Midges on seedlings: how to get rid of them using folk and chemical means

Gardeners prefer to grow seedlings themselves. Sometimes white and black midges appear on it. Insects attack tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, and cabbage. The larvae destroy the root system and the seedlings will not bear fruit. Therefore, you need to get rid of pests immediately.

Types of midges

Sciarids, black soil mosquitoes, are found on seedlings. Whiteflies appear less frequently and attack leaves and stems. Adults drink the juice of the plant and weaken them.

Drosophila flies live on indoor flowers, rotting fruits and vegetables. They are small, dark brown, and multiply quickly. Green lacewings destroy aphids and do not harm plants.

Black midges appear due to waterlogging of the soil. This is typical for cold window sills with no air circulation. These two combinations create ideal conditions for the laying of eggs from which the larvae hatch. It is they, and not adult insects, that cause the most damage to seedlings.

It is not always clear how the pests got started. They can be brought along with purchased soil. This becomes clear only when the midges have time to reproduce. Therefore, any land must undergo disinfection.

Midges appear after heavy use of organic fertilizers. This creates a breeding ground for hatching larvae - warm and humid. Sometimes seedlings get bugs from indoor plants that are already infected.

Insects can be found in the ground, on stems or leaves. They remain invisible for a long time. Therefore, they are discovered only after the midges have seriously multiplied and their numbers have reached frightening proportions.

How to get rid of midges in seedlings, pest control measures

Advance preparation for the gardening season includes the hassle of choosing planting material and sowing seedlings. Even fully urbanized residents of megacities are not immune from them: exotic indoor flowers are often propagated by seeds. However, not everyone can provide thorough agricultural technology and midges often appear in seedlings even among experienced summer residents. At the same time, many ways have been invented to get rid of this scourge: from chemicals to improvised ones.

Preparatory activities

If bugs or flies appear in the seedlings, it is necessary to get rid of them urgently. Any delay threatens that there will be even more of them. It is necessary to use ready-made chemicals to kill pests and folk remedies.

It is necessary to dry the soil and remove excess moisture. To do this, the pots are placed in the sun and not watered for several days.

The room needs to be thoroughly cleaned, the floor, trash can, and window sills should be washed. All organic residues are removed from surfaces.

If the pots with seedlings are equipped with a tray for collecting water, it must be emptied and dried in a timely manner.

Between waterings, you need to loosen the soil - this will improve drying and provide air access to the root system.

Use toothpicks to loosen small pots, and forks for larger ones.

Moderately dry soil allows:

prevent rotting of the roots;
prevent egg laying;
deprive the larvae of food, as they feed on rotten roots.

In order to determine the degree of infection, you need to carefully remove the seedling from the pot and clean off the earthen lump. Afterwards the roots are inspected. If they are not covered with balls of worms, everything is not so scary.

You need to start fighting midges as soon as they are discovered. Do not allow adults to reproduce further.

Features of the use of insecticides

It is necessary to fight insects on the leaves and larvae in the ground. For this it is better to use special chemicals. Insecticides are potent drugs. Safety precautions must be followed.

Types of funds:

Aerosols. Sprayed in the habitats of flies, scare away and destroy them. Destroy cockroaches, ticks, flies.
Solutions. Designed for spraying and watering the soil.
Powders. They are laid in the ground and destroy the larvae.

Each group has its pros and cons.

Before using any drug, you must carefully study the instructions. Follow the dosage. You should not add more product, otherwise it will lead to the death of the seedlings.

The treatment is carried out in a non-residential area. You can go out onto the balcony or into the courtyard. A man puts on protective clothing, gloves, and a face mask. Animals, children, and other adults are removed from the room.

For treatment, it is better to use several products that are aimed at the soil and the plant itself. First the soil is processed, then the stems and leaves.

Repeated treatment is carried out after a week. The room is washed, ventilated, and hard-to-reach places are cleaned especially well.

Of the cheap and effective insecticides, Dichlorvos is often chosen. It is caustic and can burn plants. For processing you need to take a plastic bag. The product is carefully sprayed inside it. After which the bag is fixed over the seedling. It should not touch the leaves. Therefore, it is secured with a support in the ground or with the help of external objects.

The “greenhouse” is left for 10 hours, after which it is removed. This method effectively gets rid of larvae and adults.

How do diseases develop and why are they dangerous?

Gray rot. The disease is transmitted from plant to plant. Affected tomatoes quickly wither and die. Externally, the disease manifests itself as follows:
Formation of a characteristic fluffy coating.
Leaf spotting.
Damage to the plant stem.
White rot. Most often, this type of rot forms on damaged areas of the fruit and usually appears during storage of the crop. External signs of the disease:
Fruits covered with white coating.
Black rot. Black weeping spots appear on the fruits, most often near the stalk or in places of damage. The affected tissue softens, the spots become more numerous and the plant dies.

New product on the market - fumigators

There are innovative products that are produced in the form of plates. It is enough to insert them into a special device that will heat the surface and cause it to release chemicals into the air.

The insecticide included in the composition has a detrimental effect on most insects. It is harmless to children and animals. The plate needs to be changed every 12 hours.

There is a more economical option - a bottle of liquid. It can be left in the fumigator for several days.

Before purchasing, read the instructions for use. Each product has its own affected area - from 20 sq.m to 50 sq.m. Popular products are “Raptor” and “Transflutrin”.

Available Methods

If it is not possible to purchase proven chemicals, you can use improvised materials. You will need a box of matches. Their heads stick into the soil. 5-6 pieces are enough for one pot.

Afterwards the soil is lightly watered. The sulfur will come off the base and disinfect the soil. Every person can cultivate the soil. The matches are changed daily until the insects disappear completely.

If you have midges in your house, you can try the “Zvezdochka” balm. The product contains only natural ingredients. It has a strong eucalyptus smell, which insects don't like. Therefore, it is enough to apply it in a thin layer on the rims of the pots.

If black midges fly over pepper seedlings, then you should buy tea tree essential oil at the pharmacy. It has a specific pungent odor that repels pests well. For small pots, 1 drop per soil is enough.

The essential oil is very caustic, so don't go overboard with adding it. It can burn the root system. The death of insects begins on the 4th day.

An effective remedy for cockroaches is “Mashenka” chalk. It is enough to carefully crumble it and sprinkle it on the ground. You can draw lines on the pots.

If the degree of infection is high, the seedlings are transplanted into new pots and the soil is changed. Then water with garlic solution. To prepare it, take a head of garlic, which is poured with 1 liter of water. The mixture is left to infuse for a day.

The infusion is used at least three times. It effectively disinfects the soil. It is first tested on 2-3 plants.

How to fight?

Many summer residents first use a concentrated soap solution to fight, but the effect does not last long and the black midge appears on the bushes again and again. Using insecticides, especially during the period of budding and fruiting, is dangerous.

Do not forget that aphids are carried by ants, so in this case it is not enough to fight only the effect, you need to eliminate the cause:

After treating plant leaves affected by aphids with a soapy ash solution (it is advisable to use concentrated laundry soap 72%), do not be too lazy to treat their stems with tar. For ants, such an obstacle will be insurmountable. As a result, you will not only get rid of current pests, but also nip in the bud the introduction of new midges.
In open ground, plant marigolds, onions and garlic between tomato rows. The smell of these plants repels black aphids, but the ladybug, the natural enemy of aphids, is, on the contrary, attracted to the aroma of marigolds.
In case of severe damage, when nothing helps, use insecticides (strictly according to the instructions, taking precautions).
“Arrivo”, “Inta-vir”, “Fufan”, “Fury” will help against black midges. The drug "Aktara" is very effective, but after treatment you will not be able to eat tomato fruits for 30 days. Aphids can quickly develop immunity to any of the listed agents, so it is better to alternate treatments with several at once. The active ingredient in the preparations “Akarin” and “Fitoverm” is the naturally occurring neurotoxin avermectin, so their use is more justified. But you will not see the effect immediately - the pest will die gradually, over 3-4 days.
Among the folk remedies, an infusion of onion peels can partially help.
Pour 200 g of husk into 10 liters of warm water and leave the product to infuse for 12 hours. Strain the mixture before use. Spray on the leaves. You can use garlic infusion (dilute 200 g of garlic pulp in 1 liter of warm water and leave for 5 days). Then strain the mixture. Before use, dilute the resulting concentrate with clean water in a ratio of 1 to 50).

From my own experience, I will say that point 1 is especially effective and does not have any negative consequences. I bought a jar of tar at the nearest pharmacy in June 2022 for 40 rubles. By the way, the last one!

Despite their small size, midges are far from harmless guests in the garden. At risk are vegetable bushes planted not only in open ground, but also in greenhouses. Midges are an uncertain concept. If you notice that the leaves and stems of your tomatoes are covered in black bugs, you may be dealing with aphids. Another enemy of tomatoes is the cabbage whitefly. This insect has small wings that allow it to quickly move from bed to bed.

Folk remedies

You can fight midges with improvised substances. Adult insects can be effectively caught with fly tape. It is enough to hang it over the seedlings. This will prevent further reproduction.

Adults can be collected using sweet baits. To do this, sweet syrup is poured into saucers (water is diluted with sugar, jam, honey). The mixture should be thick. Insects will get stuck in the traps.

Another option is to make small flags from toothpicks and paper. The surface is generously smeared with honey, and the trap is stuck into the ground. Flags are changed as needed.

An easy way to catch adult insects is to use a vacuum cleaner. To do this, it is better to take a disposable bag, which will be thrown away immediately. The hose is used to treat the window sill, pots and windows. The more powerful the vacuum cleaner, the better. It will easily draw in midges, but to prevent them from scattering, the bag is immediately thrown into the trash on the street.

The soil is treated with a soap solution. To prepare it, use laundry or tar soap; ordinary soap will not work. It is allowed to use green sticks - they are made from herbs and are safe for seedlings.

For 1 liter of warm water you will need 20 g of soap. The solution is allowed to brew for several hours. To facilitate dissolution, the soap is rubbed or finely crushed. The soil is first loosened and then watered. The procedure is repeated 2-3 times.

For spraying, use a solution of potassium permanganate. It should be pale pink, almost transparent. Plants are sprayed with it.

Natural fungicides:

Garlic cloves, cut into slices.
Orange peels.
Onion.

All these products are cut, placed in the ground, and lightly dug in. The pungent smell and essential oils repel insects and prevent them from laying eggs. Wood ash powder is sprinkled on plants - this gets rid of midges, preventing the development of stem rot.

It is effective to use onion infusion for watering and spraying. To do this, take a handful of onion peels and pour a glass of boiling water over it. Leave to infuse until the water cools. All seedlings are treated with the resulting solution.

It is effective to sprinkle the ground with cinnamon, red pepper, and tobacco powder. This will stop the rotting processes in the soil. The midges will be deprived of food, which will prevent them from reproducing further.

Pest Control

There is more than one way to get rid of midges that appear on seedlings. Before making a choice in favor of one or the other, it is necessary to slightly dry the top layer of soil. And then determine how much midges have occupied the seedlings. If the damage is not total, then those boxes in which the pests appeared must first be isolated, and then try to get rid of the invasion.

Traditional ways

Folk remedies will help in the fight against adult midges and prevent their further reproduction:

Traps. The arsenal is large: adhesive tapes, yellow stickers, smeared with honey or homemade traps. The simplest is a plate onto the bottom of which fermented compote, jam, beer or wine is poured. Cover it on top with cling film with several holes the size of the midges.
Natural fungicides. On the surface of the ground you can spread citrus zest, garlic (ground or cut lengthwise cloves), spices (cloves or ginger are suitable), tobacco, cotton swabs soaked in valerian tincture or camphor. In addition, the edges of the container with seedlings can be coated with “Star” balm.
Matches. They are stuck into the ground with their heads down. For 10 cm2 4 pieces are enough. As the sulfur is washed away, they are replaced with new ones.
Alkali. It can be a soap solution (50 mg of laundry soap per 200 ml of water) - spray the seedlings and the surface of the ground with the solution. In addition, wood ash will work in the same way: it is crushed and the bushes are crushed.

More exotic methods suggest getting rid of a flock of flying insects with a vacuum cleaner or spraying with alcohol from a spray bottle, and collecting and destroying any that come across.

By specialized means

If the means at hand are not trustworthy, you can buy ready-made preparations for midges based on insecticides. If the instructions and terms of use are followed, they do not pose a threat to human health.

Available in different forms:

Aerosols. For example, Dichlorvos is an almost universal poison.
Powders. Grom-2 is embedded in the ground and helps against mosquitoes or springtails.
Preparations for the preparation of solutions. All gardeners and flower growers stock up on Aktara or Aktellik. Before midges appear, in addition to them, you can buy an alternative in the form of Karbofos, Fitoverm, Akarin or others.

After you have gotten rid of midges using specialized means, the room in which the seedlings were sprayed should be well ventilated.

If there is a severe infestation of midges, in addition to using poisonous compounds, you will have to change the soil. To begin with, the seedlings are washed under running warm water and transplanted into fresh soil. The old one is disposed of and no longer used. True, it is not recommended to wash tomatoes, only plants with smooth leaves, for example, peppers.

Prevention measures

Any soil, purchased or collected at the dacha, must be disinfected. This can be done by freezing, calcining, steaming, and pickling. This will destroy insect eggs.

In order not to have to decide what to do if midges appear, plant the seedlings correctly. Plants should not be closely adjacent, otherwise they will not have access to air.

Each pot is equipped with a layer of drainage - expanded clay or small pebbles. This will allow water to drain out. You need to water the soil as it dries. Dilute the soil with vermiculite, which retains moisture and prevents the soil from becoming waterlogged. With it, watering is carried out less frequently.

The top layer of soil must be loosened frequently - this gives the root system access to oxygen, and insects will not be able to lay eggs.

Do not overuse fertilizing and fertilizers. Inspect the seedlings carefully. When the first midges appear, immediately decide what to water the soil with to destroy the larvae and eggs.

Signs of appearance

It is quite easy to detect the appearance of midges on tomatoes. The first thing that indicates the presence of this problem is small white butterflies that fly nearby. In addition, affected plants have other signs:

leaves become curled and dry with a white coating;
the stem and other green parts of the plant turn yellow;
plants may reduce yield or even lose this ability;
fruits ripen unevenly;
ant trails are visible (ants feed on the waste products of midges).

The detection of even one sign should lead to the beginning of decisive action to save the plants.