Pest Eradication Between Grows

Hello! Does this sound like it should take care of any lingering spider mites and fungus gnats between my grow in my 5x5 tent, without damaging my no-till living soil eco system?

1: Removing all plant matter
2: Lights off for 2-3 weeks.
3: Citric acid, plant safe foliar mix sprayed all over the tent, and enough to get the top layer of mulch and soil wet
4: Neem oil drench a few days later
5: BT soil drench a few days later
6: Final Citric Acid spray
7: let the soil dry out for a week or so, hope the worms are ok

That's all?

I'm not a big fan of neem oil. As for BT, it's not made for the soil. It's for leaf eating worms. Spray the plants. not the soil. The worms have to take a bite of it then they can't eat any more and just die.

When it comes to fungus gnats, BTi kills the larvae. They live in the soil, and for this use it is appropriate as a soil drench. The instructions on the package should make this clear (as they do for Mosquito Bits).

I don't have the best advice for the OP because I don't know how well my experience will transfer. I use EWC as part of an IPM regimen. Before I used EWC, I had a spider mite problem and I used a citric acid foliar spray. But since using my current IPM (while making sure my soil was aerobically fungal-dominant), spider mites have not been a problem in my setup.

DancesWithWeeds said:

I'm not a big fan of neem oil. As for BT, it's not made for the soil. It's for leaf eating worms. Spray the plants. not the soil. The worms have to take a bite of it then they can't eat any more and just die.

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I specifically think BT will target fungus gnats, which can survive in the soil for extended periods, feeding on organic matter. Most the other stuff is to get rid of any remaining spider mites, in case removing the plant matter is not enough.

For the mites, I guess it depends on the severity of your infestation, but they should leave once the plants have been gone for a few weeks. They can hibernate in the wild, but I would guess your indoor environment won't trigger them to do that, so they'll leave to find another food source and eventually starve (unless you have houseplants nearby). Unless you had a whole lot of them, they're unlikely to be anywhere but on the plants anyway.

For the gnats, I'd do a drench with mosquito bits and then just let the top half of the soil dry out while you're waiting to reset.

DancesWithWeeds said:

I'm not a big fan of neem oil. As for BT, it's not made for the soil. It's for leaf eating worms. Spray the plants. not the soil. The worms have to take a bite of it then they can't eat any more and just die.

Click to expand...

Thats btk, op is probably using bti, mosquito dunks, for gnats