Kitchen Garden Forum

Just returned home from a 4 day absence to find the compost in several pots of climbing beans seething with white maggots. Help please! What caused this and what can I do to eradicate the problem before the other pots get infected?

What do they look like? Vine weevil?

viewtopic.php?t=2649&highlight=vine+weevil

No Chantal, they were much smaller and thinner than this - in fact only a bout 3 millimeters in length.

ants?

Hello Primrose
They could be a type of simple worm called nematodes. These are about the size you've mentioned and smaller and could be confused with maggots. In ideal conditions they can multiply rapidly. If your plants are OK there's probably nothing much to worry about but some types can seriously affect plant health.
I don't know about getting rid of them as they are naturally present in almost all soils - one thing you could try to do to control them is to let the soil dry out before rewatering, repeat this several times.

John

I don't know what they are called but are they those almost transparent things you get in peat based composts that turn into tiny black flies? I'm not sure if they do any harm, keeping things a little drier reduces them. Not very helpful I'm afraid.

Hi Geoff,
The flies and very small maggots that you refer to are called Sciarid Flies but these are generally only about 1mm in length and Primrose says 3mm so I somehow have my doubts.
I must say that it is bad luck for Primrose because of all the thousands of beans I have grown I have never experienced such an occurrence and I am at somewhat of a loss as to what they can be or how to proceed.
JB.

Primrose, can you post a photo of the little blighters?