Thrips are difficult to control and rarely kill or threaten the survival of trees and shrubs. However, they can cause serious injury to herbaceous ornamentals and certain vegetable crops, especially when plants are young. Here are some ways to manage and get rid of thrips:
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Integrated Pest Management: Use an integrated program that combines the use of good cultural practices, natural enemies, and the most selective or least-toxic insecticides that are effective in that situation.
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Monitoring: If thrips are a suspected cause of plant damage, thrips adults and larvae can be monitored by branch beating or gently shaking foliage or flowers onto a light-colored sheet of paper, beating tray, or small cloth. For thrips that feed in buds or unexpanded shoot tips, clip off several plant parts suspected of harboring thrips, place them in a jar with 70% alcohol (ethanol), and shake vigorously to dislodge the thrips. Strain the solution through filter paper so thrips can more readily be seen.
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Remove Infested Plant Parts: Remove all thrip-damaged leaves, blooms, and stems, and throw them in a trash can. If the plant is badly infested, get it away from the rest of your plants entirely so the thrips won’t spread. Depending on how attached you are to the plant, the best decision you may make as a plant parent is to toss the entire thrip-infested plant into the trash. It’s tough to do, but throwing away the plant is a surefire thrip treatment.
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Natural Predators: Use natural predators like predatory mites (Amblyseius cucumeris) and ladybugs to control thrips.
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Insecticides: Use insecticides that are specifically harmless to your plants and deadly to thrips. Synthetic chemical pesticides are effective against thrips, but they may kill a wide variety of helpful insects and may cause local thrip populations to develop chemical resistance. Neem oil is a natural pesticide made from the neem tree that can be used to get rid of thrips.
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Clean Up: Remove weeds and grass from around garden areas to eliminate alternate hosts. Clean up crop debris in the garden, especially onion. Thrips are more likely to become a problem in areas where there are lots of weeds to serve as host plants. They also thrive in ground debris, too: dead branches, deadheaded flowers, and pruned stems. Put pruned and dead plants in the compost pile and keep your yard and garden weeded so thrips won’t have an inviting place to lay eggs, overwinter, and.
