Pests are killing my plants!!!!!

[peter]

So far I've got twelve VFT's that just came out of dormacy, and out of them two rotted away in the fridge...(I think it's because I dropped those two on the ground bareroot on accident  

)  I took all of 10 living ones out of the fridge for about a month now.  And today all the sudden one of them rotted away when it looked perfectly healthy overnight.  To my suprise though, when I derooted it to throw the plant away I found that the bulb of the plant had fungus growing inside of it, and there where about 10 little white worms feeding off of my plant!  The worms are about a half an inch and they where feeding off the bulb and some at the roots, but mainly they were all at the rotting parts of the bulb.  Do you guys have any idea what these things are? and how to get rid of them?  I plan on soaking the whole pot in water for a day to kill the worms. I've seen these worms before on the surface of my pots sometimes but didn't know that they could do any damage.
Oh yeah, almost all my pots have thirps in them, do they do any damage to seedlings and plants?

 

[greenhouse1]

Somebody want to help Peter with this? I can't offer much assistance. Thanks.

 

[Darcie]

Thrips eat plants, so yah they cause damage... a half an inch? Can you give more details on what they look like? Are they true worms or do they have a head like an insect larva? Generally speaking, large creatures in your pots are not good. It sounds a lot like some sort of grub or maget to me, I'd repot everyone if I had anything like that in mine otherwise I sugest an insectaside since magots are hard to dround if that is what they are.

 

[BigCarnivourKid]

Hi Peter,
I'm not sure what the white worms are for sure without looking at them.  I suspect they are fungus gnat larva but I wouldn't bet money on that.

I would get rid of the soil entirely and repot any other VFTs that were in that pot in fresh soil after checking them for the worms and/or rot.  If they have either, clean them thoroughly in the sink, cut off the rotted parts, rinse with distilled water, treat with fungicide, and replant them.  Treat them as cuttings until they recover from the rough treatment.

With the rhizomes that had the severe problem, clean and salvage what you can of the rhizome as described above.  If the rhizome looks beyond salvaging, start peeling the leaves off with as much of the white rhizome base as possible (bet you see where I'm going with this, huh?), clean them thoroughly, treat with fungicide, and lay them out on peat moss putting the base of the leave down into the peat a little bit or just lightly cover the base with a bit of peat.  Wait for them to sprout and put your new plants into pots.  If you were able to salvage some of the rhizome, you can clean and root the leaves that you pealed off getting to the good part of the rhizome.

Hope this helps

.

BCK

<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>Edited 1-24-04, 10:45</span>
I have used an old soft bristle tooth brush to clean rhizomes.  If used gently they remove the rot and dirt with out adding to the damage.  If the rhizomes only have shallow rot damge on the surface of the rhizome, then just clean the rot off and treat with fungicide before repotting.  Don't cut off damaged tissue unless that's the only way to remove it.

 

[peter]

Looking a pics on google, I'm sure that they aren't gnats, and they really look like nematoads. Is there a pestacide to kill nematoads?