Grr....thrips

moosery

moosery

during routine inspection yesterday I noticed one plant had no more than maybe five thrips on it. Already! They don't hang about do they?
 
I've squashed them all by hand - a rather satisfying experience - quarantined it, had a very good look at all my other seedlings/young plants and can't see a single one on any of them. Of course I'd like to keep it that way!
 
Does anyone have any suggestions about stopping a few thrips becoming a plague?
 
I've read about adding mulches, sand, aluminium foil (which sounds interesting) although not sure if necessary? 
 
I've also ordered yellow and blue sticky paper.
 
Should this do it or are there any other tricks?
 
Since I'm in a "sealed environment" at the moment, I can only assume they came as hibernated eggs in the soil, in which case, unless I plan to microwave a LOT of soil, there's not much you can do is there??
 
Cheers! :)
 
Not going to lie, I had to look them up, they're supposed to be worldwide but I've never seen them before so I dunno.  My best guess is lady bugs from what I just read.
 
ikeepfish said:
Not going to lie, I had to look them up, they're supposed to be worldwide but I've never seen them before so I dunno.  My best guess is lady bugs from what I just read.
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It's funny you should say that, because for the last couple of weeks I've had two ladybugs suddenly hanging around, which I thought was odd since it's just a windowsill in the house, so...I was wondering what they were eating to stay alive. Guess that's solved that problem!  :dance: Lets hope they breed or something lol
 
Interesting point though, if two ladybugs got in, I guess my environment must be a lot less "sealed" than I thought it was...! 
 
Guys - I think I'm going to try sand, but I have a question: what sand do you use? Any old sand, like builder's sharp sand? 
 
I have only had thrips outside. I use insecticidal soap. It is very safe. It contains potassium fatty acid. It usually kills on contact or within a few seconds. I would be worried about any eggs they left...

The insecticidal soap is safe to use inside. I would check every 3 days for a month till there are no more thrips.
 
Spinosad is by far the best thing to use for thrips in my experience. Be careful, thrips won't show much damage to big plants, but will slow them down, and can absolutely wreck seedlings.
 
Seen a few more but they're still isolated and I'm catching and squashing them as I find them. Still hesitant to resort to any pesticides at this stage although I have been looking for the fatty acid spray - it's actually hard to find here in the UK.
 
Everyone needs a USB microscope btw, positive thrip identification this afternoon.....
 
thrips.jpg

 
Not that ugly if you ask me, I've seen worse
 
Can anyone reply to my sand question though? Sharp sand or sand pit sand or builders sand or...something else? What do you use?
 
Cheers! 
 
You should be able to get horticultural sand. T it's much the same as sharp sand. As long as it doesn't have chemicals added.
 
heefy said:
You should be able to get horticultural sand. T it's much the same as sharp sand. As long as it doesn't have chemicals added.
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Awesome - yes, I went to a "proper garden center" and found a bag of horticultural sand, happy too that it was on sale so actually £2.49, cheaper than builders sand! 
 
thegreenman said:
I would use an inert sand like lawn sand. pure silica and not crushed limestone. Also may want to add Diatomaceous earth
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Lawn sand has fungicides? I'm interested in Diatomaceous earth though now, thanks for the tip, that stuff looks neat for ants too!!
 
 
Also heard they're attracted to almond oil, so I bought some of that from the supermarket and soaked some cotton balls and stuck them in the middle of the yellow traps. 
 
I beat broad mites last year, so darned if I'm going to let some pesky thrips ruin things this year!  :flamethrower:
 
Just a thought, has anyone ever tried to use a vacuum to remove thrips? Seems like they don't cling on that well to me, I might experiment a bit with that idea...! 
 
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