Anyone tried any of the pesticides out there to kill the fungus gnats flying around?

I put potted cephalotus follicularis around my figs and they work like a charm!

How many do you have out and how much area are you trying to control? I have a 10' X 25' grow room to work on. Do you mind sharing which cultivars you have and
where you purchased yours since you know they work?

• Cephalotus 'Eden Black'
• Cephalotus 'Hummer's Giant'

Some other unofficial cultivars that are named and in circulation include:

• Cephalotus "Adrian Slack"
• Cephalotus "Big Boy"
• Cephalotus "Dudley Watts"
• Cephalotus "German Giant"
• Cephalotus "Giant"
• Cephalotus "Ivan's Giant"
• Cephalotus "Julie Jones"
• Cephalotus "Munich Giant"
• Cephalotus "Phil Mann"
• Cephalotus "Slack Giant"
• Cephalotus "Vigorous Clumping"

I heard something called mosquito dunk works and kills the eggs in the soil but cannot attest to it iv'e seen it at some various stores like Hd a few years ago.

I drench the soil with BT, and spray the leaves, BUT recently, from a thread here, I learned that a moth ball, stuck into the container sealed with plastic for a week will be gnats gone!  I need to order those evil moth balls!

Suzi

I have used the BT on the soil and it worked for a while but they are back from some where. I want something to do the flying
dudes in. I may try the moth balls also but need something to control them when they come back flying around before they lay the eggs.

I used the mosquito dunks and it worked well for me. I put it inside a bowl with warm water, let it sit for a while, then stirred it to break up the 'donut'. I then water the plants and each container gets water with chunks of the mosquito dunk in it. I even buried some of the pieces of mosquito dunk just below the soil line...gnat free for a while now, fingers crossed.

Diatomatious earth (only use food grade, pool grade is toxic to breath) can be sprinkled on the soil's surface,
it kills the larva in the soil, (the diatom fossils cuts into them like broken glass)

It's calcium carbonate so it's good for your trees also.

Add the day after watering so the powder will remain as dry as possible.
non-toxic but, recommendations on the bag suggests to avoid breathing the powder.
A 5 lb bag is about $9.95 @ Lowers

I gave up fighting Fungus Gnats while rooting except using the transparent sticky sheets (PIC; Window Fly Traps) where the sticky surface gets covered fast with dozens and dozens of gnats. The 2nd step I took is using relatively bigger 32oz deli pots right after seeing roots in paper baggie method hoping the bigger size of the pot and more volume of the rooting medium will provide some reprieve to the roots spread over more area i.e. some root may get damaged by the larvae and some roots may survive. I may be wrong (or right) thinking this way but so far have not lost a rooted cutting in a couple of years though I see a lot of gnats flying in the storage container, with a dozen+ pots in it, and many gnats sitting permanently on the sticky sheet never to fly again to have more larvae. These buggers can be seen coming out of the side hole in the pots or from the soil near the pot periphery as if to see who caused some vibrations..., a bad sight.
Like FMV I stopped worrying too much about fungus gnats (other than using the two steps mentioned above).

Ottawan thanks. I have had three sticky traps out for about a week now. I am seeing just a few each day buzzing around. I only use 32 oz deli cups period. I just would like to rid
myself and my plants of those critters. I am brewing some mosquito dunk tea with small chunks to water with also.

Mark
Good luck in getting rid of these ugly things.
Make sure you mark the dunk tea cups because things can get mixed up with other coffee or tea cups.

Newandawg short of swatting em outta the air those sticky strips will get many but not all.
What is worrisome is they lay there eggs within the plants mix to hatch and thus the cycle continues on.

Break the cycle you win "eventually" kill the adults well you wont get all of them and thus the cycle continues on.

Thanks everyone for the input. The war goes on.

Now to some football.

University of Illinois research on fungus gnats.  Bounce original seems about the best if I've read it correctly. I'm still fighting the war also.

http://www.gpnmag.com/fungus-gnats-and-diatomaceous-earth


http://www.gpnmag.com/repelling-fungus-gnats-dryer-sheets

this part on linalool got me thinking about an herbal "tea" for gnats-  no herbs planted here as yet tho-  : (

"One of the major volatile constituents detected in the dryer sheets was linalool — a monoterpene alcohol, colorless liquid used by cosmetic and perfume companies due to its flower-like odor. Linalool is present naturally in plants including lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), marjoram (Origanum vulgare) and basil (Ocimum basilicum).

Linalool has been shown to be directly toxic to a number of different mite and insect pests. However, minimal research has been conducted to evaluate any repellent activity. It is interesting to note that the citrosa plant (Pelargonium citrosum ‘Van Leenii’), which is extensively promoted due to claims of repelling mosquitoes, contains approximately 6.8 percent linalool.

Citronellol is another monoterpene found in many plants including rose geranium (Pelargonium graveolens), citronella (Cymbopogon nardus), European pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium) and lemon balm (Melissa officinalis). Citronellol is used in sweet lemon scent perfumes and has demonstrated repellent activity against mosquitoes although the duration of repellency is less than one hour."

Everyone's methods are good ones. I have found that watering to much and having the surface damp all the time= fungus gnats. Try having a fan blowing lightly over the tops of plants. It will keep the surface dry, where the gnats lay their eggs.



luke

I added about 3/4 inch of fine dry vermiculite to the top of my plants and didn't water for a few days and it seemed to break the cycle.

Diatomaceous earth works for larvae in soil and leaf cutting insects ( I dust leaves and soil surface).

But using "clean" seed starting media would stop most infestations before they start. For cuttings I use " Miracle Grow Seed Starting Potting Mix" for the 70/30 or 80/20 cutting mix. Most Seed Starting mixes have been sterilized, so no fly eggs to start. You could also sterilize any soil or compost that is used for rooting cuttings.

Thanks Pete. I am going to try tomorrow.

if I see any signs of damage due to them, I remove the cutting, inspect, no life, and the whole thing is taken to the microwave I hit it with 3 min, and wait a little and hit it again with 3 min... it cooks everything, eggs and all.   put aside...and if I need it, I add water and cook for another 3 min.  I hate them. I have lost some amazing little figglet trees to them. So, I am at war!  But now I know they exist, I am more vigilant. I have a soap and water spray nearby... it  gets the ones flying, just cannot spray the leaves, so I have some sandwich baggies semi covering the new leaves and if I see any, I kill them

A related thread:
http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/ByeBye-Gnats-6114367?highlight=fungus+gnats

My experience agrees with the 2 attached scientific publications. I had a bad fungus gnat problem a couple of years ago when I was grafting different plum & apricot scions onto rootstock. The buggers just munched the roots. I tried DE with another batch of rootstock and cuttings with the same result. I saw the publication in HortScience on the Bounce Fabric Softener Dryer Sheets and tried that. Worked like a charm. I changed the sheets whenever I noticed a real drop in the order level. It was my impression that I completely eliminated them, but the worst case was their numbers were dropped low enough such that the roots grew faster than the few larvae that may have gotten in my pots. I used the Bounce sheets last year in my first year of rooting fig cuttings and had did not observe any fungus gnat problems.

I don't have any of those nasty critters at this time!!!!!!!!!  

I do have lavender in my garden!  If I get them I will try the lavender and share the results here.

Mike I've got a 2'x2' box of carnivorous plants that I put in the middle of my 10x10 fig area for a day every 2 weeks.  They absolutely obliterate the fungal gnats overnight.  I mentioned the cephalotus because they have crazy growth after a night of feeding on the gnats so those are just the ones that stick out to me, but realistically it's the drosera (sundew) that really do the most work on gnats.  A 1 inch pot of sundew catches 100-200 gnats in a few hours.  I put the box down, the next morning they're all gone, then eggs they have laid hatch over the next week and I rinse and repeat.  For me fungal gnats are a blessing and I welcome them, as there aren't otherwise many insects available for my carnivores through the winter.

As far as where I got them, I got my hummer's giant on eBay last summer, and my Eden Black I purchased directly from Stephen Morley who cultivated the first of this variety.  My Eden Black is the only one in America.  You can get drosera seeds easily on the internet and they're a pretty effective pest control.  Plus they look awesome.

Now that is a fabulous solution!!