Thrips

Recognize thrips

Thrips are yellow to dark brown in color. Thrips are primarily flower visitors, but also appear on leaves.The insects are highly mobile and can therefore spread quickly through the crop. The larvae of the thrips puncture cells on the leaf surface of the plant. The general appearance that results after many punctures on the leaf is a haze of silver-gray spots with black dots in them. In severe cases, it can even cause desiccation. The most common species in greenhouses is the California thrips, black thrips and the Tobacco thrips.

Thrips treatment  

Thrips can be controlled by covering the vents with insect netting. To detect and monitor thrips, you can hang traps. Checking them weekly will help you determine if thrips or other insects are increasing. 

Thrips biological control 

Thrips is a recurring challenge in vegetable production. Traditional chemical pesticides encounter problems because of the resistance of many thrips species to the active ingredients. In addition, the withdrawal of a large number of approved pesticides further complicates the situation. An effective and sustainable solution lies in biological control of common thrips. Such as:  

> Botanigard 22 WP: BotaniGard by Certis is a biological insecticide based on the fungus Beauvaria bassiana GHA.
> BioCeres G WP : is a biological mycoinsecticide. BioCeres is available in wet powder.