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disease-pests What is the best way to fight thrips on my peoper before it gets out of hand?

A

androzrim

My Cayenne plant has been attacked by thrips. I wasn't sure at first but I've confirmed it with a paper and lots of flicking the leaves.

I went looking for them after seeing damage on fresh leaf growth, as seen in the images below

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I haven't really seen many, with only finding two when flicking all over the pepper, but going by the damage, I would assume there's more. I found this little bastard today:
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What are the possible next steps in terms of fighting this? It's my first year growing and I've gotten terribly attached to all 5 of my plants. So far, I've only noticed damage on this one. Since I hopefully found this early as there isn't many of them on the leaves yet,I really hope further damage can be prevented.
 
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HellfireFarm said:
I did a quick check on my two preferred pest controls - looks like both spinosad and neem work to control them. Spinosad appears to be a little more effective. Those are both great alternatives if you want to avoid the harsher chemical pesticides like carbaryl.
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I also read about spinosad but it's not available without a license here. Best I could get was pyrethrin, which seems to work from what I've read. It's also mixed with rapeseed oil which should work similar to neem so it's a 2 in 1. Sprayed yesterday and will repeat next week and possibly the one after to make sure they're gone
 
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The Hot Pepper said:
It kills bees but the toxicity fades as it dries.
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That's probably why it's controled here, we have a huge amount of honeybees and wild bees in Slovenia. Pyrethrin is supposed to be safe for bees, especially when used in the evening as it breaks down quickly on sunlight and is not a systemic insecticide. I made sure it's natural and not synthetic, as those take much longer to break down and can linger on the pepper
 
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Yes, pyrethrin can work. I have used it successfully to deal with some pretty nasty thrip infestations. I did have to spray it more than once, since pyrethrin degrades rapidly, and also more thrips can hatch from eggs on the leaves after you spray it. But it does kill the adult thrips on contact pretty readily.
 
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BlackFatalii said:
Yes, pyrethrin can work. I have used it successfully to deal with some pretty nasty thrip infestations. I did have to spray it more than once, since pyrethrin degrades rapidly, and also more thrips can hatch from eggs on the leaves after you spray it. But it does kill the adult thrips on contact pretty readily.
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Good to hear that. The package says to spray weekly, how often did you spray?
 
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I don't recall exactly how many days it was between applications. I would spray the plant thoroughly, and the adults would all die. Some days later, I would see more young thrips on the plant and I would spray again. Presumably more eggs hatched in the intervening time. It seems that the pyrethrin isn't as effective on the eggs as it is on the adult thrips. The rapeseed oil in your product might help with that. Spraying approximately once a week until they stop coming back sounds about right to me though.
 
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I always use biological pest control, e.g. in the form of Green lacewing larvae (Chrysoperla carnea). You can easily order these online, at least where I live. They don't interfere with the existing and future predators of your thrips, they have a long action (i.e. until the adults fly away), and they also protect from other pests such as aphids. Alternatives could be predatory mites (e.g. Amblyseius andersoni, Neoseiulus californicus, or Amblyseius swirskii).
 
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It's nice that everyone uses different techniques. I dilute azadirachtin against aphids, thrips, mites and leaf miners. Very effective, not systemic and not harmful to pollinators (I'm actually reading papers now that claim it has some effects on bee larvae, but it is certainly less harmful than pyrethrins and spinosad on bees). You just have to be a little patient because it does not have a knockdown effect like other strong insecticides, but it interferes with procreation. I had a heavy infestation of aphids and natural products and potassium soap were not enough at all
 
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Very effective, a little pricey for me.

www.arbico-organics.com

AzaGuard®

AzaGuard is an indoor/outdoor, OMRI Listed botanical insecticide/nematicide that controls and repels over 300 insect species across a wide range of ornamental, forestry and food and non-food crops. azadirachtin , extracted from the neem tree, is the active ingredient here. Insects are...
www.arbico-organics.com
 
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