Help: 'Thripiness' & the Clock is Ticking

16 years ago

Just went out to check on the roses on my deck, which are just starting to get going with blooms. Unfortunately, all of the blooms looked unexpectedly small and sad, and I found teeny, tiny wormlike things scurrying around the base of the petals.

I assume that these are the "thrips" I keep hearing about.

A quick check on this site advised me to remove all buds and start spraying for the next six weeks. Problem being, I'm hosting a large retirement party in my lovely rose garden (ahem) in four weeks. What's my best bet to get rid of the thrips and still have blooms for the party.

Bonus question: I've never had thrips before, but I've gone from essentially a monoculture (roses) to added petunias, marigolds, etc. Do I have to disbud and spray EVERYTHING? Or are the thrips going to be rose-specific. If I could keep at least a few flowers, that would at least be something.

Thanks, one and all.

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Comments (4)

michellesg
16 years ago
I've read that thrips will nibble on everything, including dogs and people. I don't have any experience of them chewing on either. A guy at my local rose society told me that if I wanted to save the blooms to spray directly into the opening rose bud but I've also heard that anything that'll kill thrips will kill the rose too. The thrips will also move onto new leaves and cause them to curl up, starting with the tips.
ehann
16 years ago
I have had good results spraying with an insecticide containing imadoclopid (merit) and pyrethins. I buy it at WalMart under the Expert brand name.

When my chili thrips were at their worst, I had NO flowers and NO new growth. They attacked/damaged foliage pretty severely. I sprayed 1 tbs/gallon every three days for a week, and then just incorporated it into my weekly fungicide spray.

I stopped using the insecticide for a few weeks earlier this Spring and started seeing signs of damage again. Apparantly, once you have chili thrips, they're always kind of hanging around.
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jpw_chi
Original Author
16 years ago
Just an update. Usually at this time of year, I've taken hundreds of close-up shots of the pretty roses -- not so this year. Spraying insecticide and applying Bayer 2-in-1 granules slowed them down, but the thrips have pretty much continued to nibble and distort almost every bloom this year -- except for the miniatures which were badly burned by the spray (not the Bayer). Toss in a little blackspot and powdery mildew, and this year's roses have been downright pitiful

The good news is that no one at the party cared, as the rest of the plants are generally healty and happy. Score one for bio-diversity.

I've written off the roses for the rest of this summer. My question now is how do I keep them from coming back next year?
michaelg
16 years ago
Sorry to tell you that thrips are always present. Whether they are a problem or not depends on how the weather affects their breeding rate and the rate of their predators, also whether there is a lot of thrips habitat outside your garden (meadows, clover in lawns, other peoples' gardens). You had a bad year because of the weather, not because thrips suddenly showed up in your area. They are everywhere. I had a fairly bad June but they are under control now despite not ever being sprayed.

A recommended insecticide is spinosad, which doesn't affect thrips predators much, though it does affect bees if sprayed on open flowers. It is sold as Conserve SC, Bulls Eye, and Fertilome Borer, Bagworm etc.

Help: 'Thripiness' & the Clock is Ticking

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michellesg

ehann

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Help: 'Thripiness' & the Clock is Ticking

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michellesg

ehann

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