered.  My hort. mentor has used preying mantis for a number of years now specifically to control fungus gnats in the greenhouse, on young tomato, pepper, and herb plants.  This particular control method wasn't in your list of "already tried", so I thought I'd mention it.  It's something that needs to be timed such that the small mantids are hatching out of their egg cases (fascinating procedure to watch BTW) right when the fungus gnat population is about to get going.  For us, that started about a week ago but our season is a tad behind with our coldest-April-on-record (boo hiss).
 
Just to give you a scale of magnitude, our main production greenhouse is 24x48, chock full of seedlings now in advance of our first big sale this Saturday, along with a smaller seedling greenhouse that's 8x12.  My mentor bought in 10 mantid egg cases about six weeks ago to produce approximately 500 mantids if I'm remembering the statistics correctly.  Those mantids will distribute themselves around the areas in which they hatch, so you can put the egg cases where you need the adults to end up.  Those mantids will survive in those greenhouses for the rest of the season, sometimes eating each other, until at the end of the season she'll only have a handful of big ones left.
 
I don't know if you can get mantid egg cases that are a lot closer to hatch-out so that you could start controlling your fungus gnat problem sooner.  Maybe ask around your local area and see if anyone already has some egg cases going, which could also provide faster relief.  Hope that helps.
Kathryn Kerby
frogchorusfarm.com
Snohomish, WA
Ruminations - essays on the farming life at frogchorusfarm.com/weblog.html 
 
In a message dated 5/2/2011 12:45:57 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, sora AT coldreams.com writes:
> Having a pretty severe problem with fungus gnats on tomato starts in a
greenhouse situation.   Anyone out there have a perfect organic
solution??
I've tried all the googled recommendations....letting the soil dry
out...watering with BT solution...sticky traps...cleaning up the ruined
leaves and debris, spraying with Safer's soap.  Starting to panic...my
poor babies are looking pretty sad.
                                   Sora at Paradise Valley Organics  N. Id.
                                   where the weather forecasts are still
                                   calling for 40's and snow!

_______________________________________________
Market-farming mailing list
Market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/market-farming

Market Farming List Archives may be found here:
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/market-farming/
Unsubscribe from the list here (you will need to login in with your email
address and password):
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/options/market-farming



Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page