there on my tomato plants!!!!

by joe
(ontario, canada)

they are tiny (the size of a dull, skinny pencil lead) insects almost beetle like in looks. they are a reddish brown color with a black head and a black stripe about midway down their back

Drought Smart Plants reply: Hi Joe, without a picture, I'm sorry I can't ID this critter. You also don't say if your tomatoes are outdoors?? or inside? and in what kind of conditions - I need much more detail about everything, short of what variety of tomatoes they are.

Help me out here.

Best,
Jacki

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there on my tomato plants!!!!

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May 23, 2012
 not quite but thankyou
by: joe

well they definitively aren't fungus gnats I've had them and killed them off before, how do add a picture i caught one them alive

Drought Smart Plants reply: Hi Joe, you can either send me the picture via email to the notification address, or start a new post, and I'll change it over. Please make sure it's not over 100kb as the system won't accept large image files.
Apr 26, 2012
 re:
by: joe

they're inside in my kitchen its fairly warm all the time and slightly humid(50 to 60%, for the most part clean as well

Drought Smart Plants reply: Hi Joe, as these are inside, I'm thinking that you probably have fungus gnats.

These annoying little flies are really hard to get rid of, but do persist, as what they're doing is laying eggs in the soil, and the larvae will eat the roots of the plants, along with decaying organic matter.

The best solution is to vacuum up the adults as much as possible, and then use yellow sticky traps.

They are attracted to yellow, so they'll fly up and get stuck on the trap, which you can then throw in the garbage.

Other than that, there are some nematodes, a beneficial creature that lives in the soil and eats the larvae, which you can buy at beneficial insect mail order suppliers.

Hope that gives you some ideas of how to deal with them,
Jacki

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