Your cart is currently empty!
Just keep growing
Some skunky lemon terps and new genetics w/Rhino …. lol …. 😉 and got a few rhino clones for…
Little White Bugs with Updated Pics
Hey DGC,
Checked on my indoor tent and noticed all of these little white bugs crawling around, mostly on the pots, a few on the soil and a few on the leaves. I tried to get the best pic I could. I have a usb microscope on the way to get a better look. Any idea what these might be? I recently transplanted these from Coast of Maine seed starter which includes mycorrhizae, worm castings, kelp and fully-cured compost ino Coast of Maine Bar Harbor Blend with salmon, blueberry, lobster and other composts, calcium and chitin-rich lobster shells, sphagnum peat, perlite and kelp meal. They have been in this blend for less than a week. I have some of this mix left over and see none of these bugs in there. I’m hoping they are beneficial mites, but not holding my breath. The plants seem fine. I also have some recently potted mother plants on the other side of the basement. They have not been affected and are in soil from the same bag and have been for a bit longer. And the left over soil is in a tub with no signs of infestation. The 3×3 tent the bugged plants are in had been empty for a few months prior to growing these plants from seed. I have not taken any outside cuts. So this leads me to believe they must have come in on the seed starting mix. This is the only variable not shared with the other plants.
Considering how rich the Coast of Maine products are in good compost and biology I’m really hoping these are predator mites. Any ideas?
Here are some better bug pics. The plants are doing well, but still plenty of these around.
Comments
16 responses to “Little White Bugs with Updated Pics”
-
I would look to a more experienced DGC member for the answer, but they look a lot like the spider mites that destroyed my outdoor planter of oregano this Summer – how big are these guys? The mites on my plants were super tiny (literally ball point pen dot size), and they cruised all over the place pretty quickly. Not sure if these are some other type of mite or not (that might be beneficial), but keep an eye out for the webs! By the time I noticed the mites on my oregano, it was probably too late – they destroyed the plants literally overnight.
-
Google, Amblyseius swirskii and see if this looks like what you are seeing. If they are moving fast it’s a good sign they are predators. Your soil mix could definitely have some beneficial mites in it. The worm and compost if sourced from a quality place will have everything good already living inside it. Do you have fungus gnats??? If the answer is no, or not a bunch, then you probably have a beneficial mite rich soil. Growers Love!
-
Andersoni might be a better search for it actually.
-
Thank you N. E. Nugz, no website yet, so thats a good sign.
GodfatherKush505, that looks so much like it. My mites seem to have two little tail like things hanging out of the back and the species you pointed to also does in some pics. My USB microscope gets here tomorrow so I’ll have a better idea of what they look like. But yeah they are moving relatively fast. My plants don’t seem to be suffering either and I do not have fungus gnats. I’m crossing my fingers. Thanks!
-
Those look like grain or bulbous mites to me, any chance you are using malted barley powder? They are soil mites and detrituvours.
-
Hi Reikox, you’re right. They look very much like those mites. Are they bad? I am not using barely however. They don’t seem to be harming the plants. I figured with this big of an infestation I would start seeing damage if they were. I’m going to look into this mite more. Thanks!
-
They look like Amblyseius Andersoni like GodfatherKush mentioned. Nothing to worry about Doc from these soil mites. They don’t bother plants. This type of soil mite is a beneficial predator mite commonly used to control bad bugs like spider mites, broad mites and thrips. I would be wondering what they are feeding on if they stick around in high numbers.
-
Agreed, these are fine and may even out compete other detrituvours like fungus gnats.
-
Thanks for chiming in jmystro! You’re right man, I wonder what they’re eating.
This is one hell of a crew we have here! Thanks everyone!
-
I agree this is likely a good guy. It does look kinda like Andersoni or maybe Swirskii
Its really difficult to get a positive ID on mites, but I’ve learned you can tell a lot about bugs by studying their behavior.
Bugs that eat plants are generally slow moving and only wander around until they find a plant to munch on and then they usually stay put so they can pig out and reproduce.
Predators are usually fast moving and are always actively running around on patrol searching for prey. I’ve noticed they tend to move like they’ve got a job to do. They run around with kinda a smug confidence, almost like they know they’re vicious beasts that pests should be afraid of… 🙂
I’ve got a ton of crazy mites and other critters running around in my soil and I haven’t been able to identify them all. Everyone is very active tho and they’re all zipping around like they’ve got work to do so I’m pretty confident what I’m seeing is a healthy population of predators.
-
You can infer a lot about a bug’s diet based on it’s size. Good or bad. In a living soil like Soup builds, you’ll find a diverse population of soils mites of many different sizes. Large predator mites (Like on Doc’s pots) easily seen with the naked eye can eat the bad bugs we can’t easily see with the naked eye.
-
If you ever find yourself worrying about bugs in your soil, don’t forget you can order reinforcements! Even if it turns out not to be necessary it might help you stop worrying if you have an issue or not. Sometimes that alone makes it worth the $$$ to order some predators.
I’ve noticed some gnats and some other questionable characters in my soil lately so I just ordered some reinforcements for my grow. My existing predator population was keeping the bad guys from becoming an issue, but its been a year since I last added predators so I figure it’s a great time to call in some more troops.
I’ve got 25k predator mites and a few hundred rove beetles headed my way right now. Since I’ve started reusing my soil I’ve re-ordered soil predators once a year to help keep the population going.
It’s worked really well for my grow. I rest easy knowing that there is always friendly troops on patrol in my soil looking for bad guys. IPM is easier when you make it a team effort.
🙂
-
Thanks SOUP and Jmystro! If this were a forum I think the awesome knowledge provided by the crew would qualify this as a sticky. you guys rock 🤘
-
DGC check out these Hemp Insect Factsheets by Colorado State University
http://hempinsects.agsci.colostate.edu/hemp-insects-text/
Great info about bugs that you might spot around a cannabis garden with pictures to help for identifying pests
Recent Posts
Dude Grows Show 1635
What’s Growing On DGC? The Dude and Scotty are Hanging Out Talking Cannabis News, Culture and Growing. THIS EPISODE…
Canna Boost Substitute
I’ve been using Canna Coco for years now, and some other set ups in organics. I love the canna…
Puppet Master
Tropic Lighting – Ocean Grown Seeds, Malibu Pie x Obi-Wan OG x Alien OG. Grown with GH 3 Part,…
Watering
I have heard a lot about how to water depending on medium, not so much on how to water…
But it’s tea
Just improving the digestive tract.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.