The cause? Rice root aphids. Nasty little things.

Originating from east Asia, they purportedly made it to North America through the global economy. It is likely an infested plant was shipped here chock full of these atrocious pests and they did what pests do best: They destroy. The first legal grow facilities in California even dealt with rice root aphid infestations and didn’t even know it because of how well this insect can hide! Rice root aphids live in the top few inches of soil, only sending out winged females to search for new plants to colonize when their current host is overrun. These insects reproduce through a process called parthenogenesis, which is essentially where the female gives birth to a clone of itself. An unchecked rice root aphid population can double in less than two days, but they die within a few days without a host plant to feed from. These aphids prefer to find host plants that fall into the following plant families: Roses, grasses, sedges, nightshades, conifers, gourds, and hemp. They also prefer to live in places where the temperature stays around 23°C/73°F which sadly means they absolutely love cannabis grown indoors in tents that have controlled temperature and humidity. Rice root aphids cause injury to the external plant parts - like the roots and stem - and feed on plant sap. This creates a huge problem with a plant’s ability to properly uptake and digest nutrients and it explained why our indoor grow continued to look depressed while the plants we moved outside matured properly.

Because of how little information there is on these pests, they are often mistook for fungus gnats and even nutrient deficiencies. Coupled with the fact that fungus gnats are a common, albeit annoying, pest indoor grow operations deal with, it’s understandable that the few winged females that escape aren’t discovered until it is too late. Many growers may automatically conclude that they need to amend their soil, and within only a few days find themselves with rice root aphid infestations that they cannot handle. It is our personal opinion that the best way to distinguish between the two pests is to check out their abdomen. A fungus gnat’s abdomen ends in a point and a rice root aphid's abdomen is rounded. It is imperative that you catch an infection of rice root aphids as soon as you can because the only ways to truly get rid of them involve pesticides - which no one wants to smoke - or destroying your whole indoor grow. Ironically enough, our yard has quite a few Chinese rose bushes, and upon learning this was our issue, we found it curious that the outdoor plants got better instead of staying sad. By planting clover in our outdoor cannabis plant pots, we noticed that we were inviting ground beetles and soil centipedes to make a home there. Both of which enjoy a diet including rice root aphids. We suppose what happened was nature taking control. Homeostasis is a constant that nature is always striving towards, and we believe that our growing methods coupled with the plants being outdoors helped wipe out the rice root aphid population from the cannabis plants in our yard.