Fungus Gnats (pronounced "Phungus Nats") (Mycetophila spp.) are disgusting, destructive insects which feed upon wet plant matter and fungal material causing huge amounts of damage to hydroponic and conventional crop plants worldwide on a daily basis.

These "bugs" are recognizable by their "fruit-fly"-like appearance: i.e. they are very small black flies which buzz and flitter around the soil/substrate/food source surface in a very annoying fashion, appearing harmless to the naked eye.

They proliferate in moist areas where food is plentiful, such as hydroponics gardens which have an abundance of plant material and fungi available for them to munch on.

I have experienced infestations when growing hydroponic garlic plants. The gnats initially appear to feed on dead plant matter and microscopic fungi, but subsequent actual living plant damage is evident, perhaps when they run out of fungal material and dead plant matter to ingest.

Remedies include accepting the little monsters as co-habitant existents (this is the method preferred by vegan wussies) or decimation by biological or chemical means. Organic Pyrethrum insecticides have been used with great success, as have been Nematodal & Spider-mital beneficial predatorial destruction techniques.

I will be adding a labelled diagram when I get my "new" computer in a couple of weeks as my old 486 is getting tired, listless, and cumbersome.

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