by Nebula Haze
Springtails are small insects that love moisture and feed on decaying organic matter. When it comes to cannabis plants, springtails are commonly found in overly-wet soil or living in your hydroponic reservoir.
Here’s a video of springtails living their best life in a cannabis grower’s hydroponic reservoir:
What are springtails and what do they look like?
Springtails are small insects that love moisture and feed on decaying organic matter. They’re commonly found in moist soil feeding on parts of plants that die. Here are some common springtail traits to help you identify them:
- Love moisture (wet soil, moist areas, pools of water, etc.)
- Can float/live on water (so you may see a mass of them living at the surface of a reservoir)
- Jump/spring into the air when agitated (hence the name “springtail”) – springtails have a special fork-like structure under their abdomen called a furcula. It’s typically folded under the body but when the insect is disturbed it releases the furcula and springs into the air.
- Don’t bite or sting – They’re not dangerous to you, and they don’t bother cannabis plants much, but they should be eliminated as soon as possible. No one wants to find a bunch of dead bugs in their weed after harvest. Plus they can compete with your marijuana plants for nutrients, which isn’t ideal.
Springtails can take a variety of forms:
Springtails are most commonly found in overly moist soil (along with fungus gnats, another common cannabis pest that loves wet soil). This dark soil is way too wet. A springtail paradise 🙁
Springtails can live on the surface of water. Since they eat dead plant matter, a hydroponic reservoir is perfect for them. Check out this video sent in by a reader who found springtails in his reservoir.
No danger to plants?
Springtails are just gross for the most part. But it’s still good to get rid of just because you don’t want any bugs or pests living in your grow room. Springtails can compete with plant roots for nutrients and may compete with beneficial organisms. They can also leave dead bug bodies in your buds if you don’t get rid of them before your cannabis plants start making buds.
Not dangerous, but get rid of them anyway!
How to kill them:
Things that kill them include:
- Anything that dehydrates their soft bodies should kill them (alcohol and water, hydrogen peroxide, etc)
- Lost Coast Plant Therapy – claims to kill any soft body insects using horticultural oils that won’t hurt your plant
- Mechanical Removal (remove as many as possible, use a moist sponge to wipe them off your plant, etc)
- Dry everything out (will prevent them from surviving and reproducing)
- Once your grow medium is dry, you can apply diatomaceous earth, which is a fine dust that’s sharp on a microscopic level and will kill them if they crawl over it. Just make sure it’s dry first as it clumps together and stops working the moment it gets wet.
- Vacuum the grow area and remove any dead plant material or any decomposing organic matter where they like to hang out
- Some growers recommend adding beneficial nematodes or predatory mites to control springtail populations, but that’s probably unnecessary if you follow the other steps.
Say goodbye to springtails forever!
Hydroponic springtails
- Make sure your rockwool or whatever you’re using as the “base” grow medium for your plant isn’t overly wet. Keeping the main stem of your cannabis plant dry also helps improve stem health, so this offers two benefits.
- Change the reservoir if you see them, and clean it out so no old ones are still around.
- Dust the top of the reservoir and area around the reservoir with diatomaceous earth.
- Vacuum the area because they can be on the ground.
- Watch to make sure they don’t come back
