WTF are these bugs in my organic low-till living soil bed???

JTJT420

JTJT420

Member
Sorry for the shaky hands they’re so small I could barely get them on camera and it’s hard to tell what they are all I know is there’s a fuckton of them they’re only on the decaying plant matter and none on the live plants so no issues yet I did release beneficial predator mites in the beginning of this run so I don’t know if this is just an explosion of population of beneficial mites or if these are bad or what
 
Bustenbeans

Bustenbeans

Smoke pot, eat twat and smile alot
JTJT420 said:
Sorry for the shaky hands they’re so small I could barely get them on camera and it’s hard to tell what they are all I know is there’s a fuckton of them they’re only on the decaying plant matter and none on the live plants so no issues yet I did release beneficial predator mites in the beginning of this run so I don’t know if this is just an explosion of population of beneficial mites or if these are bad or what
Click to expand...
What’s your environment like?
 
H.A.F.

H.A.F.

a.k.a. Rusty Nails
Howdy - I know zero about microscopic bug identification. Judging by the actions of the critters they are composting. If they are only on the dead stuff instead of the plant I'd guess I could deal with them.

What might help is that I have added a step to the "chop and drop". Green leaves laying on moist soil is a petri dish for good and bad stuff - I'll take 'neither' if 'both' is the other option.

I wholeheartedly agree on getting 100% of the plant that I don't consume back to the plant. I pull all the puning and cover crop mowing and let it dry and crumble it through a seive so it's like for a spice shaker. Then I'll add it back to the plants with a top dressing.
 
H.A.F.

H.A.F.

a.k.a. Rusty Nails
JTJT420 said:
I did release beneficial predator mites in the beginning of this run so I don’t know if this is just an explosion of population of beneficial mites or if these are bad or what
Click to expand...
Here's an idea to try. If you have a worm bin try castings. A well kept bin with healthy worms will also have a ton of other microscopic goodies that just appear. Depending on what you feed the rove beetles, nematodes etc. can occur naturally. If you see a dead worm and little white mites everywhere, They just showed up to do your job because you let it get too dry ;)

Anyway, use whatever IPM you should hopefully be rotating through for your plant, maybe an extra squirt on the trunk just to make us feel better LOL. But adding a handfull of castings after removing the detritus should be all you need.
 
JTJT420

JTJT420

Member
H.A.F. said:
Howdy - I know zero about microscopic bug identification. Judging by the actions of the critters they are composting. If they are only on the dead stuff instead of the plant I'd guess I could deal with them.

What might help is that I have added a step to the "chop and drop". Green leaves laying on moist soil is a petri dish for good and bad stuff - I'll take 'neither' if 'both' is the other option.

I wholeheartedly agree on getting 100% of the plant that I don't consume back to the plant. I pull all the puning and cover crop mowing and let it dry and crumble it through a seive so it's like for a spice shaker. Then I'll add it back to the plants with a top dressing.
Click to expand...
Yes this is indoors and My environment is about 50-60% humidity in the tent at about 75-85 degrees. I have 4 clip on fans that are providing a decent amount of air movement and I wanna say I have an 8(?) inch in-line fan pulling air out of the tent. I had a nice cover crop growing and I chopped and dropped that plus any foliage I took off the plants. I see why it would be a smarter idea to chop,dry, then drop, and I will probably do that from now on. But I did do a decent dry back period up until this morning so most of the cover crop and foliage I dropped did get a good dry before I watered this morning and I went to do another watering just now that’s when I noticed these bugs must’ve come out from the dirt after I watered this morning. I spray watered with a hefty dose of saponin rich quillaja extract to see if soaping the bugs would do any good. Thanks for any feedback!
 
H.A.F.

H.A.F.

a.k.a. Rusty Nails
JTJT420 said:
But I did do a decent dry back period
Click to expand...
Another clue that it's not bad bugs. But those leaves are still moist looking and provided a cool refuge for whatever that is. I still think they're good but I would shift that stuff to the worm bin or compost pile. I just wouldnt sweat any bugs left on the soil.
 
Turpman

Turpman

PICK YOUR OWN
Was going to say sprintails to. They are composters. Dont think they eat live roots. Does look like you have a pretty healthy colony of them. People in the dart frog community inoculate their tanks with them. They are a great high calcium food for the frogs.
 
JTJT420

JTJT420

Member
Thanks everyone for the comments I appreciate it! I had a feeling it wasn’t a big deal and could be beneficial because I inoculated the area with beneficial microbes, mites and nematodes. I’ve just never seen a colony this big of anything let alone this shit I’ve never seen before! Thanks again y’all
 
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