I do! they were sucking the moist of my leaves, while their babies were munching on the roots...

This is my improvisation. I pour a lot of mosquito dunk in my pots, so they needed to air out the moist, but some adults were munching my leaves, so I made tents for the leaves alone, leaving soil open for breathing.  The leaves are growing much better now without those little nasty creatures.

My goal is to help them recover from gnat attack and too much water from the mosquito dunk.
 Since I made tents (Amazon thin plastic bags- that breathe a little) their leaves have really improved. no spots, just tender, as they need more light, but from now, this is what I came up with.

It is a lot of work, but they had to be protected, somehow...I seem to be winning the battle, but lost many special cuttings, which I am still crying about .

The ole good for nothing gnat !

If you grow lavender, you could throw some leaves on top of the soil.  I'm doing that with my houseplants to prevent gnats.   Don't use soil anymore for cuttings would help too. 

I am with you Grasa. Stupid buggers

Jennifer

Me too!  I'm adding gnats to my gopher control!  They are as serious as grubs and gophers at eating the roots of your most precious plants!  It's war!  Notice how the dude who declared war on the LAPD died?  Fire kills Fire!  Starting to think about gnat eaters seriously!!

See, I followed the rules.  Drenched the soil with BT, put an inch of play sand on top, but there are those drainage holes.  Someone on here recommended panty hose, but I have none of those,  so I guess I'll have to go out on the internet and buy them wholesale...........  jeeze! 

Suzi

This is what I did with one of my containers...but I have too many plants and odd shape containers to do the same with them all.  After drenching them in mosquito dunk, the idiot gnats  tried fleeing through the bottom holes, but trapped in the container.  Not kidding, these were likely larvae that did not get totally wet.  Container underneath is pretty tight to the bottle, but there is a air chamber and the mosquito dunk extra water drip in the container.  How gross is it?

It's gross, Grasa!  But, it's WAR!  We don't step prettily around these issues.  We ATTACK!  A moth ball sitting pretty on top of the sand contained in an enclosed plastic bag, will cause any adults to DIE prior to laying the 300 eggs that they do, over and over......... 

IT'S THEM OR OUR FIGS!!

Suzi

Get Drosera venusta and Pinguicula esseriana. They look wonderful, eat bugs, and have very cute flowers :)

Casualty Count- 6 Panachee, 6 Desert King, 5 LSU Gold, 2 Negronne, 4 Brown Turkey, 6 Celeste.  It has been really frustrating to take nicely leafed, rooted cuttings and have them die in the 1 gallon pot stage.  The really maddening part is the efforts to carry them through the worst part of winter and then lose them this close to going outside.

I have tried BT, Peroxide, Raid, Prayer, Profanity!  I am in serious danger of falling off the wagon and trying Johnny Walker Black, taken internally of course.

You might ask why I would worry about the lowly Brown Turkey.  I have a little thing about "legacy" trees, legacy being defined as very old fig trees with a family history.  One such tree is a tree that was brought from Tennessee to East Texas way back, 5 generations ago.  The cuttings are from the original tree and I was propagating them for the youngest heirs to the property as there are plans to develop the property.  Luckily, I can go back and get more cuttings as they have not started demolition yet.

Just venting!!!!

Edit - I forgot the Texas Blue Giant

What it seems to have worked is complete seal from the stupid gnats, so when I transfer to bigger container, I cook the soil at high temperature, I wet the cup to loosen the roots.   I barely water the soil in the large pot. I put the plant in and bring more soil to cover, barely water it. there is no dripping water at all. then, I put inside of those inner plastic bag from Amazon.com. the plastic is a big porous.  I tie the bag allowing plenty of air for the new cutting to breath... As often as I can I open and blow more air in. I keep them this way until I see leaves are firmly alive.Fatter cuttings respond well, the skinnier ones wilt and appear dead, but come back alive... they do not like to be handled, I learned..so, leaving them alone is best.  i cannot say I am totall winning, but I am making progress here. I hate them!

How are people making out with sand??? I've done it on a mine that I've potted up and notice the gnats are still active running around on top of the sand though I don't know if they are laying eggs and if so if the larvae is getting through or not. I don't like seeing them there at all lol.

You need at least an inch of sand on top, and it needs to be dry.  They won't lay eggs in it, and it will smother any living emerging gnats and they won't be able to get out to fly.... UNLESS they come out through the drain holes...  thus the nylon panty hose!  I read somewhere that you need to use the BT mosquito dunk often, but the problem with that is the roots may rot from being too wet!  Sigh....

Moth balls work, both for humidity and the demise of flying gnats, but I'm still looking for a source for clear plastic bags.  I may just cut up drop cloths and seal with a zip tie at the top.

WAR!

Suzi

If the sand has to be dry, how do you water them?

Soak them Nichole!  Just put them in a tub of water.  They will bob around a bit, tilt a little, then when watered they sink.  I now learned to lace that water with BT (Thuracide) which kills larvae. 

You have to let them drain really well, so hopefully there are enough drain holes to accomplish that.  You can also wick them, but you had to think of that prior to potting.  The wick will carry the water up through the bottom so the soil doesn't get too wet.

Suzi

I'm so afraid to kill them with over watering so I'm afraid to soak them

Once you put cuttings into their cups, how long does is take for the gnats to show themselves?

These are all great suggestions.  Here's the thread on the sand and panty hose for anyone who is interested:

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/Office-window-figs-fungus-gnat-control-6184249

I noticed an occasional gnat around in my office for a couple weeks but now I don't notice any. I used about an inch of sand as Suzi suggested. Figuring out how much water to give my plants is an issue.  I have been picking up the container to estimate weight but it's not ideal.  Watering from below would be another way but I'm trying to keep the panty hose from getting to gross since it is my office :)  With cups, using two layers of cups sounds like a good way to go and would shield roots from light.

So basically 3 weels until I see the adults. I potted on Sunday so I'm over 2 weeks away from that. I need to decide if I should dunk. I'm afraid of drowning them. Theyre doing so good right now... ugh. STUPID GNATS! I don't even see them and they're already stressing me out!

Nichole, do a treatment to the soil you are going to pot into - I zap the soil in the microwave, so, you ad very little water to that mix and allow it to cool off covered with a fabric or something that breathes, but won't permit any possible snicky one in that soil... then when cup is ready to be removed, soak in water water with mosquito dunk in it... you will have to soak to loose the roots from the cup, might as well give them something that if gnat comes to eat, it will not taste so good to them.

Upon transplanting, do not water anymore than what you already did to remove them from the cups.  Here in our area, they do not need any more water than that, and less water, less tempting soil for these nasty creatures. I had a few outside that had nice sprouts in early fall, I just check them...an whoolah...all eaten up!  they are everywhere outthere...everywhere, I just never noticed them before. That is whey they spray fruit trees...they are evil, once the plant is strong, they can eat away, the plant will survive... Upon digging my large tree roots for my experiments, I see damaged roots there also... an my chickens come crazy to scratch to eat them.   they are great in compost piles. I guess it is the cycle of life.

I have never noticed them before at all. This is my first time with cuttings so I'm sure I will see them eventually for the first time within a couple of weeks... 

A bunch are already potted up. Should I soak them in the mosquito dunk? I assume watering them with mosquito dunk won't work. The soil I picked out is Hoffman Seed Starter. I picked that because the reviews were good. People commented on the lack of gnats whereas miracle grow all I hear about is gnats gnats gnats. 

KK,

I believe they "hang out" under leaves with their pointing nose needled in the leaf to such life out of my plants.

Here is a link from Univers. of Colorado, does say 'may drink from leaves and soil'.

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05584.html