The only product I had some success with was the Bayer Advanced Lawn Complete Insect Killer For Soil & Turf. It has imidaclorpid in it. I sprayed it directly into the blooms. It will kill the thrips in the bloom. It may not prevent damage because once the bud is open enough to spray in it, it may be too late.

I don't have any yet. Hopefully my roses will survive the freeze. I'm planning on putting out some yellow and white dixie cups with sticky on them as cheap thrip traps.

Thanks, buford, do you spray the buds, too, or do you have to wait until they're open. And it sounds like you're saying spray each individual bloom? Do you really soak it? Can you just spray the whole bush with no harm to anything else?

Did you get them in the darker colored flowers, too? Do the thrips also cause balling or is that something else? Mrs B R's flowers only got about halfway open and naturally looked awful.

Sorry for all the questions.
Sherry

Sherry, don't blue sticky cards attract thrips?

Jeri

I don't know. What are they and where to you put them?

Sherry

Sherry, I would spray into the bloom, I didn't spray the entire bush because I didn't think it would do anything. I would spray enough into the bud/bloom to fill it. Maybe I drowned them instead of killed them with insecticide:) I think if you don't get it into the bloom, it's not goug to help. I did sometimes spray the closed buds, but I don't know if that does anything. And yes, I did also get them in my dark red roses, Mr. Lincoln and Don Juan. But they didn't seem to show any damage from it as the lighter color roses did.

Sherry:

Kill 'em!!

{{gwi:250423}}

blackcatgirl, I intend to. Got the Bayer stuff just now at Lowe's. BTW, that's not a thrip(s), is it? And also, is it thrip singular or thrips singular? And that's a lovely rose. It isn't by chance Mme Caroline Testout, is it? Looks just like her.

And Buford, thank you so much for the good and quick reply!

Sherry

Sherry, I think thrips is thrips (plural) because they mate so well there are always THRIPS. Zillions and zillions of them. Today I was wondering why in the heck I even want to grow roses. ALL my blooms on EVERYTHING is balled up and ruined because of them. Belinda's Dream is absolutely hideous. And yes, my Mrs.BR Cant blooms look terrible too.

Seems like they get worse every year.

The only plants that have any decent looking blooms are my new ones from Roses Unlimited, in pots. I think it's because they have to spray the roses before they cross state lines. I don't want to spray but I'm about to place a Rosemania order.

Sandy

Well, I'm going to spray. I can just see this taking forever like I have time to spray every single bloom one at a time. Hey, I guess I needed another project!

Sherry

LOL. I have a rose society friend who sprays his but he says he has to spray before they get in the rose for best results. Huh. How do you ... never mind. He spritzes with a little sprayer thing (uses Palmolive and water, very diluted). Does it ever single day, 500+ roses. Speaking of needing a project...

"he says he has to spray before they get in the rose..." Patricia, then does your friend spray the whole plant with Palmolive & water and have success deterring thrips with this method?

Is it regular Palmolive he uses?? I have used plain old Ivory dish soap added to my fungacide spray as a sticker...at least I think that is what I was told 10 years ago when I first came to the rose forum...LOL Anyway, it is hard now to find plain old Ivory dish soap, not the new improved brand. I remember someone telling me too that it was a lemon smell that bugs hated too. Perhaps a good splash of lemon juice to the mix would help.
I need to spray for thrips too.

Deb

Last night I decided to Google 'thrips' (gee, what an idea!) and came upon a do-it-yourself bug spray site that told their whole story. Well, one click led to another... The subject of toxicity to earthworms came up. Sierra Club stated imidicloprid was 'acutely toxic' to earthworms (gasp!), so I looked up permethrins from the Bugspray site and found that they weren't (both are toxic to honey bees.) Went on to other sites and found at least 3 articles that said imidicloprid did not effect earthworms.

This link is to a book and gives info on many pesticides re earthworms. I found it very helpful.

http://books.google.com/books?id=TMWV-paVVzAC&pg=PA110&lpg=PA110&dq=imidacloprid+earthworms&source=bl&ots=V1Q59Lp2uq&sig=otCtRsDllGYEinzLmYlCkAlwh1Y&hl=en&ei=rRPaSfn4JNnulQeygbHVDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8#PPA110,M1

For a few minutes in my searching I was going to return the Bayer product I had bought, but then I found more info and have decided to use it, but not today since it's very windy, and it's supposed to rain. The Bayer that buford recommended is a systemic (kills grubs!) and is supposed to control the thrips for 30 days, and rain doesn't wash it off after an hour. My only concern is for the bees. I saw my first huge bumble bee yesterday. Do bees do their thing on roses? The label says "spray in early morning or early evening when bees are not present". Do you think that means that as long as the chemical isn't sprayed on them they're OK? The label also says the bottle will treat 1250 roses!!

Poor DH! He had his camera all set up at the kitchen window ready to take daily photos of Climbing Maman Cochet as her blooms opened and became 'beautiful' only to watch them get brown and stunted. He is VERY disillusioned about this whole thing. "All this work and 'a thousand dollars worth of roses', and we don't get anything but ugly deformed flowers! How can people grow roses organically?" I tried to console him with how other parts of the country suffer with JBs and RRD - at least we don't have those, I said. And I vowed to get rid of the thrips and promised him another bloom cycle. I didn't realize how READY he was for the spring bloom. Let's hope I can keep my promises.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: Thrip Control

Insect killers kill insects. Bees are insects.

Through the wonders of science, pesticides are very good at what they do.

The best bug killers are other bugs.

Sherry -- The inimitable Bob Martin has often emphasized that these materials are SUPPOSED TO KILL THINGS.

Yes, that material IS harmful to bees.
And yes, bees DO visit roses.

What happens is, the chemical does act systemically, which means it is in every part of the treated plant.
Including the POLLEN.

When bees visit roses, they take the pollen back to the hive, where it goes to the baby bees.

Before you use it, you might consider first trying some of those blue sticky cards.

Jeri

Jeri, I have been Googling all day. Blue sticky strips, spinosad, beneficial nematodes, etc. Was all set to buy all of the above at different times today, but education is a terrible thing. The sticky strips are mainly meant for monitoring (in greenhouses) as an indicator of when to apply insecticides and not for eliminating large populations. I had heard about spinosad (Conserve) re Chili thrips and was all set to run down to the feed store which has it in the form of Fertilome Borer Spray. (I haven't checked the formulations of the different manufacturers of these products so I don't know if there's any difference between Conserve and Fertilome and several others.) It is OMRI approved and target specific, seemingly harmless to anything else. But then I read an article about spinosad resistance and another more recent article that says Dow has suspended the sale of spinosad in Broward County and a portion of Palm Beach County, FL due to resistance. "To avoid resistance to spinosad, do not make more than two consecutive applications of Conserve®." They say to rotate insecticides in the garden and in nursery greenhouses and even to find out what your grower used in his facility. Apparently, thrips in Florida are getting quite resistant.

The nematodes seemed promising from an Organic Rose Forum post in 2007 until I got to the bottom of the company's page and saw the price was $513!!!

I read various GardenWeb posts that said they had had bad outbreaks of thrips and then they seemed to go away for unknown reasons. Predator insects? Didn't know. People say if you have good, healthy soil you won't have insects. That one throws me for a loop - what else do I have to do to get 'good, healthy soil'?

Before I went back to this thread I was all set to go out and spray the imidicloprid, but then Jeri pointed out the pollen issue for bees. Really now, should I just sit back and wait for the good bugs? I do think I'm going to order the blue sticky strips and put them everywhere. (They say to shake the bushes to get them to swarm.) I read in a Florida agricultural article that blue sticky CUPS worked better than the strips on thrips here but can't find the cups anywhere. I think they must have been homemade using the strips. You're supposed to staple the plastic cup to a stick in the ground but do you use it right side up or upside down?

This is almost more than my brain can handle, and I'm back at ground zero. What does everybody else do? Wait them out and hope for a better next bloom cycle? Get aggressive with them? How? Sandy, my Ocala neighbor, was right. The thrips are everywhere in her garden and in mine on many roses (but, interestingly, not on all of them - even light colored flowers) in my garden apparently multiplying geometrically as I write.

Sherry

Sherry, mine generally go away after the first flush, and when I was in Florida, I don't remember any trouble after April. This was before chilli thrips, the bad ones that make the foliage look variegated and that can destroy plants. I assume you just have regular flower thrips.

That's encouraging, Michael. No, they're not Chili thrips. I may just wait them out. Do you think I should strip the buds that appear damaged?

Sherry

I remove damaged flowers because I don't want to look at them. It might help a little with control.

I wonder if the resistance problem developed because of massive spraying for chilli thrips in South Florida.

Spinosad is definitely toxic to bees, but not to the pirate bugs and predatory mites that help to control thrips. No insecticide (except soap) should be sprayed into flowers that are open enough for bees to wiggle into. Two applications onto the upper foliage and closed buds might give you some relief. Personally I wouldn't use Merit (imidacloprid) because it encourages spider mites.

the pirate bugs and predatory mites that help to control thrips

*** That reminds me.

I suppose there are probably insectaries all over the country, but the one we have here -- Rincon-Vitova -- carries more than one predatory insect that eats thrips.
I KNOW they have the minute pirate bugs, but there are others.
Rincon Vitova sells via mailorder.
I don't know whether they ship to Florida -- or whether Florida allows importation of insects from elsewhere.
From a quick Google search, it SOUNDS like R-V has been a source of beneficials for Florida.

Anyhow, I think if I had a big thrips problem I'd invest in some predators.

Jeri

Here is a link that might be useful: Rincon-Vitova Insectary

For me, pirate bugs show up after thrips have been noticeable for a week or two. They are busy little fellows about twice the size of a pinhead, with a cool Art Deco graphic design on the back..

Try to answer both. I asked him about Ivory and he said, 'No, Palmolive.' He does not do the whole plant, just buds and blooms. He is a former professor and had I asked 'Why Palmolive and not Ivory, or other brand,' I would have probably asked for more than I wanted to know, so I just left it at that. He does LOVE to expand on responses to your questions. :-)

sherry, Yes the stuff I recommended will kill any insect. That's why I didn't want to wholesale spray the bush (which I did not think would be effective against thrips anyway). If you just spray the blooms you are targeting the thrips. Yes if the bees come on the bloom later, they could be at risk. You really can't tell for sure. And like Pat says, you have to do it almost every day. Because the thrips keep coming. Last year I just let it go and waited for the predators. I didn't get any viable blooms on some of my roses. It was awful. I'm hoping this year will be better.

I have noticed that since I stopped using the Bayer drench I do have a lot more earthworms in my soil. I saw a ton while weeding on Saturday. Or maybe it's because it's been raining non-stop.

Jeri, I looked at that R-V site. Very interesting. I think the Pirate Bugs would be the ones if I had the extra money.

Michael, Patricia & buford, at this point I think I'll wait for the good bugs to arrive. I went through the whole yard and stripped all the damaged buds and blooms which means Duchesse de Brabant is nude. She was the worst, but most of them had some thrip activity - even Louis Philippe. I even found a Japanese Beetle (I think) head down in a Prosperity flower which really hasn't set many buds yet and two caterpillars in a flower of Mrs B R. Clothilde Soupert & the Grusses were a mess, sadly. Jean Bach Sisley had a bunch of damaged buds/flowers and lots more that seemed not to be damaged. So I'll return my Bayer insecticide to Lowe's. Thanks, Buford, for the suggestion, but thankfully, I won't have to 'drop the big one.'

I saw a bunch of microbial soil inoculants that looked good, but as I said, no extra cash for that kind of stuff.

Thanks everyone for all your input. I learned a lot. Maybe next spring I'll be able to do some preemptive stuff with bugs and microbes.

Sherry

Sherry, as you know, I quit spraying a couple of years ago (maybe three?). It wasn't just because I hated "suiting up" in our horrible summer heat and humidity. That was bad enough, and thought it would kill me a few times when I overheated. I always sprayed just before dark in the evening so to avoid (hopefully) spraying the beneficial insects.

It was finding dead bees inside the flowers that stopped me. The bees were dying several days AFTER I had sprayed systemics. I won't even use Conserve anymore. I don't trust the chemical companies as far as I could throw them.

I usually just go out and cut all the flower buds off when we get a bad year of thrips, seal them in a plastic bag, and dispose of it in the garbage. Once sealed, DO NOT open the bag. The thrips will fly out in a huge cloud. Start a new bag if you don't finish in one day. This practice seems to greatly reduce the number of thrips, and usually in no time at all I have nice flowers once again.

This looks like one of those cyclic bad years. I have to get out and cut buds off myself, but haven't felt well. It wasn't fun the other night when I picked a bloom that looked halfway decent, inhaled the wonderful perfume, and sniffed in a nose full of thrips.

Sandy

How awful, Sandy. Since this experience with the thrips in the last few days, I will never just sink my nose in a rose again. If I can't smell it without touching it and breathing deeply, I guess I won't smell it. That's really sad about the bee. Don't want to find something like that myself.

Sherry

sherry, that's what I'm doing. While the spray did work somewhat, it wasn't completely effective and as we see probably does more harm than good. My thrips were worse last year and never seemed to go away, although it may have been because of the weather more than anything. At lesat that's what I'm hoping. I know I have pirate bugs, I've seen them. I also had some lace-wing type bugs. I may try spraying water and soap into the early blooms to see if that will at least flush the thrips out.

Last year I don't think I had one decent bloom on my Mlle Franziska Kruger. It was heartbreaking.

Sherry, misery loves company. If it makes you feel any better, my roses are also inundated with thrips and I just snipped off all the buds. I may have even had a small tear in the corner of my eye as I did it. I worked so hard to enrich the soil with all kinds of nutrients and the bushes looked amazing. I've had zero BS issues (knock on wood) and the buds were quite plentiful. Then the thrips came and just took over. I am so reluctant to spray anything because of all of the bees, birds and butterflies, so I just cut them all off. It pained me deeply to do it...

Sherry, Patriciae has presented a cureall for thrips. Hopefully she'll check in. She's the only person I know who's been able to completely eliminate them from her garden with her technique which is completely organic and doesn't hurt any beneficials. Drop her a note if you don't see her here.

Sue

My solution as I posted elsewhere is for Midge not Thrips but the concept is the same-learn everything you can about the life cycle and find a chink somewhere. I am glad to hear it is regular thrips and not Chili Thrip-Regular thrips have local predators...something has gotten out of wack..perhaps just providing a smorgasboard of roses for them. I wish I had more to share.

patricia

Sherry,

I suggest searching for "thrips' on the Organic Gardening Forum,
I found Kimmsr 4a's posting to be succinct and informative, and there were several organic recipes for thripicides.

Good luck,
Lux.

Texas Agricultural college says that either white, yellow or blue sticky traps will work for thrips. There are different types of thrips and I would think that since rose thrips are attracted to light colored roses, I would try the white traps first, which can be done by simply buying white plastic plates and covering the surface with Vasoline. If that didn't work well I might try adding sugar to the Vasoline to encourage the thrips to come and feed and stick to the trap. At Texas Agricultural and M., sugar has been found useful in insecticidal sprays to attract aphids to feed on it.
Here is my recipe for garlic spray:
I used this a few years ago and it worked well, though its' a bit of a bother to make.

Thrip-be-gone spray
Put a gallon of hot water in a large pot or bowl.
add:
12 cloves of garlic. You don't need to peel the cloves, because it's going in the blender
1 chopped onion
7 Jalepeno peppers, split lengthwise. (Tabasco and chilli pepper sauce was not effective, when I tried substituting them for the jalapenos)
1 tsp soap (heck after reading your freinds advice I'd use Palmolive)
1 T. canola oil to make it stick to the leaves. Canola oil will disperse in oil, unlike many other oils.
Let this sit for at least 24 hours, up to 48 hours.
then strain and spray.I had spray left over, and it kept for a week in my fridge.
Marin county rose website reccomends flooding the soil in spring after rose thrips first show up, in order to drown thrip pupae. No information about how much water to use, but more than saturation. I've never heard this advice before and would like to ask an entomologist more about it.
die thrips die! , ooops I meant R.I.P..thrips, may angels sing thee to thy rest.
Lux.

HMM, I wonder if my deer-off spray will work. It's got garlic and pepper and eggs. I have to spray it anyway because the deer gave some of my roses a haircut right before the freeze. If it's not one thing it's another.

I'm just relieved that they are the "normal" thrips. At least they only ruin the flowers. The roe bushes live to produce future beautiful flushes of roses. Last fall I lost 5 rose bushes to chili thrips. The chili thrips are capable of killing the whole bush, and they are killing more than rose bushes. They are ruining other landscape plants, as well as crops.

I sure hope they stay out of my garden this year, and I hope someone can come up with a biological control for them.

Sandy