little tiny black flies?

[Tinybu88les8]

I have some tigger melon sprouts growing in a container and there are these little tiny black gnat looking flies EVERYWHERE in the container. Should I be worried? The sprouts look a little chewed... is this from these flies? What are they and do I need to get rid of them or are they harmless?

[DoubleDogFarm]

Can you post a picture

[Tinybu88les8]

I probably could but they are so tiny I think it would be pointless. They look like gnats and are flying around and some are crawling in the soil.

[sciencegal]

Thrips.

[rainbowgardener]

Thrips are very teeny:

Most adult thrips are slender, minute (less than 1/20 inch long), and have long fringes on the margins of both pairs of their long, narrow wings https://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7429.html

thrips, crawl, jump, and fly, but weakly. They damage plants and they will bite people.

If they are small, but not that minute, they may be fungus gnats. Fungus gnats are a bit like small mosquitos.

Adult fungus gnats are small (1/8 inch long), fragile grayish to black flies with long, slender legs and thread-like antennae. Their wings are clear or smokey-colored with no pattern and few distinct veins.
https://insects.tamu.edu/extension/bulletins/uc/uc-028.html

Fungus gnats mostly crawl on the soil, but will fly when the soil is disturbed. They do not bite people.

Treatment for either would be similar, soapy water spray (use SOAP, not detergent, dishwashing liquid is detergent) or Neem oil. Be sure you spray the underside of leaves and cover thoroughly, especially inside the plant base of the leaves where the majority of pests are located.

[Tinybu88les8]

dishwashing liquid is considered detergent? Okay, so how about hand soap? Does it matter if its scented or antibacterial?

[reneeleann]

Are these things harmful to the plant? I have tons of them on the undersides of my sunflower leaves.

[rainbowgardener]

If they are thrips, yes definitely harmful. If fungus gnats maybe not as much, but the fungus gnat larvae are in the soil and eat plant roots, so the larvae definitely do damage.

Detergent is harmful to plants also. Soap is things like Ivory, Murphy's oil soap, Dr Brunners pure castile soap. Shavings from bar soap. I'm not sure about liquid hand soap. It may be soap not detergent, but it probably has a lot of other stuff in it. I don't think you want antibacterial (we love our microbes around here!)