Customer story
Linflowers

Challenge in thrips

“Thrips control is the greatest challenge in this situation. Thrips will cause damage to the flowers, but also they spread the tobacco mosaic virus . The predatory mite Montdorensis appeared to be a good thrips controller and for the last 4 years, we have been feeding it prey mites, which enable us to grow a great population in chrysanthemum. By feeding the Montdorensis Power Food, we got to a real breakthrough in organic pest control of thrips in chrysanthemum. We just didn’t manage to do this year-round, because of the increasing numbers of thrips in the summer and the fall. This forced us to apply chemical adjustments. Spraying is not what we are after, but we can’t allow that our crop gets eaten. We must protect our crop”, according to David van Tuijl. “Royal Brinkman advised us to also make use of the new AgroBío predatory bug Orius Plus, by use of Power Food Plus. This would also be effective against the adult thrips. This spring we started scattering Orius Plus predatory bugs.”

"We must protect our crop against thrips.”
​​​​- David van Tuijl, chrysanthemum grower in Nieuwaal

Introduction schemes

Crop protection specialist Conrad van Doorn, working at Linflowers, is closely involved with the new strategy in the control of thrips using Orius Plus, Montdorensis and Power Food Plus. Conrad: “We scattered Orius Plus one time, immediately after planting the young chrysanthemum shoots. Orius predatory bugs move excellently through the crop and by starting additional feeding, using Power Food Plus right away, the population was able to grow well”. Montdorensis, as well as Power Food Plus, were scattered several times during the cultivation. The advantage is that this type of Power Food is suitable for the additional feeding of two organic controllers: Orius Plus as well as Montdorensis. At Linflowers, this is done in nursery Rodalin 1, by use of the UniMite Air diffuser, via the monorail. It will automatically move back and forth, while the predatory mites and prey mites are distributed uniformly across the crop. Conrad: “We performed counts all year and monitored how thrips, but mainly how Orius, developed in the crop. We continuously detected young Orius and the main thing; we have also noticed that the number of thrips stayed low”.

"During counts in the crop, we continuously found young Orius.”
​​​​- Conrad van Doorn, crop protection specialist

Adding Orius Plus and a new additional feeding system will help chrysanthemum to get through the winter organically.

Getting through the winter organically

David van Tuijl is positive about the steps that were taken with the new Orius Plus added, in the organic control of thrips at the Linflowers nurseries. David: “At three out of four Linflowers nurseries things went well and we can make it through the winter organically. At one nursery we sadly had to run one intermediate cultivation round using chemicals. This was not caused by thrips, but by a green apple bug infestation. In the summer, these animals flies inside and they can only be controlled chemically, using which you unfortunately also lose the Orius Plus predatory bugs population”. The confidence in the biology is great, because at this fourth nursery at Linflowers, after 1 round of chemical control, we immediately started to do things organically again, early December. David van Tuijl thinks that the future for pest control lies in an organic approach. “We want to invest more in this and that is why we opted for new construction, regarding mounting of insect netting in the venting windows at this nursery Rodalin 1. This way we can prevent insects flying in from outside. We will accelerate the use of this, because also at a second nursery we decided to install insect netting early next year.”

Adding Orius Plus and a new additional feeding system will help chrysanthemum to get through the winter organically.

Customer story | Bestpeppers about orius and thrip control

Successful thrip control with Orius and Power Food Plus - Bertus van Dijk