black fly in the house!!!!!!!

[bubbles4920]

help, all my house plants seem to have black fly living in the soil. is there any way of getting rid of them by spraying etc. rather that having to change the soil??im getting fed up of swatting them now!!!

[logman]

It looks to me like your plants have, Fungus gnats or sciarid flies. chemical controls are available from garden centres in yhe form of yellow sticky traps that can be hung over plants to capture adult flies plus you can use chemical house plant sprays on the compost to kill off the grubs

[andyjevs]

Sciarid flies are tiny little flies which are attracted to the food in wet composts. They can get to plague proportions but are totally harmless to the plant unless it is a tiny seedling.

I would suggest you hold up on the watering for a week or two and "scuff up" the surface of the compost. A spray over with a domestic fly spray should finnish the job off.

Andy

[logman]

Hi bubbles, As i'm a fellow sufferer of the dreaded sciarid fly, i decided to look into it a little further. A wealth of help and advice is out there on various web sites, including some non chemical alternatives yuo may wish to consider. Heres a quote from one- Sciaid flies feed on roots and stems of seedlings and cuttings and younger plants are most susceptable,and these may collapse and die, mature plants may not be so badly affected but if severely infested will grow poorly wither and even die. Apparently damage caused can also open it to fungal infection. If you wish to know more about control of this pest try http://www.organicgardening.org.uk

[bubbles4920]

ive still got the dreaded black fly. ive not got round to doing anything yet except swotting them. im reluctant to spray fly spray on the soil, surely this would kill the plant wouldnt it.