TubePot
Well-Known Member
If mites I think you would be seeing webs be now.
Strange Spotted Leaves
- Thread starter Jimdamick
- Start date
Damn, nice eye I looked at these forever
Jimdamick
Well-Known Member
I think we have a winner. You directed me where to look, and for what. I don't have exactly the larvae like things, but I think I have bugs where the fingers meet. With the 10x lupe, all I could see are the general black things under the leaves, the size of the tip of a needle, but with really, really focusing hard, you could also see these white things, but they are MINISCULE , so I have to wait for the 60x to show up so I can be sure. I think the bug thing is the answer though, and if that is it, I will post it. Fortunately I am harvesting both rooms within 2 weeks so they didn't really hurt me. Anyway, I thank all the people of RIU that contributed to solving this puzzle, because I would never have found the solution on my own so quickly. Nice!
Jimdamick
Well-Known Member
Join the crowd
polishpollack
Well-Known Member
bugs are very confusing because they're so small, they're not obvious and they create problems that can look like nutrient problems. you really got to know what to look for so no one should feel bad. we all are here to learn.
Jimdamick
Well-Known Member
I've never really had a bug problem, as my grow is in my basement with nothing really around to contaminate it. I did have spider mites once that I got from a plant that my wife brought home from a garden center, and they were a pain in the ass to get rid of (BANG! beat the shit out of them), but at least you could see the cocksuckers without a microscope. These are almost invisible, and you wouldn't even know they there until the damage starts. I'll be damned if I know how I got them. Well, I have ordered some insecticidal soap and a 60x glass, and now I'm ready to kick some bug ass, and next time once a month they get a spray whether or not it appears to be needed. Be proactive, and take no prisoners.
Dr. Who
Well-Known Member
That is some of the oddest thrip damage I've seen. My oldest son said thrips this mourning before going to class's.....I disagreed and he said to check more and I was predisposed to be dense.......kids these days. I've looked and I've been blinded too....
I got to ask Jim...
Did it happen fast?
Petr (my son) said it was a major infestation by the age of the damage. Said it looked very much like it was all about the same age in like happening over only several days to a week.......Looking at the same pics the winner did, he says that your about to get round 2 real soon and the population is growing...
He suggests a "contact killer" right away! Pyrethrum first - ASAP and to follow up with anything Spinosad (organic) for the long term or missed by the contact spray.....
Darn college kids anyway! He beat me bowling this summer and he beat me at the State trap meet in singles and his brother tied me at state in dbls.......
Cubs are losing right? I'm just not ready for the apocalypse yet!
Doc
I got to ask Jim...
Did it happen fast?
Petr (my son) said it was a major infestation by the age of the damage. Said it looked very much like it was all about the same age in like happening over only several days to a week.......Looking at the same pics the winner did, he says that your about to get round 2 real soon and the population is growing...
He suggests a "contact killer" right away! Pyrethrum first - ASAP and to follow up with anything Spinosad (organic) for the long term or missed by the contact spray.....
Darn college kids anyway! He beat me bowling this summer and he beat me at the State trap meet in singles and his brother tied me at state in dbls.......
Cubs are losing right? I'm just not ready for the apocalypse yet!
Doc
Jimdamick
Well-Known Member
Doc, I just got my magnifier and was able to see these ugly little bastards. Shit.
In answer to your question, no, it did not happen fast, it took weeks to develop into that really bad leaf. Ask your son if I cut all plants (I'm doing that now for harvest) do they just hang around in the air,or are gone with the leaves. I use Hydroton in a drip system that I break down and soak in Clearex between crops, and vacuum the room and get rid of dead leaves etc. Point being, am I going to be fighting this shit forever? Will insecticide soap work? I am more concerned with long term and spread, as I grow constantly and have 3 rooms with 1 being hit hard.
I thank you for your and your son's help (it's must be nice to have someone who really knows what he is talking about around to help you) Let me know what my long term situation looks like. Thanks again.
Jim
Dr.Pecker
Well-Known Member
Thrips will fall off into the hydroton or soil the adults fly. You need to clean the grow when you're done.
Thrips Pests
Some Background
Thrips are members of the order Thysanoptera. There are over 4500 species throughout the world, with several known to invade greenhouses and interiorscapes — especially greenhouses with floral crops. A thrips (yes, thrips, with an “s” is the singular and plural versions of this pest’s name) is not only known for the direct plant damage it causes, but also for the serious plant diseases it vectors.
How They Become a Problem
Thrips invade greenhouses in myriad ways. First of all they reside in structures year ’round, hiding in the smallest of places. They also enter greenhouses on plants, of course, which highlights, again, the need for serious plant inspections before plants are accepted and allowed to take up space in your greenhouse. The adult thrips are also flyers. Their wings are more like feathers having fringes of hairs, or setae, and are very difficult to see-especially since they keep them close to their yellowish to dark green to brown-black elongate bodies when not in use. They do, however, function well. Their wings carry them, combined with natural breezes, over great distances.
A Serious Pest
Female thrips can reproduce sexually or asexually without a mate — it is their option. They lay their eggs in the soft tissue of plants, which is not terribly damaging to the plants, in itself, but it does protect the eggs from just about everything under the sun. That can’t be a good thing. The damage to plants and flowers is caused by the other end of these pests-the feeding end. Thrips have rasping and piercing-sucking mouthparts. They first rasp the cells causing a “wound.” The “wound” oozes plant sap. The thrips then insert their straw-like stylet into the damaged cells and begin to draw the juices. And if that isn’t enough, thrips are famed for their transmission of two horrific plant diseases: impatiens necrotic spot virus (INSV) and tomato spotted-wilt virus (TSWV). We’ll give you information about these plant viruses, so read on. If you don’t want your plants to get these special tospoviruses, don’t let thrips into your facility no matter how loudly they knock. If they do get in, control them as quickly as possible. Feeding damage can pale in comparison to what these viruses can do.
Thrips can lay a number of eggs. Their life cycle can be fairly short, dependent upon the temperature. If it’s cool, it can take over a month’s time from egg to adult; if hot, it can take as little as fourteen days. Needless to say, thrips are more problematic in the hottest months of summer. The various larval stages-of which there are two — and the adult stages are typically well-placed in their host plants. They can often be found deep within the plant’s flowers. Moreover, they will also hide in closed buds making their control, especially with chemicals, difficult at best. Fortunately, some of the biocontrol agents available to thwart them will go in after them and drag ’em out screaming. Many growers who do use chemical pesticides in their effort to control them will suit up during the hottest part of the day. This is when the thrips are most active, often venturing freely all over the plant instead of only hiding within its tight places.
Thrips Pests
Some Background
Thrips are members of the order Thysanoptera. There are over 4500 species throughout the world, with several known to invade greenhouses and interiorscapes — especially greenhouses with floral crops. A thrips (yes, thrips, with an “s” is the singular and plural versions of this pest’s name) is not only known for the direct plant damage it causes, but also for the serious plant diseases it vectors.
How They Become a Problem
Thrips invade greenhouses in myriad ways. First of all they reside in structures year ’round, hiding in the smallest of places. They also enter greenhouses on plants, of course, which highlights, again, the need for serious plant inspections before plants are accepted and allowed to take up space in your greenhouse. The adult thrips are also flyers. Their wings are more like feathers having fringes of hairs, or setae, and are very difficult to see-especially since they keep them close to their yellowish to dark green to brown-black elongate bodies when not in use. They do, however, function well. Their wings carry them, combined with natural breezes, over great distances.
A Serious Pest
Female thrips can reproduce sexually or asexually without a mate — it is their option. They lay their eggs in the soft tissue of plants, which is not terribly damaging to the plants, in itself, but it does protect the eggs from just about everything under the sun. That can’t be a good thing. The damage to plants and flowers is caused by the other end of these pests-the feeding end. Thrips have rasping and piercing-sucking mouthparts. They first rasp the cells causing a “wound.” The “wound” oozes plant sap. The thrips then insert their straw-like stylet into the damaged cells and begin to draw the juices. And if that isn’t enough, thrips are famed for their transmission of two horrific plant diseases: impatiens necrotic spot virus (INSV) and tomato spotted-wilt virus (TSWV). We’ll give you information about these plant viruses, so read on. If you don’t want your plants to get these special tospoviruses, don’t let thrips into your facility no matter how loudly they knock. If they do get in, control them as quickly as possible. Feeding damage can pale in comparison to what these viruses can do.
Thrips can lay a number of eggs. Their life cycle can be fairly short, dependent upon the temperature. If it’s cool, it can take over a month’s time from egg to adult; if hot, it can take as little as fourteen days. Needless to say, thrips are more problematic in the hottest months of summer. The various larval stages-of which there are two — and the adult stages are typically well-placed in their host plants. They can often be found deep within the plant’s flowers. Moreover, they will also hide in closed buds making their control, especially with chemicals, difficult at best. Fortunately, some of the biocontrol agents available to thwart them will go in after them and drag ’em out screaming. Many growers who do use chemical pesticides in their effort to control them will suit up during the hottest part of the day. This is when the thrips are most active, often venturing freely all over the plant instead of only hiding within its tight places.
Dr.Pecker
Well-Known Member
Some Advice
Somewhere between a complete and incomplete metamorphosis, thrips have a unique way of growing up. Two of their stages, the prepupal and pupal stages, at least for some species, are spent in the soil, growing medium and other friable material. In a nutshell, they will fall off the plant and drop to the ground. Good news, with the right tools they can easily be controlled down-under. Right tools like the predatory miteStratiolaelaps scimitus. Not all thrips species, mind you, do this but the majority of which growers will be concerned with do. Some common species are flower thrips, echinothrips, greenhouse thrips, onion thrips and, by far the most prevalent, the western flower thrips.
For The Scout
Scouting for thrips should entail a proper regimen, as always. And in this regimen growers can use a considerable variety of tools. Yellow sticky traps are one such tool. And if you’re using biocontrol agents to treat for or prevent other pests, which may be captured in yellow traps, then blue sticky traps are also very good at trapping thrips. Thrips, especially the larval stages, are, however, more difficult to count on blue traps. A proper scouting regimen will also utilize single plant inspections. For thrips monitoring, use some plants which will bear a steady supply of flowers. These flowers may be tapped or lightly shaken over a white sheet of paper — a drop-cloth, if you will — to facilitate easy detection. Like spraying, this should be done at high noon; but we encourage midday scouting, anyway. You may also lightly blow into open flowers as this will generally lure them out.
One of the best ways to deal with thrips is to practice exclusion using an extremely fine insect screen and to carefully inspect incoming plant material, especially if it’s budding or flowering. Screening sounds pretty straightforward, but it entails planning because the material is so tightly woven, it will significantly reduce airflow. Looser meshed (anti-virus) screens are probably the way to go as they do keep most thrips outside where they belong without such a dramatic airflow reduction.
Using a trap crop is also a great idea for thrips. Blue flowers, like asters, work well. So do many other flowering plants. You may also choose to incorporate plants such as petunias and fava beans. These are especially important as they can be indicative of not only thrips, but the viruses they vector. Symptoms such as leaf spots, brown, oozing patches, necrotic leaves, concentric rings of various colors, and others, can all tell you a story about your local thrips-even if you don’t see the critters themselves. If you see some of the symptoms described, seek the help of a book containing color photos of these diseases on the varieties of plants you’re growing for a side-by-side comparison. Also, and don’t be afraid to do this, seek the assistance of professionals well-versed in identifying these problems. Start with your area university’s cooperative extension office.
Aside from seeking the thrips themselves, or looking for the disease symptoms they can cause, feeding damage may also be revealing. Silvery striations along the leaves are indicative of feeding. They feed on leaves somewhat like the way a person would mow a lawn: back and forth, or round and round, forming a pattern. The silvery patches are actually groups of individual, spent plant cells. Other symptoms of feeding may include deformed leaves, buds and flowers. Some vegetable, such as peppers and cucumbers, and some fruits, may suffer abortion. The last sign is the presence of fecal matter. The feces show themselves as tiny black specks. Please bear in mind, if you see these signs of feeding damage, you have a great deal of these nasty pests — at least locally on the plant(s) on which the symptoms appear. If it is found on a single specimen, which, coincidently, happens to be next to the door, get rid of the plant. Keeping it may spell trouble; and the plant is probably not worth it.
Some Solutions
When thrips, like the ever-popular western flower thrips, become established in your crop their foothold can be tenacious. It is, therefore, very important to locally spray at the very first sign of them — assuming they aren’t actually already resistant to whatever you’re using and you can actually get the spray to them in the first place. However, if you’re using biocontrols, your actions should be preventive and aggressive. It doesn’t have to cost very much money, but it must be preventive and aggressive for the best results! There are several biocontrol agents which are very effective against thrips. Some kill the larval stages, some the prepupal and pupal stages, others the adults. You may want to use them all. Two in particular, Neoseiulus cucumeris (for the larvae) and S. scimitus (as previously mentioned, for the in-ground pupal stages), when used in concert, preventively and aggressively, have proven themselves repeatedly — in interiorscapes and greenhouses.
Luring Thrips with Extracts
For a long time we’ve known that thrips are attracted by scent as well as visual stimuli such as color. But now there may be a way to utilize this scent-attraction to help thrips trap themselves, thus removing them from the crop. One new way to do this, even though this still requires some more experimentation, is to soak plain old cotton balls in vanilla or almond extract and place them in the crop. Apparently thrips are quite attracted to these scents and will actually make their way into the cotton balls looking for the source. The good part is once they burrow into the cotton balls they find it nearly impossible to extricate themselves. This is a novel, inexpensive approach that can help reduce thrips numbers simply by way of trapping them.
Somewhere between a complete and incomplete metamorphosis, thrips have a unique way of growing up. Two of their stages, the prepupal and pupal stages, at least for some species, are spent in the soil, growing medium and other friable material. In a nutshell, they will fall off the plant and drop to the ground. Good news, with the right tools they can easily be controlled down-under. Right tools like the predatory miteStratiolaelaps scimitus. Not all thrips species, mind you, do this but the majority of which growers will be concerned with do. Some common species are flower thrips, echinothrips, greenhouse thrips, onion thrips and, by far the most prevalent, the western flower thrips.
For The Scout
Scouting for thrips should entail a proper regimen, as always. And in this regimen growers can use a considerable variety of tools. Yellow sticky traps are one such tool. And if you’re using biocontrol agents to treat for or prevent other pests, which may be captured in yellow traps, then blue sticky traps are also very good at trapping thrips. Thrips, especially the larval stages, are, however, more difficult to count on blue traps. A proper scouting regimen will also utilize single plant inspections. For thrips monitoring, use some plants which will bear a steady supply of flowers. These flowers may be tapped or lightly shaken over a white sheet of paper — a drop-cloth, if you will — to facilitate easy detection. Like spraying, this should be done at high noon; but we encourage midday scouting, anyway. You may also lightly blow into open flowers as this will generally lure them out.
One of the best ways to deal with thrips is to practice exclusion using an extremely fine insect screen and to carefully inspect incoming plant material, especially if it’s budding or flowering. Screening sounds pretty straightforward, but it entails planning because the material is so tightly woven, it will significantly reduce airflow. Looser meshed (anti-virus) screens are probably the way to go as they do keep most thrips outside where they belong without such a dramatic airflow reduction.
Using a trap crop is also a great idea for thrips. Blue flowers, like asters, work well. So do many other flowering plants. You may also choose to incorporate plants such as petunias and fava beans. These are especially important as they can be indicative of not only thrips, but the viruses they vector. Symptoms such as leaf spots, brown, oozing patches, necrotic leaves, concentric rings of various colors, and others, can all tell you a story about your local thrips-even if you don’t see the critters themselves. If you see some of the symptoms described, seek the help of a book containing color photos of these diseases on the varieties of plants you’re growing for a side-by-side comparison. Also, and don’t be afraid to do this, seek the assistance of professionals well-versed in identifying these problems. Start with your area university’s cooperative extension office.
Aside from seeking the thrips themselves, or looking for the disease symptoms they can cause, feeding damage may also be revealing. Silvery striations along the leaves are indicative of feeding. They feed on leaves somewhat like the way a person would mow a lawn: back and forth, or round and round, forming a pattern. The silvery patches are actually groups of individual, spent plant cells. Other symptoms of feeding may include deformed leaves, buds and flowers. Some vegetable, such as peppers and cucumbers, and some fruits, may suffer abortion. The last sign is the presence of fecal matter. The feces show themselves as tiny black specks. Please bear in mind, if you see these signs of feeding damage, you have a great deal of these nasty pests — at least locally on the plant(s) on which the symptoms appear. If it is found on a single specimen, which, coincidently, happens to be next to the door, get rid of the plant. Keeping it may spell trouble; and the plant is probably not worth it.
Some Solutions
When thrips, like the ever-popular western flower thrips, become established in your crop their foothold can be tenacious. It is, therefore, very important to locally spray at the very first sign of them — assuming they aren’t actually already resistant to whatever you’re using and you can actually get the spray to them in the first place. However, if you’re using biocontrols, your actions should be preventive and aggressive. It doesn’t have to cost very much money, but it must be preventive and aggressive for the best results! There are several biocontrol agents which are very effective against thrips. Some kill the larval stages, some the prepupal and pupal stages, others the adults. You may want to use them all. Two in particular, Neoseiulus cucumeris (for the larvae) and S. scimitus (as previously mentioned, for the in-ground pupal stages), when used in concert, preventively and aggressively, have proven themselves repeatedly — in interiorscapes and greenhouses.
Luring Thrips with Extracts
For a long time we’ve known that thrips are attracted by scent as well as visual stimuli such as color. But now there may be a way to utilize this scent-attraction to help thrips trap themselves, thus removing them from the crop. One new way to do this, even though this still requires some more experimentation, is to soak plain old cotton balls in vanilla or almond extract and place them in the crop. Apparently thrips are quite attracted to these scents and will actually make their way into the cotton balls looking for the source. The good part is once they burrow into the cotton balls they find it nearly impossible to extricate themselves. This is a novel, inexpensive approach that can help reduce thrips numbers simply by way of trapping them.
Jimdamick
Well-Known Member
I just puked, be back laterThrips will fall off into the hydroton or soil the adults fly. You need to clean the grow when you're done.
Thrips Pests
Some Background
Thrips are members of the order Thysanoptera. There are over 4500 species throughout the world, with several known to invade greenhouses and interiorscapes — especially greenhouses with floral crops. A thrips (yes, thrips, with an “s” is the singular and plural versions of this pest’s name) is not only known for the direct plant damage it causes, but also for the serious plant diseases it vectors.
How They Become a Problem
Thrips invade greenhouses in myriad ways. First of all they reside in structures year ’round, hiding in the smallest of places. They also enter greenhouses on plants, of course, which highlights, again, the need for serious plant inspections before plants are accepted and allowed to take up space in your greenhouse. The adult thrips are also flyers. Their wings are more like feathers having fringes of hairs, or setae, and are very difficult to see-especially since they keep them close to their yellowish to dark green to brown-black elongate bodies when not in use. They do, however, function well. Their wings carry them, combined with natural breezes, over great distances.
A Serious Pest
Female thrips can reproduce sexually or asexually without a mate — it is their option. They lay their eggs in the soft tissue of plants, which is not terribly damaging to the plants, in itself, but it does protect the eggs from just about everything under the sun. That can’t be a good thing. The damage to plants and flowers is caused by the other end of these pests-the feeding end. Thrips have rasping and piercing-sucking mouthparts. They first rasp the cells causing a “wound.” The “wound” oozes plant sap. The thrips then insert their straw-like stylet into the damaged cells and begin to draw the juices. And if that isn’t enough, thrips are famed for their transmission of two horrific plant diseases: impatiens necrotic spot virus (INSV) and tomato spotted-wilt virus (TSWV). We’ll give you information about these plant viruses, so read on. If you don’t want your plants to get these special tospoviruses, don’t let thrips into your facility no matter how loudly they knock. If they do get in, control them as quickly as possible. Feeding damage can pale in comparison to what these viruses can do.
Thrips can lay a number of eggs. Their life cycle can be fairly short, dependent upon the temperature. If it’s cool, it can take over a month’s time from egg to adult; if hot, it can take as little as fourteen days. Needless to say, thrips are more problematic in the hottest months of summer. The various larval stages-of which there are two — and the adult stages are typically well-placed in their host plants. They can often be found deep within the plant’s flowers. Moreover, they will also hide in closed buds making their control, especially with chemicals, difficult at best. Fortunately, some of the biocontrol agents available to thwart them will go in after them and drag ’em out screaming. Many growers who do use chemical pesticides in their effort to control them will suit up during the hottest part of the day. This is when the thrips are most active, often venturing freely all over the plant instead of only hiding within its tight places.
Jimdamick
Well-Known Member
I checked that stuff out, but many types. Bonide's Captain Jack's Dead Bug Brew sounds cool.. Any suggestions?
Dr.Pecker
Well-Known Member
Anything that has spinosad in it. Hot shot strips work but you're too far into flower. You need about two weeks to air the room out with those. You have to find out how they got there in the first place.
Dr. Who
Well-Known Member
Well if your harvesting out. I would do as you say but, then also spray down the whole grow area with a bleach based sanitizing solution. be sure to concentrate on cracks and corners. Spray everything - just like doing a sanitize for PM problems....I might consider doing halls or passage ways between rooms.
In fact I would most likely do a Dr. Dooms pyth bombing of rooms too. Treat all areas that do not have plants including the bombing and sanitizing. At the same time I would treat my existing plants.....After that, move plants out of that last room and treat it too. I have seen bugs move from a treated or being treated area to one that is not....
Good Luck!
Damn Doc, nice post......Are your typing fingers sore?Some Advice
Somewhere between a complete and incomplete metamorphosis, thrips have a unique way of growing up. Two of their stages, the prepupal and pupal stages, at least for some species, are spent in the soil, growing medium and other friable material. In a nutshell, they will fall off the plant and drop to the ground. Good news, with the right tools they can easily be controlled down-under. Right tools like the predatory miteStratiolaelaps scimitus. Not all thrips species, mind you, do this but the majority of which growers will be concerned with do. Some common species are flower thrips, echinothrips, greenhouse thrips, onion thrips and, by far the most prevalent, the western flower thrips.
For The Scout
Scouting for thrips should entail a proper regimen, as always. And in this regimen growers can use a considerable variety of tools. Yellow sticky traps are one such tool. And if you’re using biocontrol agents to treat for or prevent other pests, which may be captured in yellow traps, then blue sticky traps are also very good at trapping thrips. Thrips, especially the larval stages, are, however, more difficult to count on blue traps. A proper scouting regimen will also utilize single plant inspections. For thrips monitoring, use some plants which will bear a steady supply of flowers. These flowers may be tapped or lightly shaken over a white sheet of paper — a drop-cloth, if you will — to facilitate easy detection. Like spraying, this should be done at high noon; but we encourage midday scouting, anyway. You may also lightly blow into open flowers as this will generally lure them out.
One of the best ways to deal with thrips is to practice exclusion using an extremely fine insect screen and to carefully inspect incoming plant material, especially if it’s budding or flowering. Screening sounds pretty straightforward, but it entails planning because the material is so tightly woven, it will significantly reduce airflow. Looser meshed (anti-virus) screens are probably the way to go as they do keep most thrips outside where they belong without such a dramatic airflow reduction.
Using a trap crop is also a great idea for thrips. Blue flowers, like asters, work well. So do many other flowering plants. You may also choose to incorporate plants such as petunias and fava beans. These are especially important as they can be indicative of not only thrips, but the viruses they vector. Symptoms such as leaf spots, brown, oozing patches, necrotic leaves, concentric rings of various colors, and others, can all tell you a story about your local thrips-even if you don’t see the critters themselves. If you see some of the symptoms described, seek the help of a book containing color photos of these diseases on the varieties of plants you’re growing for a side-by-side comparison. Also, and don’t be afraid to do this, seek the assistance of professionals well-versed in identifying these problems. Start with your area university’s cooperative extension office.
Aside from seeking the thrips themselves, or looking for the disease symptoms they can cause, feeding damage may also be revealing. Silvery striations along the leaves are indicative of feeding. They feed on leaves somewhat like the way a person would mow a lawn: back and forth, or round and round, forming a pattern. The silvery patches are actually groups of individual, spent plant cells. Other symptoms of feeding may include deformed leaves, buds and flowers. Some vegetable, such as peppers and cucumbers, and some fruits, may suffer abortion. The last sign is the presence of fecal matter. The feces show themselves as tiny black specks. Please bear in mind, if you see these signs of feeding damage, you have a great deal of these nasty pests — at least locally on the plant(s) on which the symptoms appear. If it is found on a single specimen, which, coincidently, happens to be next to the door, get rid of the plant. Keeping it may spell trouble; and the plant is probably not worth it.
Some Solutions
When thrips, like the ever-popular western flower thrips, become established in your crop their foothold can be tenacious. It is, therefore, very important to locally spray at the very first sign of them — assuming they aren’t actually already resistant to whatever you’re using and you can actually get the spray to them in the first place. However, if you’re using biocontrols, your actions should be preventive and aggressive. It doesn’t have to cost very much money, but it must be preventive and aggressive for the best results! There are several biocontrol agents which are very effective against thrips. Some kill the larval stages, some the prepupal and pupal stages, others the adults. You may want to use them all. Two in particular, Neoseiulus cucumeris (for the larvae) and S. scimitus (as previously mentioned, for the in-ground pupal stages), when used in concert, preventively and aggressively, have proven themselves repeatedly — in interiorscapes and greenhouses.
Luring Thrips with Extracts
For a long time we’ve known that thrips are attracted by scent as well as visual stimuli such as color. But now there may be a way to utilize this scent-attraction to help thrips trap themselves, thus removing them from the crop. One new way to do this, even though this still requires some more experimentation, is to soak plain old cotton balls in vanilla or almond extract and place them in the crop. Apparently thrips are quite attracted to these scents and will actually make their way into the cotton balls looking for the source. The good part is once they burrow into the cotton balls they find it nearly impossible to extricate themselves. This is a novel, inexpensive approach that can help reduce thrips numbers simply by way of trapping them.
Doc
sharky1981
Active Member
Looks like thrips to me had them on my last grow smoke bombed them dead little fkers lol never harmed my yield but 
Jimdamick
Well-Known Member
Doc, I thank you again for all your considerable help. It's been greatly appreciated, and between you and Dr. Pecker and all the other people that replied, I have increased my knowledge base immensely and not just about thrips. This topic has been a damn good learning experience about lot of things it seems, and must have helped others also, and that is a good thing. TC
Jim
Jimdamick
Well-Known Member
Damned if I know how I got them. My cat? I don't even let my wife in the rooms in case she'd contaminate it.
No soil except germinating mix, and fresh air from the outside is screened.
So, these pricks can live in pebbles and rock wool and pretty much anywhere they are present, huh? This should be fun getting rid of these little fuckers, as it sounds like they could live on Mars. One last question and I'll leave you alone for now. How long is the life cycle of a thrip? I know it's 30 day's for fungus knats, but these guy's are like what? Years? Anyway, thanks for all the info bro, it is appreciated
Dr.Pecker
Well-Known Member
copy and paste