Will recooking soil help with pests?

[013]

I’m running a home brew supersoil based off of faux mix with a fairly standard array of amendments like kelp, ewc, rock dust etc plus added broken up mosquito dunks in top layer of soil. I’ve got fungus gnats and russet mites too.

I’ve put the soil in a large trash canister with a snug fitting lid sitting in an upstairs room with 70 to 90 degree Fahrenheit temperature swings. I mixed the soil up, added 1.5 gallons of water, put a good dose of BT in there and sprayed the top layer of soil with a good dose of Neem.

Will this be enough to break the cycle of gnats and russet mites in this particular batch of soil after recooking for a month? Don’t they need a host plant & root system to survive on?

Thanks for your inputs!

 

[Emilya Green]

A passive action such as composting is only going to be able to kill off some of them... it just doesn't get hot enough to kill them all. I will be moving my composting operation to a metal 55 gallon drum set out horizontally in the sun, on a stand so I can easily rotate it regularly. I am hoping that the added heat will help kill off any larvae that are in there, but I am skeptical. Anything coming into my grow area needs to be sterilized until I am sure that I don't have a bug problem. As long as I see ants and worms still surviving in there, I know the other bugs are too.

 

[013]

I was hoping that between the cooking and the neem / BT treatments it would do the trick. I’m not full fledged organic in that I have not added worms or rove beetles but trying for no till, water only - no bottled nutes with mycos, microbes, teas and a cover crop.

I do have a drum out back that I can move it to. I’m thinking about sterilizing soil now with a rather large gas grill. No way I could do justice indoors with that volume of soil.
Thank you Emilya, really appreciate your presence here!

 

[Emilya Green]

I was hoping that between the cooking and the neem / BT treatments it would do the trick. I’m not full fledged organic in that I have not added worms or rove beetles but trying for no till, water only - no bottled nutes with mycos, microbes, teas and a cover crop.

I do have a drum out back that I can move it to. I’m thinking about sterilizing soil now with a rather large gas grill. No way I could do justice indoors with that volume of soil.
Thank you Emilya, really appreciate your presence here!

Yes, I like using the big outdoor gas grill for this too... it keeps me out of trouble with the ruler of the kitchen, and I can move a lot of soil through there in turkey basting pans.

 

[013]

Ok wow, so I’m not too far out in the weeds - so to speak! Now if I could only hoist that 55 gallon drum up on the grill that would be awesome!!! Just kidding I would rather do small batches that I can cook both thoroughly and evenly. Batchelor here so no turkey pans yet but I can find the Mal of Warts store.

thank for this!

 

[Emilya Green]

Ok wow, so I’m not too far out in the weeds - so to speak! Now if I could only hoist that 55 gallon drum up on the grill that would be awesome!!! Just kidding I would rather do small batches that I can cook both thoroughly and evenly. Batchelor here so no turkey pans yet but I can find the Mal of Warts store.

thank for this!

Find the Tree of Dollar store, and get several for a buck apiece.

 

[013]

Great idea.... I like that even better!