little flies

[DuG]

My mushroom room is being taken over by little black flies. They have moved in from my compost heap and are breeding up in my fruiting room. I don't really want to have little maggots and the like in my oyster mushrooms, and my g/f wouldn't aqppreciate it either.

I was thinking of making a trap from a coke bottle, kind of like a picture plant. Any other suggestions?

[occidentalis]

My mushroom room is being taken over by little black flies. They have moved in from my compost heap and are breeding up in my fruiting room. I don't really want to have little maggots and the like in my oyster mushrooms, and my g/f wouldn't aqppreciate it either.

I was thinking of making a trap from a coke bottle, kind of like a picture plant. Any other suggestions?

I get the same little bastards

luckily I only do small grows so it isn't too hard to isolate affected casings or simply dispose.

I'm sure they spread contamination as i can easily get 3-4 flushes out of a good casing without them but as soon as they get in I get green mould after 2.

Sorry no idea how to help but if anyone else can come up with anything....

[mescalito]

Try yellow sticky traps you can get them from Hydro shops.

My worm farm is loaded with the bastards but they do like fruit so maybe you could make a trap with some rotting fruit??

[watertrade]

Someone once told me about building a a little structure with skewers and having thick sticky tape suspended from the sticks. acting like the sticky fly traps - but with heaps of tape.

good luck

[Hyphal]

Bloody gnats... Not good at all. The little bastard pricks take over your house, and get caught up in anything that has a light source. Its a bit annoying when you are eating dinner and you have these little bastard pricks flying around your head too, and depending on the nature of your grow, can be hard to explain why your house is full of so many little fly bastard pricks....

There are a few solutions - as mentioned above, sticky fly paper traps from bunnings or Coles. Good place to tart, but will not eradicate the little bastard pricks.

Antoher way is a small electric bug zapper. Again a good way to kill lots but wont eradicate the problem.

I have found that by using small grow chambers that seal completely shut (the lid clicks airtight), then for air exchange, drill small holes around the tub and cover with micrpore cloth tape, controls the problem well. This way, the little bastard pricks can't get to your substrate in the first place to breed.

[AndyAmine.]

Diatomacious earth mixed into your soil/medium and also sprinkled ontop is the best thing you can use, only this is it probabaly wouldnt work to well with expanded clay though.

I add about 10% off it to my mix. make sure you wear a mask and gloves when you use it though because it can give you cancer and also messes with your skin.

Ergo, I do something similar on badly effected plants, I would cover the bottom of my pots with weed mat material, its a black cloth that allows water through but not bugs You could put this ontop too and cut a hole for the steam.

I took them off back around May but Ill need to do it again now that the humidity is picking up again.

[Fezza]

I had the little bastards invade my edible mushrooms, which I keep in the storeroom of the house today. So had to remove from the house so that my flatmates don't get pissed off.

But I think the best way to illiminate the problems is to have your substrate in isolation with good air exchange of course.

good luck dude.

[sobriquet]

I had a pretty big problem with them a while back too.

I've taken a different approach by getting some sundew plants.

I'll post some pictures on the weekend. But the problem has now become negligible and the carnivorous plants are thriving on it

I've bought some pitcher plant seeds too and am planning to plant some of those also soon.

One of the sundews (spatulata) has set alot of pink flowers in sequence unfurling and I'm hoping its self fertile and will set seed. One of the others (capensis) is showing some flower buds also.

So the flies are definitely a bonanza for these plants

If they set seed then I may have some to share.

[spiders]

yeah they are particularly annoying. I used to just spray and fan more to try and scare them away. That or leave out a saucer of apple juice.

[DuG]

I seemed to have cut down the population of flies in my room. I made a trap using an old plastic coke bottle, like a pitcher plant, and to temp them in I put in a mixture of blackberry jam, honey and water. I also moved the "infected" bags to the worm farm.

This seems to have worked wonders, I only see a few in there now and I either squash or squirt them

[foolsbreath]

how much fresh air movement do you have, Also ozone may help at low rates, draw them out using sweet water outside?