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Does anyone know ofa supplier of small amounts of bio controls? I could do with getting some hypoaspis to control sciarid flies, but the defenders site only has a quantity which treats 10 sq metres or 140 pots, which is far more than I need.

Caroline this could be Chinese..; I haven't a clue what you are talking about... :o :o :o

You could try these;http://www.just-green.com/

Haven't been in here for a bit so unsure what they have but I would say they are worth a look.

these are the best!
http://www.greengardener.co.uk/ ;)

Don't know if I'm looking in the wrong place, but I can't find hypoaspis on either of those sites.

Sorry, Anne- this site explains it pretty well:

http://www.defenders.co.uk/

If you've never been troubled by sciarid flies, neither had I until this year but now they are on my aubs and peppers and the herbs and aloe vera in my kitchen. Tiny but very annoying and apparently the larvae eat the roots. :(

Poor you!! Thanks for the info though. I'd never heard of them before.

I hate sciarids. I did get the smallest pack of hypoaspis that Defenders do, and it filled all the pots in my infested conservatory and left enough over to be able to do the potting shed too. And I have a lot of pots.

Pity they don't do smaller packs, but I guess at some point it's uneconomic to do.

Normally I end up with red spider mite in there, but this year I've got the potting shed up and running at last and have put the aubs and cucumbers in there - so far, so good and no need for phytoseiulus...

moonbells

Have you considered changing to soil based composts? These are less appealing to compost flys.

I've found this if anyone else wants to know:

http://www.biowise-biocontrol.co.uk/soil.html

Will try to remember about soil-based compost next year, but are you saying it's better than peat-based or peat-free, or both, Eristic?

I use nothing but John Innes Seed compost. Didn't stop the blighters multiplying so fast that the surfaces of the pots were covered in brown pupae... yuk.

They're all gone now. I put yellow stickies literally over the pots so the hatchlings had no choice but to fly up and die. Then the predators. It had got to the point where I was swatting them in the bathroom and the cat was getting annoyed because of the numbers landing on her when she was trying to sleep in the conservatory. I couldn't leave a cup of tea lying about because half a dozen would commit suicide by landing in it.

moonbells