Tiny bugs and plant issues

[Tet Tet]

Hey All,

I just planted 3 seeds in jiffy plug with some basic seed starting soil around them. I plan on up potting from the solo cups to a Coots mix LOS but my amendments are not all here yet.

I planted 1 Dutch Passion Strawbery Cough, 1 Barney's Runtz Muffin, and 1 freebie Zkittlez I got.

The Zkittles popped up and is super stretched but looks good otherwise.

The SC half popped through the soil so i helped it by removing the shell. Well it has had the shell removed for 24 hours and is growing kind of sideways.

Lastly my main issue / concern is the Runtz Muffin. I noticed tiny little white specs that seemed to be moving. On closer inspection I did see they were moving and attached to the seed / start of the tap root. I think this seed is a goner so I pulled it up and just threw it into my backyard to see what happens.

I am worried what those little white bugs are and that they are going to spread to my other plants.

 

[013]

Hey Tet Tet,

Welcome to 420. The bad news is the coots mix will not work properly, The amendments & soil need to be thoroughly mixed, watered in and sweated together for 30 days in a sealed tub to be available to the plant. Might need to buy a few bags of soil for this run while your Coots mix cooks together, this alleviates hot spots and allow microbes to start breaking down the soil. Add some mycorrhizae to charge the soil.

Peat pucks can cause root problems, snip the membrane off before transplant. Sounds like you have mites, white colored soil mites can be beneficial but 2 spotted spider mites will gnaw up your grow. Time will tell if they attack the seedlings.

Are these photoperiods or autos?

 

[Tet Tet]

Hey Tet Tet,

Welcome to 420. The bad news is the coots mix will not work properly, The amendments & soil need to be thoroughly mixed, watered in and sweated together for 30 days in a sealed tub to be available to the plant. Might need to buy a few bags of soil for this run while your Coots mix cooks together, this alleviates hot spots and allow microbes to start breaking down the soil. Add some mycorrhizae to charge the soil.

Peat pucks can cause root problems, snip the membrane off before transplant. Sounds like you have mites, white colored soil mites can be beneficial but 2 spotted spider mites will gnaw up your grow. Time will tell if they attack the seedlings.

Are these photoperiods or autos?

Hey 013,

Thank you very much for the response. Yes these are all photos. I am surer you are right about the coots mix time frame. I was under the impression I could let it cook for 2 weeks and that would be enough. I was hoping that after 2-3 weeks of cooking these would be ready to up pot and will add to a pot with the coots. I do also have mycorrhizae to add to the roots when up potting.

Good advice about the membrane. From my further research I think I have bulb mites which are not good. I plan on doing a need oil and H202 soak of the soil and maybe even food grade diatomaceous earth.

 

[013]

excellent, glad these are photos. I would plan on cooking it for the full 30 days. At the most you would only need a gallon of soil per plamt to transplant into in that time frame but whatever you decide is best - then we will try to support you!

agree - there are so many species it’s hard to know what to do. I battled soil mites and they won, tossed out the old soil and now I’m running beneficial predator mites. I’m about to restart my garden but time will tell who wins this latest round

 

[Tet Tet]

excellent, glad these are photos. I would plan on cooking it for the full 30 days. At the most you would only need a gallon of soil per plamt to transplant into in that time frame but whatever you decide is best - then we will try to support you!

I appreciate your quick responses and willingness to help.

I want to clarify a few things / ask advice. When you say that I only need a gallon of soil per plant. I assume you are meaning I can re plant these jiffy pellets into a gallon of coots mix after the 30 day cook.

Because I am worried about the mite infestation growing I was going to pull out the jiffy plugs, cut the membrane and replant into larger solo cups right now with a coco, EWC, perlite mix. I am trying to decide what to do for long term. Meaning I want to run the coots so maybe up plant to larger solo of the coco mix I just described then after 20 days or so of cooking re plant those solo cups into the 5 gallon fabrics I indented to finish them in.

Or would you suggest I just let them ride now in these cups until I re plant to the cooked coots.

Or would you say screw the coots for this run and go full coco mix start to finish and coots the next run. If this is the case then I need to get some liquid nutes or a gia green type of amendment for the coco.

 

[013]

Ok first coco & soil are worlds apart. Both are brown, hold up a plant and look similar but coco grown plants need to be fertigated with quarter strength nutes every day. Fertigate means to feed or fertilize & irrigate at same time, here’s why, coco is inert there are zero nutes in their to sustain a plant so it must be bottle fed nutrients, plus cal-mag is a requirement for coco media along with your NPK nutes. Coco should not be allowed to dry out, whereas in soil grows - the plants need to see the wet dry cycle. Coco plants need feeding 1X per day, then 2X per day when plants are big then 3X per day in flower, feed to 10% runoff each time, coco is drain to waste hydro so ph needs to be 5.8 but ph for soil should be 6.3

Transplanting multiple times is fine for photoperiod plants but for autos you should avoid any transplanting which means they should be be started in large final containers. Yes autos can be transplanted but doing so can permanently stunt them and trash yields.

Personally I’m not a fan of coco - so I would transplant them into solo cups of a good soil mix Fox Farms, Roots Organic, Coast of Maine or even cheaper stuff from the big box - just avoid miracle grow or anything with added nutrients or fertilizers. Then if plant growth is good you could upcan to 1 gallon then after 30 days upcan into the Coots mix. For most upcan transplants we suggest waiting until plant is totally rootbound before switching to larger container, you can cover top of soil with your hand & invert the container and slide the pot off to inspect roots. However you can ignore this in order to get started in slow cup. But to be fair some are killing it here with coco -different strokes and all

bear in mind I’m just one grower and there are tons of great skilled folks on here so please consider all opinions

 

[Tet Tet]

Ok first coco & soil are worlds apart. Both are brown, hold up a plant and look similar but coco grown plants need to be fertigated with quarter strength nutes every day. Fertigate means to feed or fertilize & irrigate at same time, here’s why, coco is inert there are zero nutes in their to sustain a plant so it must be bottle fed nutrients, plus cal-mag is a requirement for coco media along with your NPK nutes. Coco should not be allowed to dry out, whereas in soil grows - the plants need to see the wet dry cycle. Coco plants need feeding 1X per day, then 2X per day when plants are big then 3X per day in flower, feed to 10% runoff each time, coco is drain to waste hydro so ph needs to be 5.8 but ph for soil should be 6.3

Transplanting multiple times is fine for photoperiod plants but for autos you should avoid any transplanting which means they should be be started in large final containers. Yes autos can be transplanted but doing so can permanently stunt them and trash yields.

Personally I’m not a fan of coco - so I would transplant them into solo cups of a good soil mix Fox Farms, Roots Organic, Coast of Maine or even cheaper stuff from the big box - just avoid miracle grow or anything with added nutrients or fertilizers. Then if plant growth is good you could upcan to 1 gallon then after 30 days upcan into the Coots mix. For most upcan transplants we suggest waiting until plant is totally rootbound before switching to larger container, you can cover top of soil with your hand & invert the container and slide the pot off to inspect roots. However you can ignore this in order to get started in slow cup. But to be fair some are killing it here with coco -different strokes and all

bear in mind I’m just one grower and there are tons of great skilled folks on here so please consider all opinions

Always appreciate the feedback.

I understand the difference between soil and coco. I should have mentioned before I have had two full harvests with coco so I understand the fertigate process and required added liquid nutes. This time around I wanted to try an all organic LOS hence the coots mix.

I think I am going to take your advice and upcan to solo cups now filled with a basic good mix like a fox farms ocean floor. I think I am going to soak with PHd water that is a mix of neem oil and h202 just to make sure when I pull the jiffy plugs over I can kill all mites and not just transplant to new home.

If all goes well and they look good in a few weeks when I am upcanning to the 1 gallon would you recommend that soil have any amendments in it, or just keep it basic until the next up rooting to the coots mix?

Thank you again

 

[013]

Ah that’s fantastic on previous experience with coco!! Apologies my bad, we often write towards worst case / total newbie so please forgive me!

Sounds like a good plan - most of the amendments take time to break down except for ewc & kelp those are pretty mild and reasonably plant available

 

[Vegan4life]

I use "Coot's mix" as well and use the mix within one week of mixing. I have read that "Coot's" does not have hot amendments. Here is a quote from "Buildasoil" website, where they are giving 3 soil recipes based on Coot's mix.

"Cooking, You’ll hear this term sooner or later when discussing mixing potting soil. It just means that when you mix a recipe together it can get very hot to the touch while the moisture and compost and all the ingredients come together and homogenize. Depending on the Carbon to Nitrogen ratio and the inputs used it can get as high as 160 Degrees when made in at least a 1 yard pile. Now that being said, the recipes that we call for don’t use Blood Meal or Guano or anything with really high nitrogen and normally these recipes don’t require and real cook time but the rule of thumb is to mix up your soil and let it sit for at least a week prior to use. Some people making super hot soils like super soil let it “cook” for 2 months. I often mix and plant immediately into my recipe with no problems especially when using awesome products like Rootwise Mycrobe Complete."

Happy growing

 

[013]

Wow - thanks for that correction V4L, I did not know that about Coots Mix prolly read it somewhere 10,000 pages ago but that brain cell has been flickering on & off for months now!!!

perfect - that’s a game changer for the op!!

 

[Vegan4life]

Wow - thanks for that correction V4L, I did not know that about Coots Mix prolly read it somewhere 10,000 pages ago but that brain cell has been flickering on & off for months now!!!

perfect - that’s a game changer for the op!!

I would have posted a link to the recipe page, but previously I have had my hand slapped for posting links... Google is our friend...

 

[Sueet]

For something like information, I don't think they would be upset with you. Links to vendors who are not sponsors is basically what is frowned upon - And that only because, it is unfair to sponsors who pay for that privilege. We need the sponsors, they allow us to use this space to help each other without having to pay for it directly.

 

[Vegan4life]

For something like information, I don't think they would be upset with you. Links to vendors who are not sponsors is basically what is frowned upon - And that only because, it is unfair to sponsors who pay for that privilege. We need the sponsors, they allow us to use this space to help each other without having to pay for it directly.

It was on a "non sponsor" vendor website

 

[Sueet]

I understand, but it wasn't a money transaction being linked is what I meant. Just information I have seen linked in quite a few places. It's when something can be purchased at the link it seems to be a problem.

 

[Tet Tet]

I use "Coot's mix" as well and use the mix within one week of mixing. I have read that "Coot's" does not have hot amendments. Here is a quote from "Buildasoil" website, where they are giving 3 soil recipes based on Coot's mix.

"Cooking, You’ll hear this term sooner or later when discussing mixing potting soil. It just means that when you mix a recipe together it can get very hot to the touch while the moisture and compost and all the ingredients come together and homogenize. Depending on the Carbon to Nitrogen ratio and the inputs used it can get as high as 160 Degrees when made in at least a 1 yard pile. Now that being said, the recipes that we call for don’t use Blood Meal or Guano or anything with really high nitrogen and normally these recipes don’t require and real cook time but the rule of thumb is to mix up your soil and let it sit for at least a week prior to use. Some people making super hot soils like super soil let it “cook” for 2 months. I often mix and plant immediately into my recipe with no problems especially when using awesome products like Rootwise Mycrobe Complete."

Happy growing

I bought a mix of amendments from BAS and it did say 1-2 weeks that's why I assumed I would have enough time in solo cup for 1-3 weeks before transplanting.

That will still be my strategy moving forward. I hope my efforts worked to rid the mites and the two left grow on.

 

[013]

Apologies to Tet Tet…. totally my bad on freaking this one up!

 

[Vegan4life]

You should start a IPM program as soon as possible (Integrated Pest Management). I had mites on my last grow and ended up having to spray plants through flower to keep them under control, I was able to salvage the grow but it was stressful and a pain in the ass... Current grow the only thing I have been using is Sierra Natural Science SNS - 209 since plants were new sprouts. I have been following directions and using through flower. I have had absolutely no pests during my current grow which should be ready for harvest in another three weeks or so. SNS 209 is systemic you mix 1/2 tablespoon per gallon of water and water the plants with it. It gives the plant a flavor that the mites and other pests do not like and they move on or die. Sierra Natural Science is a site sponsor. It is also organic.



Link to thread to ask questions about Sierra Natural Science products

Sierra Natural Science: Organic Pest, Disease & Weed Control Support​

Quote on product description from Sierra Natural Science :
"SNS 209 Systemic Pest Control Concentrate approaches the problem of insect pest control by working within the plant itself. This unique organic formula contains rosemeric acid, a derivative of the rosemary plant, that the plant will uptake and spread throughout its vascular system. The presence of rosemeric acid in the plant cells forms a barrier that insects find distasteful. Once a feeding insect comes in contact with the rosemeric acid, they retreat and look for a more suitable food source. Contact with rosemeric acid can be fatal depending on the size of the pest affected and that pest's maturity.

Since SNS 209 works within the plant tissue, it provides long term control of a broad spectrum of insect pests. SNS 209 will stay in the plant's leaves, stems and roots and cannot be diluted or washed away by the elements as is the case with foliar sprays. SNS 209 will protect all parts of the plants from a medley of insect attacks. For instance, protected roots will keep grubs and root aphids away while protected stems and leaves will repel the likes of aphids and thrips. Another advantage to the systemic action of this product is that you can use it without fear of harming bees, butterflies and other beneficial insects since they are not actively feeding on the plant.

There is no Restricted Entry Interval (REI), either, so you can spray this product as needed, when needed. SNS 209 Systemic Pest Control Concentrate has been reviewed and found to be compliant with the National Organic Program (NOP).

Suggested Uses: For use controlling and repelling Spider Mites, Whiteflies, Fungus Gnats, Thrips, Root Aphids, Scales and more on fruit trees and in vegetable, flower and herb gardens as well as in greenhouses and hydroponics.

This Product Controls These Pests or Diseases: Spider Mites (Tetranychidae), Whiteflies (Aleyrodoidea), Fungus Gnats (Bradysia coprophila, Bradysia impatiens), Thrips (Thysanoptera), Root Aphids, Scales (Coccoidea) and other plant feeding insects."

 

[Tet Tet]

You should start a IPM program as soon as possible (Integrated Pest Management). I had mites on my last grow and ended up having to spray plants through flower to keep them under control, I was able to salvage the grow but it was stressful and a pain in the ass... Current grow the only thing I have been using is Sierra Natural Science SNS - 209 since plants were new sprouts. I have been following directions and using through flower. I have had absolutely no pests during my current grow which should be ready for harvest in another three weeks or so. SNS 209 is systemic you mix 1/2 tablespoon per gallon of water and water the plants with it. It gives the plant a flavor that the mites and other pests do not like and they move on or die. Sierra Natural Science is a site sponsor. It is also organic.



Link to thread to ask questions about Sierra Natural Science products

Sierra Natural Science: Organic Pest, Disease & Weed Control Support​

Quote on product description from Sierra Natural Science :
"SNS 209 Systemic Pest Control Concentrate approaches the problem of insect pest control by working within the plant itself. This unique organic formula contains rosemeric acid, a derivative of the rosemary plant, that the plant will uptake and spread throughout its vascular system. The presence of rosemeric acid in the plant cells forms a barrier that insects find distasteful. Once a feeding insect comes in contact with the rosemeric acid, they retreat and look for a more suitable food source. Contact with rosemeric acid can be fatal depending on the size of the pest affected and that pest's maturity.

Since SNS 209 works within the plant tissue, it provides long term control of a broad spectrum of insect pests. SNS 209 will stay in the plant's leaves, stems and roots and cannot be diluted or washed away by the elements as is the case with foliar sprays. SNS 209 will protect all parts of the plants from a medley of insect attacks. For instance, protected roots will keep grubs and root aphids away while protected stems and leaves will repel the likes of aphids and thrips. Another advantage to the systemic action of this product is that you can use it without fear of harming bees, butterflies and other beneficial insects since they are not actively feeding on the plant.

There is no Restricted Entry Interval (REI), either, so you can spray this product as needed, when needed. SNS 209 Systemic Pest Control Concentrate has been reviewed and found to be compliant with the National Organic Program (NOP).

Suggested Uses: For use controlling and repelling Spider Mites, Whiteflies, Fungus Gnats, Thrips, Root Aphids, Scales and more on fruit trees and in vegetable, flower and herb gardens as well as in greenhouses and hydroponics.

This Product Controls These Pests or Diseases: Spider Mites (Tetranychidae), Whiteflies (Aleyrodoidea), Fungus Gnats (Bradysia coprophila, Bradysia impatiens), Thrips (Thysanoptera), Root Aphids, Scales (Coccoidea) and other plant feeding insects."

Thank you very much for the advice and product recommendation. I will get some and try it out.

 

[Tet Tet]

I figured I would not create another post but rather just continue this one.

The bulb mites had eaten one seed so we only had two.

I decided to cut the jiffy plug membrane and re plant just that into brand new soil (coast of Maine seed starter soil). I coated the hole and the plug with Mycorrhizal and a little bit of diatomaceous earth into the hole. I then watered with a little but of neem oil in the water and top coated the soil with a layer of diatomaceous earth.

I mixed up the coots mix and am waiting for it to cook for another week.

There are still issues however. I have 2 rust spots on the lowest leaves of the Zkittlez. I also notices more gnats or aphids around the grow box. I added sticky traps and am catching some adults which tells me there are larva in the soil.

I was thinking of transplanting like normal in a week and hopefully the properties of the coots mix takes care of the issues. What do you guys think, recommend, or comment on the situation.

Oh btw look at that cool mutation with my SC's leaves.

 

[013]

DE kills by microscopic sharp edges cutting into critters but it’s much less effective when it’s wet.

Mix Neem Oil according to directions with one caveat. Since it’s a seedling you don’t need a whole gallon. Let’s say the label calls for 10 mil per gallon

10 mil per gallon = 5 mil per half gallon = 2.5 mil per quart all are same strength just smaller batches

yes the funky down taco leaf curl is not good and the color is off too both can indicate pest pressure

seedling looks to be ready to transplant based on size but might be easier to knock out critters in small container. Mix Neem according to label, shake well spray leaf undersides first then spray from top down. Let plant dry before putting under light - might need to raise fixture so the oils don’t cause leaf burn. Not all soil mites are bad some are predators but if attacking the plant or roots then yeah not good