Western Flower Thrips

17 years ago

I'm pretty sure I have what is Western Flower Thrips on my squash and tomato plants. I was unable to find anything via google and I'm wondering what is a good organic method to get rid of these bugs? I noticed them awhile ago and there wasn't much damage but they are starting to ruin quite a bit of my leaves and squash flowers now. Neem oil is out of the question. The tiniest, diluted bit of oil seems to cook my plants in the hot Arizona sun. Will soapy water work or just a good daily sprinkle of water on the top part of the leaves?

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Comments (6)

jean001
17 years ago
What kind of damage to the leaves? If holes, thrips didn't do it.
lelia
17 years ago
A couple of years ago I had a horrible thrip problem with my tomatoes and rhododendrons. I ordered a Thrips Predator mite from Planet Natural. I couldn't see a single mite when I shook the can onto the plants, so I pretty much wrote it off, but a few months later I noticed that I no longer had a problem with thrips, and I haven't had one since!

I suppose results vary widely with predatory insects, but if you have a real problem, it might be worth the risk. I totally lucked out.
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melbop
Original Author
17 years ago
No, the leaves get a silvery, brownish spekling color to them with a bunch of little black dots (the black dots are eggs or poop, some type of residue) after the leaves have been heavily damaged and then they begin to yellow/brown, and dry out.
lelia
17 years ago
* Posted by melbop (My Page) on
Fri, Jul 3, 09 at 23:07

No, the leaves get a silvery, brownish spekling color to them with a bunch of little black dots (the black dots are eggs or poop, some type of residue) after the leaves have been heavily damaged and then they begin to yellow/brown, and dry out.

Yup, that describes it exactly, especially the thrip-doo. Here's a picture of some of my damaged tomato leaves.

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melbop
Original Author
17 years ago
That's exactly it. I want to use organic methods to deal with this. I had used some Green Light - Many purpose dust on a tomato plant. It killed all insects including bees. I do not want to get rid of pollinators or good bugs. What's a method of dealing with this?
lelia
17 years ago
* Posted by melbop (My Page) on
Sat, Jul 4, 09 at 0:14

That's exactly it. I want to use organic methods to deal with this. I had used some Green Light - Many purpose dust on a tomato plant. It killed all insects including bees. I do not want to get rid of pollinators or good bugs. What's a method of dealing with this?

Well, as I mentioned earlier, introducing some Thrips Predator mites did it for me. I was at a loss, and I honestly don't know what you could do in terms of organic sprays.... nothing worked for me, but then I had widespread thrip damage. Actually, I introduced another thrip predator (can't remember what), but it flew away immediately upon release, and was never seen again. The area where I released most of the predatory mites was the first to show a real difference, and eventually the entire area started growing leaves with no thrip damage.