Putting a thin layer of sand around top of soil will it hurt the plants growth or oxygen to the roots?

A customer has a question and I hope we can get some opinions on it, thanks

I would like to ask a question…putting a thin layer of sand around top of soil will it hurt the plants growth or oxygen to the roots? They are in smart pots. The sand because i have gnats and larvae thanks Susie

No it is a great option for getting rid of gnats. About 1-2" covering all the top should fix it

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I also heard you can put a slice of potato and they will go to it.

Both of those options work. The potato is more so to get rid of larvae. In the past I’ve had great success with this stuff you can get on Amazon. It’s called SNS 209. Just follow the directions on the bottle. Can be used as a foliar spray or systemic.
Currently I am using something called food grade DE. It’s cheap and you just sprinkle it all over the top of your soil. I find I get little larvae crawling on my leaves every now and then, especially after I water too much. But with the soil taken care of/covered, it stops their growth cycle. I find after you water the de and it dries out, it can get hard. so I take a little knife and just break up the top of the soil if needed. Most of time if you just water slow and let the water sink/soak in the problem takes care of itself. Good luck and enjoy your grow.

sand or perlite is ok

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Use food grade de also

I was set on using Play Sand when I ran into a link from ORTHO saying NOT to use play sand but to use horticultural sand instead. Thoughts?

" Add a 1/4 inch of horticultural sand (do not use play sand) to the top of the soil in your containers to help discourage fungus gnats from laying eggs around the plants. You can also try placing the cut side of a potato on the soil surface to draw some of the larvae out of the soil".

Putting a layer of sand is really good for preventing bugs. However I made the mistake of actually getting a couple grains of sand on some of the leaves of my germinating 6 day old plants. I then watered them. The next day one of my plants is shrived up, and a couple have yellow on their leaves. I think the sand grains got incredible hot from the light, and burned parts of my plant. Make sure when putting sand that none of the grains remain on the plant, especially the leaves!