Who are thrips and where did they come from?
Increasingly, national quarantine services discover new pests of plants in their countries. Some "settlers" manage to overcome state borders independently (the Colorado beetle flew to us from Poland in 1949, an American white butterfly flew across the Soviet-Hungarian border in 1952). A large part of the "strangers" is entered accidentally with some imported products, on various vehicles. That's exactly in the 70s of the last century a greenfly came to us, and more recently Western flower thrips.
Sometimes the appearance of "impostors" is unexpected for florists. In such cases, the destruction of pests or at least the localization of primary foci becomes a difficult task. The possibility of skidding of some species can be predicted. And in some cases - to prevent their widespread distribution, for example, thrips.
Thrips are the smallest insects with a length of 0, 5-5 mm. In summer, they can almost always be seen on the inflorescences of a dandelion, chicory, on leaves of onions and gladiolus. Trips everywhere have acquired the reputation of the most dangerous pests of cultivated plants. Sucking the juices from plant tissues, they slow down the growth of stems, leaves, prevent the opening of buds, deform flowers, reduce the ornamentality of plants. These insects are often carriers of viruses.
Not all florists have mastered the biological method of combating the recently emerged and extremely dangerous Californian thrips. And it's time to prepare to repel attacks of new species - Thrips palmi thrips and American echinotrypsis. The first, avid pest of orchids, comes from South-East Asia, the second - from North America.
Thrips American appeared in Europe in the 90's. "Gateway" for the new pest were the Netherlands with their popular flower auctions, which bring plants from around the world. From country to country, thrips are transferred to cut flowers, planting material, ornamental pot plants. It is the latter - a favorite food for him. Western floral thrips damages flowers, and thrips American mostly damages the leaves, in the fabric of which the females lay eggs.
At 20 ° C, one generation of thrips develops in a month and a half, and at 30 ° in two weeks. The female lays an average of about 80 eggs. In hothouse and room conditions, thrips propagates year-round. All stages of the development of thrips go only on plants. On the leaves you can meet eggs, larvae of two ages and adults at the same time.
Thus, the numerous offspring of several individuals brought with a plant, for a year if it does not kill, then even a large plant will be deeply disfigured. At first, their activity causes the appearance of yellow spots. But already ten insects on the sheet are enough to make it start to fade. A diet of 30-40 individuals inevitably leads to shrinkage and leaffall, which begins with the lower tiers. And although thrips rarely leads the plant to death, but it significantly reduces its decorativeness. Thrips parasitize more than 100 plant species. The thrips also attack agricultural crops: clover, cucumber, tomatoes, pepper.
Flower growers can already name plants that are more like others than trypses. These are representatives of the aroid (spathiphilium, syngonium, diffenbachia, anthurium, philodendron) and balsamic. In addition, the "alien" severely damages the acalifu, asparagus, bamboo, codaium, kordilinu, chrysanthemums, dracenes, molochae, ficus, ivy hibiscus, passionflower, pepe-romium, rhododendrons, and ragwort.
How to deal with thrips?
How to deal with this misfortune, if it is on plants? Alas, we recognize that there are not that many effective ways to deal with thrips. A measure of plant protection from echinotrypsa American in general is not properly developed. The use of chemicals is not always effective. This is due both to the latent lifestyle of thrips, and to its high resistance to many insecticides.
In Europe, the leaders in the field of production of biological protection products as a reliable natural regulator of the pest number recommend a biological method of control. Florists use its natural enemies: predatory thrips of Franklinothrips vespiformis and bedbugs of the genus Orius. Both those and others can already be purchased in flower shops of Western European countries and large cities of Russia.
As always, preventive measures remain effective. It is clear that a microscopic egg laid by a pest in a plant tissue is practically impossible to detect. It remains only to observe the new import acquisitions and promptly discard the specimens with the described symptoms of damage. And large Russian firms that supply large quantities of ornamental plants to the domestic market should be sure that the foreign partner's farm is not infected with this pest.
The biological way to fight thrips has a great future. After all, this is a natural method that does not harm the ecosystem.