Fungus gnat infestation

Fungus gnats can be a big problem for house plants and for your plants in the homefarm. Since they multiply in the substrate, it can be difficult to get rid of an infestation. In this article we'll show you how to recognise and combat fungus gnats.

How do you recognise them?

Fungus gnats are small black flies that crawl around on the substrate and leaves of your house plants. They look like fruit flies and often fly around. It is important to recognise fungus gnats as early as possible to avoid an infestation.

In principle fungus gnats should not appear on plants living in a hydroponic culture. It can happen, though, that they are brought in by other house plants in your home. In that case you should make sure all plants are checked regularly to prevent the infestation from spreading.

In case of infestation:

One way to combat fungus gnat larvae as well is to add neem oil to the watering water. Neem oil contains the active ingredient azadirachtin, a substance fungus gnats don't like. It is a biological agent for combating fungus gnats, aphids, spider mites or thrips. But don't worry, it is dangerous neither for your plant nor for you.

This is how you should carry out the neem oil treatment:

• Add 10 ml of neem oil to 1.5 l of water
• Mix the oil and water well
• A few drops of soap help the water and oil mix
• Pour the water-oil mixture into the water tank
• Yellow sticky traps also help catch the fully grown fungus gnats and contain the spread

If that doesn't help, the plant capsules should be removed. Only then can you prevent the infestation from spreading to the other plants in your homefarm.