Cilantro falling over at ground level, appears chewed

[Gerrie]

Help! my healthy cilantro plants are just coming into their own when yesterday morning I found two of them on the ground and they appear chewed off at ground level. The split end is slightly brownish and appears to have tiny white wormish creatures crawling around. What are they and what can I do to save the rest of the cilantro?

[Micah2oo4]

I am interested in this also. I found one of my indoor seedlings dead this morning and tons of tiny white insects crawling around in the dirt. They kinda looked like Tics. They where about the size of a chigger which we have a lot of chiggers around here.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Sounds like fungus gnats (larval stage) for the white worms and the other sounds like springtails (harmless but often seen at the surface in wet soils, which can harbor fungus). So I am guessing fungus gnats for Gerrie, and fungus for Micah.

[url=https://www.planetnatural.com/site/xdpy/kb/natural-pest-control-bt.html]BTI[/url] is specifically designed to attack the larvae of flies, which is why it works on fungus gnats and mosquitoes...

Micah, can you get a pic of a bug with some scale in there? (Pin head, match stick, something like that?) In the meantime, back off the water. More plants killed by too much than not enough...

HG

[Kisal]

I wonder if they could be fungus gnat larvae?

There's a picture and description at this link:

https://www.hydro-gardens.com/fungus_gnats.htm

[Gerrie]

Thanks, I'll ease off on the water, so far no others have fallen over and it's been a few days.

[Gerrie]

I checked out the fungusnats on line and they don't lood like that. They're very tiny at max about 1/8-1/4" long and very slender. No visible legs or wings but they don't seem to have body parts like a worm either. Season for cilantros almost over so I'm harvesting the coriander in a week or so, but I won't plant it again in the same spot.