Thrips belong to the order of bubblegum insects, the family of fringed-winged insects.
A very common pest on indoor flowers. Moreover, if spider mites can selectively eat flowers, for example, rarely touch benjamin ficuses, then trips are more omnivorous. It especially harms flowering plants.
What an adult thrips looks like: the body is elongated, spindle-shaped, segmented, with a pair of long antennae in front. But the dimensions of the trip are small about 1.5 mm. Such a trifle is found in our latitudes, but some species of thrips from tropical countries reach 1 cm or more. But among them, not all herbivores, the most abundant species of Aelothrips, Scolothrips - predators, eat small insects, ticks.
The name fringed wings arose because two pairs of wings in thrips are covered with small frequent hairs, like a fringe. But you can see where the wings of the thrips can only be under a microscope - when it sits on a sheet, the wings are folded along the body and are invisible.
And the name bubbly comes from a special device - bubbly suction cups on the legs allow thrips to tenaciously stay on the leaves and not only fly, but jump briskly. Therefore, sometimes you can see trips on a sheet, and after a second it jumped to the next one. Jump thrips like fleas - do not catch.
Therefore, if you bring beautiful bouquets of roses or peonies from the garden, know that you probably carry home and thrips - they love peonies very much, hide in buds and petals, and thanks to jumping ability, they will get from the vase on the table to the windowsill.
The oral apparatus of thrips is piercing-sucking, very quickly thrips sucks all juices from plants. Much faster than ticks. From a tick on a sheet, marbling is puncture, and from a trip there are small spots, often similar to strokes. But soon discolored silver spots of irregular shape form along the leaf, gradually the leaves become whole silver, translucent.
In addition, thrips pollute plant leaves with their secretions - shiny black drops and gray skins from molting.
Another difference between mites and thrips: mites usually gather from the back of the leaves, there you can see the husk from the links, then the excrement and skins of the thrips lie on both the upper and lower sides of the leaves. But the pests themselves usually hide in the upper layers of the soil, in the axils of leaves, larvae in buds and flowers that have not yet opened, and eggs are laid directly in the parenchyma (tissue) of leaves, stems, buds, ovaries and fruits .
What is noteworthy - on different flowers thrips prefer to lay eggs and feed on different parts of plants - in some they lay larvae in flowers, less often in leaves, for example, on roses. And other plants have both leaves and flowers, for example, orchids.
The bad news is that thrips easily spread fungal pathogens and viruses throughout plants.
Stages of thrips development
- egg - 12-30 days, depending on temperature;
- larva - 1-2 weeks (in several ages), mobile, feeds on plant juice;
- pronymph - 1-3 days, has the rudiments of wings, does not feed;
- nymph - 2-3 weeks, wings are, underdeveloped, fringe has not formed, they cannot fly, does not eat;
- adults - a sexually mature individual, flies, jumps, feeds, after molting young females are inactive for the first 1-2 days.
The rate at which thrips develop depends on temperature - the hotter the faster. So, at a temperature of about 15-16 degrees, eggs mature for 14-30 days. At a temperature of about 28-30 degrees - 6-12 days. One female lays up to a hundred eggs, according to some reports up to 300 eggs. But Simki do not start laying eggs from the first day, but on 2-10 days, depending on the temperature.
There are many species of flower thrips, they differ in color and size. Males are usually smaller than females, while the color is from yellow-brown to brown, almost black. Larvae are yellowish or gray, translucent, move quickly when the term of degeneration into pronymph is suitable, larvae usually hide in the upper layers of the soil.
What you need to know about thrips
- Thrips are widespread in temperate climates, there are many different types of thrips in gardens, they can be brought home with garden flowers, bouquets, from a store with indoor flowers or cutting.
- Trips affects many indoor flowers: tradescantia, ficus, dracaena, diffenbachia, monstera, palm trees, but especially loves senpoli, hibiscus, gardenia, orchids, citrus and other flowering plants.
- One of the signs of damage to thrips is the showering of pollen - larvae climb deep into the buds, gnaw anthers.
- Thrips eggs and nymphs have protective covers, so contact insecticides do not take them. This means that treatment from thrips should be carried out in such a way as to destroy all newly born eggs while they are in the larval phase, and adults (adults).
- The treatment frequency shall be calculated based on the ambient air temperature.
- Hot shower is not able to cope with trips, alas.
In the atlas of pests of indoor flowers there is also a photo of thrips and personal experience of forum participants on methods of combating thrips.
How to deal with thrips
Due to the fact that trips lead a secretive lifestyle, and eggs and nymphs are not affected by contact drugs, only the use of systemic insecticides is effective on flowering plants. This applies, first of all, to senpoli.
Contact pesticides can be used on ornamental and deciduous plants, as well as flowering before the formation of buds, since larvae and adults are on the surface of the plant.
Of the systemic insecticides, actar and confidor are most effective against trips. Dilute the actara in a concentration of 1 g per 2 liters of water. Usually, thorough watering is enough, the active ingredient is distributed throughout the vascular system to all organs of the plant.
Often you have to cut off buds and peduncles, but if trips have not yet had time to spoil the flowers, when processing with actara, you can do without removing the buds.
In addition, during the use of actara at normal room temperature, i.e. from 20 degrees and above, the period of its protective effect is 2-4 weeks, which means that hatched eggs or molted nymphs will receive their dose of chemicals.
But actara practically does not come into fruit. From the point of view of hygienic safety , this is good, but this means that on citrus and other fruit trees, repeated processing should be carried out in time in order to be guaranteed to get rid of pests.
Of the contact drugs, the following are effective:
- avermectins: Vermitek, Fitoverm,
- cypermetrines: Intavir, Iskra, Sharpey, Arrivo ,
- neonicotinoids: Tanrek, Colorado, Golden Spark, Mospilan,
- organophosphorus compounds: Actellic, Karbofos and others.
Frequency of contact insecticide treatments
Based on an average room temperature of 22-26 degrees, the development time of eggs and nymphs is 4-5 days, females lay eggs for 2-3 knocks, so the re-processing period is 5-8 days.
At temperatures from 15 to 22 degrees - repeated treatments for 8-16 days after the first.
If the flowers are on the balcony, where the average daily temperature is below 15 degrees, re-processing in 8-10 days, then the third in a week.
At a temperature of 28-30 degrees, the full development cycle from the egg to the breeding female is 5-7 days, it is better to carry out repeated processing 5 days after the first.
How to treat with insecticides from thrips
- Dilute the working solution according to the instructions.
- Solutions of contact-system preparations of actara or confidor water the soil in pots, can be sprayed for reliability.
- Thoroughly spray all leaves with contact solutions, or prepare the solution on a bucket of water and dip the plants upside down for 2 minutes. So the solution can better penetrate the buds than when spraying and destroy the pest. But in addition, you need to thoroughly moisten the top layer of the earth with a solution.
You can dip flowering, but not the most capricious plants, for example, small hibiscuses, calanchoe, spatiphyllum. - It is not necessary to tie the sprayed plants into a bag, the main thing is to re-process in time.
- But thoroughly ventilate the room, after the plants dry - just necessary.
- It is advisable to carry out processing outdoors: put plants in boxes and spray in a calm place.
- Wash window sills, glass, frames thoroughly with soap solution.
Consumption rates of some insecticides from thrips
- Actelic - 2 ml per 1 liter of water,
- Vertimec - 2.5 mL per 10 L of water,
- Intavir - 1 tablet per 10 liters of water ,
- Karbofos - 15 g per 2 liters of water,
- Karate - 1 ml per 5 liters of water,
- Confidor 1 g per 5 liters of water,
- Mospilan - 0.5 g per 8 liters of water,
- Phytoverm - 2 ml per 200 ml of water.