Will moving orchids to lower light cause bud drop?

[Shadeflower]

Keith, like claw says it is hard to spot them if they generally leave the leaves alone.
I found on my flowers they'd nibble the outside edges which would turn brown.
I have two pictures of damage they have done. Mind you the first one could possibly be mites too, I know it had both.

The second picture is the best damage pic I can 100% attribute to thrips. You might ask so if there aren't any flowers and they don't eat the leaves, then what do they eat all day long? This:


Honestly the first time I noticed I had a problem with thrips was just an overall decline in health as you can imagine with the damage they do to roots. The more thrips you have the weaker the orchids get. One Oncidium lost a backbulb to rot. That was my worst affected and the pot was swarming which is when I knew I had a problem.

They live in the substrate and if you see one there will be at least 100 more in the pot. They behave like cockroaches. Although they are active during the day they are most active at night and scurry away from the light. Most thrips have a shiny gleam to their wings like cockerels on their feathers so doing a midnight check,checking the substrate surfaces with a torch usually reveals much you wouldn't see during the day...

[Roberta]

This time of year (northern hemisphere) Catasetinae are probably the least of your problems with regard to bud drop due to change of conditions... the plants are going dormant, some bloom when they are totally leafless. I suspect that for those, systemics will also not be very useful since the plants aren't taking in much of anything. But for external treatments, I also suspect that they might be more amenable to treatment with pesticides, if nothing else the bugs have fewer places to hide.

[K-Sci]

Originally Posted by Shadeflower

Most thrips have a shiny gleam to their wings like cockerels on their feathers so doing a midnight check,checking the substrate surfaces with a torch usually reveals much you wouldn't see during the day...

With one exception (the mite-infested phal from Normans which had brown at the stem just like your photo) I haven't seen any symptoms on my plants. I put blue sticky traps around my greenhouse just to see what they'd catch. I got was a few fungus gnats I'd never seen. They were very easy to identify at 10x magnification.

-Keith

[Shadeflower]

Trust me you don't know how lucky you are.

Just tonight I had to treat 3 orchids, at least it is not daily any more.
Sometimes I wonder if I am fighting a losing battle and need something stronger...

If I spot more than 10 new outbreaks this year that will have to be a new new years resolution lol

[Shadeflower]

Originally Posted by Shadeflower

If I spot more than 10 new outbreaks this year that will have to be a new new years resolution lol

I am up to 4 new outbreaks already

Here keith I took a picture for you to give you an idea of how hard they are to spot. There is a thrip in this picture but it's a bit like where's Waldo?

Here is the thrip from same picture magnified


Also a guide on them I had saved in my bookmarks:

https://staugorchidsociety.org/PDF/T...ySueBottom.pdf