Quote:
Originally Posted by Shadeflower
Hey clawhammer, your description of them made me tackle my own thrip problem. I was in denial for too long but I finally spotted some thrip damage and started to investigate. In total I have "washed" over 30 pots now, once I did one pot another one would show signs.
So a good way to spot thrips is to use a torch and blow on the substrate. If there are thrips, first of all they glimmer or shine in light, second they scurry for shelter as soon as you blow on them so doing this if you spot movement you have thrips living in the pot - and that is where they hide 99% of times which is why they are so resilient. Cause they seem to be fairly simple to kill but seem to be either resistant to my store bought thrip spray or manage to hide well enough.
Ok so what does washing the pot involve and is it better than spraying the orchid?
What I have been doing is get a big vase, drip one drop of washing up liquid in there, then add water from tap to make it foam up lots, I then submerge the whole pot slowly into the water and watch any thrips hop to the surface where they die on contact with the soapy water.
It's quite satisfying to see and after having just ignored them and use my spray to no avail I have decided to go for this wash the whole pot approach.
I then rinse the whole thing well under the tap to rinse out any remaining thrips and soap and the orchid is good to go.
I am pretty sure I spotted 3 different varieties of thrips this past week. So far the results are promising. I'm expecting a few might have survived but considering how well they have evaded me, seemingly more resilient than roaches... just a drop of soap absolutely annihilates them.
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Sorry to hear you have thrips, but look at the bright side, once you eradicate them you will be amazed by the improvements to the appearance and longevity of your blooms
Now for the bad news, thrips are very hard to eradicate because of their behavior and their lifecycle. Washing the plant while watering is just one of the tools I used in my long war.
I made almost no progress until I bought Conserve (not the less expensive spinosad products) and used it every 3 days for 2 months. Also important, replace a few of those treatments with another pesticide like imidacloprid or azamax.
Good luck!~
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