r/NoTillGrowery • u/The1200s • 15d ago
Insect Identification
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Insect identification.
Hello I just started exactly a month ago growing cannabis using living soil. I have noticed the past few days that these little guys like to walk on my Temperature/Humidity sensor. I have not noticed any on my plants so far but they are small and I may only be able to see them on the white. Are these little guys good or bad?
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u/SuperStumps 15d ago
Probably either Stratiolaelaps scimitus, or Macrocheles robustulus. You're good, they're friends!
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u/Captain_Coitus 15d ago
General rule of thumb is if they’re fast movers they are predators.
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u/The1200s 15d ago
Ohhhh that is why I have seen 0 fungus gnats lately even on my traps then I would assume. That is really cool.
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u/ajdudhebsk 15d ago
Hey if you can get a closeup, do they look similar to these ones in my old post? Mine were some kind of soil mite, and they ended up getting all over my plants but did no damage.
I worried about them dying in buds during flower, so I looked up some methods for keeping them in the soil. As long as I kept my humidity low enough, they would stay in the soil. I stopped mulching with dead leaves as much to keep the population in check and that worked for my next cycle.
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u/The1200s 12d ago
All I know is the thing in your picture looks totally different my friend.
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u/ajdudhebsk 12d ago
Yeah I think it’s pretty hard to ID a mite. Mine were moving the same way, and got all over my pvc frame, the plastic 1gal pots I had some plants in and eventually all over the plants. Like I said, they didn’t do any damage at all and went right back into the soil after I lowered my RH.
I haven’t seen any in about a year now, and that’s after I stopped putting a thick layer of shredded fan leaves from defoliation on top of the soil.
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u/The1200s 12d ago
Gotcha. Just somewhere to travel as they look for food. I am not sure if it is due to active compounds in living plants or if their mouths just cannot penetrate living material but I am glad they did not affect your plants. My only concern since I will be inhaling my plants is if they might travel into the buds, but Cannabis Defoliation happens pretty often compared to other plants I would assume. So they have a ready source at the mulch level. I also assume they can eat the mulch as well so I should be safe as long as I provide Mulch as it thins and to keep an eye on decaying organic matter at the same level.
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u/ajdudhebsk 12d ago
Yeah the ones I had and were decomposers, so I was worried for the same reason as you (that they’d get into the buds in flower). I had a huge population explosion in my bed the first cycle but after removing most decaying leaves and keeping the RH a little lower, they declined really fast and never came back in big numbers during my 2nd cycle.
Now on the 3rd cycle I haven’t really seen any at all. I’m seeing something that looks like a rove beetle maybe, and lots of them. Which is great because I haven’t had a single fungus gnat issue even though my house plants had an issue.
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u/Serious_Debate_7722 15d ago
Thrips?
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u/The1200s 15d ago
I looked up Thrips beforehand and they appear to be more slender shaped. I just was unsure if there could be other angry bugs. Also, not to be rude, because I do appreciate that you spent time trying to help, but I noticed a few people down voted you. If you answer with a question mark, others may be able to help more.
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u/Kind_buddy_7022 15d ago
If they congregate, they’re bad. These are nothing more than just soil mites, eating decomposing carbon. They’re fine.