Tiny white bugs on homemade worm castings

MadRicky

New Member
Hey guys, I'm planning on using some homemade worm castings for my next grow. Unfortunately I have noticed there are literally hundreds of tiny little white bugs. Depending on the lighting sometimes their color becomes almost amber like.
I have dried leafs on top of this soil. That is where most of them stay. I rarely find any, below 2 inches deep.
Jumping has been observed but this is not usual behavior. Mostly only happens if I hold some in my hand after +/- 10 secs. They run away from direct sunlight.
Biggest ones have 2mm at most. Their antennae are rectum with a size of about 1/5 of the entire body.

Since they seem to like dried/rot leafs i'm worried they might eat some off my plant. What are you thoughts on this?
 
Hey guys, I'm planning on using some homemade worm castings for my next grow. Unfortunately I have noticed there are literally hundreds of tiny little white bugs. Depending on the lighting sometimes their color becomes almost amber like.
I have dried leafs on top of this soil. That is where most of them stay. I rarely find any, below 2 inches deep.
Jumping has been observed but this is not usual behavior. Mostly only happens if I hold some in my hand after +/- 10 secs. They run away from direct sunlight.
Biggest ones have 2mm at most. Their antennae are rectum with a size of about 1/5 of the entire body.

Since they seem to like dried/rot leafs i'm worried they might eat some off my plant. What are you thoughts on this?

They could be springtails or hypoapsis mites which are both beneficial to your grow. Hypoapsis mites are predatory mites that eat other bad pests and look very similar to spider mites in body shape. Hypoapsis mites are pretty fast moving, and usually come out on a fresh watering.

Springtails are also beneficial for your grow, as they tend to eat and carry fungi around your soil. These bugs also come out usually when the soil is freshly watered but disappear pretty much when the soil dry out. You can see springtails jump with a long tail like think that usually is tucked underneath them.
 
What I do is put my castings in a bucket and clean all debris out sticks leaves etc, then let it sit in the bucket for a few weeks.
Good to go... I'm finding a lot of insects hiding out in my leaf mulch and have removed much of it from my pots and replaced that with companion/cover crops instead of dead leaf mulch.
 
MadRicky I just went through the same exact thing with some of Doc Bud's High Brix soil I had cooking. Decided to throw some trimmings in there. Come back and noticed little tiny white bugs. Almost hard to see with the naked eye. Got the 60x scope out and took a peek. Wasn't sure what it was even after some extended Googling so I pulled all the old plant matter out. They seemed to only be on the plant matter. Looked through the soil and was unable to locate any. I did look at the hypoapsis mites on Google Images and I think Icemud is right on the money. I feel a bit better myself and don't think you should worry. I thought they might be root aphids which are trouble, but I am relatively sure that was not the case.
 
If you worry about non-beneficial insects in your soil, a good organic way of making life miserable for the pests and life happy for the plants is to take 2 tbs of kelp meal and 1 tbs of Neem cake meal; add that to a quart jar of CLEAN water and let sit for 24hrs - shake every once in a while. Add that mix to your watering routine. I.E. mix quart of water with say 1-2 gallons of water that you use to water in. You can also use this as a foiler spray, but hold off foiler spray 2 weeks before harvest.

Neem cake meal is the real deal. Insects and lots of other pests absolutely HATE that stuff. We even use it for mice control. Put a little dish out on the counter for the mice.. 2 weeks they will be dead and gone. Only downside is where they die!! The mice get R E A L slow tho before they die so you can catch them with your .... ahem hands.. errrr paper towel and take them for short walk and let them go. They will not be back.

The plants love the neem cake... its a soil builder too.. I use it in my soil mix, foiler spray and top dress. We even add it to the compost bin. Same with Kelp - plants love that more than anything I can throw at them, and it will fix most all nutrient issues.

Get your neem cake meal here: neemresource.com - the BEST resource for any neem products. Check it out! No disappoint.
 
May b not composted properly usually composting kills most harmful stuff. 40degrees C is wen usually harmful stuff dies like pasturised milk might need touch more composting adding carbon sticks branches bark fines wateva moisture and manure it will go mad hope it helps
 
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