No. Gnats are at the root level, Neem Oil is for foliage predators like mites, and thrips.
If you give your roots Neem oil you will probably kill them.

hmm. i mixed a few tbsp to a gallon and fine misted eveything. havent seen problems or gnats in 3-4 weeks now. maybe i got em early? good to know its root toxic tho thank you for the heads up

Are you sure there dead, maybe they were just drunk.


wow that is about the most uneducated thing ive ever heard. (ISO)ALCOHOL IS POISON NOT ONLY TO PESTS BUT HUMANS AS WELL.IT IS NOT MEANT TO BE INGESTED BY ANY LIVING BREATHING CREATURE.
off the back of the bottle
ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL 91%:
ACTIVE INGREDIENTS: ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL.
INACTIVE INGREDIENTS:WATER.
DIRECTIONS: CLEAN THE AFFECTED AREA.
HAZARDS: FLAMMABLE.
OTHER INFORMATION:DOES NOT CONTAIN,NOR IS INTENDED AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR GRAIN OR ETHYL ALCOHOL,WILL PRODUCE SERIOUS GASTRIC DISTURBANCES IF TAKEN INTERNALLY
GOOGLED
Ingredients
Rubbing alcohol is used to disinfect, to bring down fever and to soothe skin. Most rubbing alcohol is made of 70 percent isopropyl alcohol in water. Isopropyl isn't the same type of alcohol that is in alcoholic beverages---ethanol--- although sometimes ethanol is an ingredient in rubbing alcohol. When ethanol is an ingredient it will have been denatured. Denaturing is adding poisonous and bad-tasting ingredients, and it is done specifically to prevent people from drinking the alcohol. Often the poisonous ingredient added is methanol, which can cause blindness. Isopropyl is also found in mouthwashes and skin lotions. Isopropyl is very intoxicating. Because it is easily available and has no purchasing restrictions, it is sometimes used as a substitute for ethanol alcohol.

Toxicity
Isopropyl is called a toxic alcohol (along with methanol, and ethylene glycol), although any alcohol can be toxic in large amounts. Isopropyl is twice as toxic as the alcohol in alcoholic beverages. It also has a greater effect on the central nervous system. Isopropyl irritates the GI tract. The lethal dose of isopropyl in humans is estimated as 8.5 oz.



Read more: The Effects of Consuming Rubbing Alcohol | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5200289_effects-consuming-rubbing-alcohol.html#ixzz1kfjPnIhP

ALSO ALCOHOL EVAPORATES FAST THE FLYS GET WET AND LITERALLY DRY TO DEATH SAME AS SPIDER MITES IF THEIR NOT DEAD FROM INGESTING IT THEN THEIR LIL BODIES DRY OUT FASTER THAN THEY CAN INJEST WATER.IT WILL KILL ANY MICRO PEST.PART OF THE INGREDIENTS OTHER THAN PYTHERIUM OR NEEM IN MITICIDES IS ALCOHOL BECAUSE IT DRIES FAST AND LEAVSE NO RESIDUE.

Dank it was a joke, but great info though.

my bad didnt mean for it to look like i was comming at you. thats why i didnt quote you outright. it was for the general public and i used what you said as just ...well like and example of a question being asked i forgot to put the question mark on the end of the question. so this is official MY BAD! sorry.

I bought a 30# bag here at the farm store for $25 about 7 years ago. It's used as a feed supplement for chickens etc to prevent internal parasites. Still have half of it left.

It can be used in a foliar spray to knock back spider mites, thrips and other hard-bodied nasty critters but for fungus gnats a half inch on top of the soil or other media works well.

Fungus gnats have a different life strategy as they do not feed on the leaves but the root hairs and other organic stuff in the soil. Once the young emerge the adults just fly around and get knocked up then lay the eggs on top of MOIST soil where the young feed on the root hairs and emerge . . . .

A single dose of Fungus Gnat Killer powder on the soil surface can wipe them out. Not particularly organic but does the job and is not absorbed by the roots into your plants. Available at any garden center.

Like all pests the order of elimination is to first make sure of their identity, research their life cycle and interrupt it at the point that causes the least grief/expense/damage to your plant's life cycle.

Actually, they are not allowed to use a lethal ingredient to de-nature alcohol.

What hey do use is ingredients that are very close to the boiling point of ethanol or close enough that their taste/effects are near impossible to get rid of in something like a simple distillation.

Case in point. I thought I had a good idea by buying RV anti-freeze @ $4.00/gal and distilling out the 85% ethanol.

Even after 3 distillations the soap taste was very evident and the product was undrinkable. Further distillations and or carbon filtering may have made it potable but by then it would cost more than just buying booze.

I like to set up this big old Italian glass wine fermenter in my grow room. I put 12# of sugar in there, Tbsp of yeast energizer and a pack each of distillers yeast and champagne yeast. It sits in the corner and puts out CO2 for at least a month.

Once it's done I siphon the wort off into 1 gal milk jugs and put them into the freezer. Once they are frozen, I invert them over a 5 gal pail and as they slowly thaw the alcohol runs out first and you are left with a 1 gal sno-cone.

The resulting run-off is about 25% alcohol and can be drank right away if your stomach can handle cheap booze. Just tastes like very crappy, slightly yeasty, watered down vodka. If it's sweet tasting that means that your yeast died before all the sugar was consumed. Use a # less for the next batch.

homedistiller.org is a good place to start

Really can't say that surprises anyone but you, Labby

RE: Neem oil, that's what I use regularly, 1-2x week generally at 1% concentration. It works reasonably well as long as I'm consistent about it. I spray it heavy on the soil surface, as well as the lowest portion of the plant. I fully agree that adult gnats aren't the problem, just the sub-surface larvae, which will eat root hairs and are problematic for cuttings and vegging plants.

A spray of neem over the soil keeps adult away from the surface, which keeps them from laying more eggs in the root zone. The problem is that it won't kill the larvae, so it can literally take 2 weeks to clear a problem if it arises.

edit:
I'm curious if you've got a source for thinking neem would be deadly on roots, Krimzon. I've just never read about neem being harmful on plants in most any circumstance.

I've read several users horror stories about killing their plants with a neem oil root drench to try and get rid of gnats.
Neem oil is very potent stuff. If it's not diluted properly it will burn the shit out of your plants once they get under the light.
It's meant to be a foliar spray. I have heard of one application to control root weevles in shrubbery, but thats a whole different ballgame.
I would never use neem in your reservoir, your growing medium, or anywhere else for that matter.
There are several other options out there designed for this particular use so why stray from the path that's already proven?
When I have a 10,000.00 crop under my wing, the last thing I'm going to do is go off the beaten path with a new way to treat an old pest.
If you would like to me dig up the users posts where they killed off their gardens by applying neem to the root levels, I will find them.
I'd be curious to see if you've found any literature stating that neem oil is effective at the root level in any way?

Great thread btw !

I have been suffering from a minor infestation of gnats lately. Ran out of DE, so decided to do a little reading. Turns out Safers make a few organic sprays which include Pyrethrins. Headed out and picked up a bottle, did a small test spray on a 'spare' plant, just to be sure it wouldn't harm the girls. Worked out fine, so went ahead and sprayed the rest (the media, not the plants themselves). After only one application I am seeing one or two live adults flying around, so seems to be quite effective.

Hope this helps someone. Oh, here's the link to Safers if interested.