Bugs living in my Trident tray

[Phoenix238]

Hi all,

A couple of days ago I noticed a couple of these little "fly" looking insects about 5mm long hanging around my trident tray (only one seedling in there atm) and today there is now about 2 dozen running in and out of the mix. I tried submerging the tray and it seems to have gotten rid of about half of them. They seem to be all through my nearby worm farm too.

Flies 1.jpg

Flies 2.jpg

Hope the pics are clear enough to see, they wouldn't pose for the camera

Any advice would be much appreciated, I've only had 1 trident pop up and I really don't want it to die

[Damian Bee]

I'm no bug expert but that looks like a tiny little wasp.

[shibui]

Hard to tell from the pics but could be fungus gnats. These are common in organic rich potting mix, especially when overwatered. You will probably find tiny white 'worms' in the potting mix which are the larvae. References say they will eat the roots of plants but I haven't seen them do much damage. More info on fungus gnats -http://www.learn2grow.com/problemsolver ... gnats.aspx

[Phoenix238]

Thanks for the link shibui, seems like a likely culprit. Seems submerging the tray might not have been the best option how old should my trident seedling be before i consider transplanting it into some "clean" soil?

[shibui]

You can prick out seedlings as soon as they are big enough to get hold of. I collected about 100 from the garden a few weeks ago. Most just had the cotyledons - no real leaves. All doing fine. When transplanting early you can remove 90% of the root and expect the seedling to put out lots of new roots that are more spreading than the original 'tap' root and will usually result in a better nebari in the future. You can probably even remove all the root and strike them as mini cuttings like the pine seedling cutting method but I find that is not necessary to get a good spreading root system. Just shorten the long, downward root by 1/2 or 2/3 and plant into your normal potting mix.
Pricking out seedlings early like this will give you better seedlings in the long run because they will have more space and nutrient to develop. Seed raising mix has little nutrient and the fast growing seedlings start to starve in a few weeks.

[Phoenix238]

Thanks shibui, tis good to know that all is not lost! Guess I know what I'll be doing when I get home. Should have known it'd be alright, I've been doing the same thing to tomato seedlings for the past couple of Weeks. Now to find a suitably shallow-ish pot...