Thrips

10 years ago

Yesterday I found 1 plant with thrips damage in a tray full of seemingly unaffected plants. I know better than to think there aren't some hiding in the tray. The offender which had thrips has gone to a better place ( I had extras of that variety) but I now need to deal with the rest of my plants. I have disbudded plants that were on that tray and domed it ( minis and young plants). I looked carefully at the rest of the plants on the tray but saw no evidence of thrips or thrips damage. Now of course there is a tray next to that one and it is on a stand with 11 other trays and there is another stand with 12 trays only 6 feet away. I thought I had been so careful. Last winter I had no blooms and only a few plants due to mites and mealy bugs. They got the full toxic treatment and I am reluctant to do a full scale toxic treatment again. So what are the opinions? Do I need to disbud everything and treat or spot treat near the shelf where I found the infected plant? I have some of the sticky traps that will be placed around on the stands so I can see what might be happening but do I take a risk not treating full scale.
Thanks for any insight.
Wendy/SK

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Comments (5)

irina_co
10 years ago
There is never such thing as one thrips. You can as well disbud everything and start spraying. It doesn't make sense to me to throw away a plant just because of the thrips. They probably left their eggs on each plant in your collection. They fly really well - and probably were attracted to the warm air in your open window.

Yep - you can use lice shampoo - you need to do several sprayings week apart - on everything- to nail all the new hatchlings. If they do not have buds to feed - they will feed on the very young leaves.

I,
PRO
Whitelacey
10 years ago
When I bought some Avid for thrips from Cape Cod Violetry, I asked John if I should remove blooms and buds. He said it wasn't necessary which surprised me as you always hear dis-budding is necessary. He said the Avid would do its job so removing flowers wasn't imperative.

Linda
wendycoo
Original Author
10 years ago
And the Avid won't damage the flowers?
PRO
Whitelacey
10 years ago
He said it wouldn't. He said there was absolutely no reason to dis-bud. I was happy to hear this as no one wants to nip their flowers off-that's why we grow AV's. I've yet to try it because I am in the middle of re-potting but I will when I am finished this week.

Linda
wendycoo
Original Author
10 years ago
I was in the process of repotting when I found the plant with Thrips. I guess life with violets means life with bugs especially since I have a large outdoor garden. I will have to spray once we get back from visiting my daughter and her family. Meanwhile I will spray a bit of Neem oil and set up some sticky traps.
Thanks for sharing Linda.
Wendy