mccolgan1
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Posts: 41
Joined: Fri May 01, 2009 11:23 am
Location: north east england

little white maggot bugs in my soil.

so I'm siving out roots from last years containers and most of them have tons of these little white maggot things about 1cm long anyone know what these are? should I start with fresh soil or dump all the soil with these in. sorry no picture il try get one if needed.

PaulF
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Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2010 5:34 pm
Location: Brownville, Ne

What you may have is root maggots and they are especially harmful to the cabbage family of crops. The common procedure if they are discovered in a growing crop is to destroy both the maggot infestation and the plants infested by them.

I would suggest all the old soil be discarded, the containers cleaned and disinfected and new soil used. I rarely reuse old soil from one year to the next because of pathogens or pests. A bit expensive if you have lots of containers but on the safe side.

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Ruffsta
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Location: Ohio

personally, I would start new.. but that's how I do it every year regardless..

mccolgan1
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Posts: 41
Joined: Fri May 01, 2009 11:23 am
Location: north east england

some say fungus gnat larvae but same thing I think. I had ruhbarb in one and strawbs in another and they died last year I found these in the root mass left so I guess your right.

what about maybe a compost heap? my friend has a big compost bin and he is stockpiling it for a few year would puting them in there for a time be a good way to reuse soil in the future and kill them. save just dumping it at the recycling plant.



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