I honestly hadn't seen any until a few years ago. After we had a few hurricanes sweep through here.

No, thrips are in northern gardens too. We don't have chili thrips (knock wood) but I battle thrips most years.

What damage do regular thrips do?

Thanks Buford. I already have midge to deal with right now, and most of my roses this year were/are from the south. 4 more packages are coming next week. May be I should do something before plant the roses, soak the whole plant in the water.......(?)

For some reason, I don't see any thrips in my garden..........we have a lot of rain here.

Jim, I am not sure about thrips, but I found this:

http://extension.illinois.edu/roses/disease.cfm

http://www.marinrose.org/thrips.html

"You can try horticultural oil and insecticidal soaps; spray as early in the bud stage as you can (before they do any damage). Neem oil also has some effectiveness in reducing thrips populations. Applications should be frequent, as often as every other day, to coincide with the fast life cycle. Insecticides such as Orthene® or Mavrik® are good at controlling thrips, as are a few others."

The problem is that when the thrips are here, it's too hot to use neem oil. We were fine here until it got hot. Then the thrips showed up. Usually when it gets REALLY hot, they die off. But last year it didn't get that hot and they never left.

Thanks for the links on Thrips summersrhythm_z6a.... They sound like a real pain in the a** Buford...

I use Orthene.

I hear you, that's the problem with oil. The hot weather and neem oil don't mix well. I just started to test out Bioneem in my back yard gardens for midge control, if the temp goes above 80, I can't use it, but if the night time temp is below 80, I can still spray oil at night without damage the leaves. Do you have any cool nights below 80 down south?

Kentucky rose, where do you buy Orthene? I didn't find them on HD/Lowe's site. Is this the one you're using? http://www.domyownpestcontrol.com/orthene-97-spray-insecticide-p-3962.html

I haven't found anything to work on our hordes of thrips (regular flower thrips) . They show up in April or so and stay until octoberish. They also seem to like all flowers, not just light ones. Nights in summer are really warm here, at least in the upper 70's, unless it is raining or something like that.

I did buy the Orthene here Do your own pest control. I haven't tried it yet, but I might. i bought a small hand sprayer to apply it. The problem was that the sprayer I bought was missing a nozzle. So I went to HD and exchanged it. Still didn't do a mist spray. Went back again and looked at one of the other sprayers and mine was still missing a piece. So now I have the sprayer. I'm going to see if the thrips are still here and if so, I will spray the buds.

Brittie, I hope this year thrips damage won't be too bad for you. I hope the flood washed them away.

Buford, I might get a bottle just in case. I am just wondering if Bayer's Insects Killers would work on thrips, I am using that one every 10 days for midge, hope one stone kills two birds......

I usually don't spray anything, except maybe spinosad on the worst problems. But this year is just awful. I've never seen this many thrips, and it's not just me so it's not what I'm doing in my yard. Hopefully they will be gone soon.

I have tried Spinosad several times in the past and it helped some, but not great. Merit is best for my JB's. Orthene works best on my thrips and I just mist the tops. Too much Orthene can cause a spidermite explosion in my garden. Also, I think Orthene manages the cane borers best in my garden.

Rain won't help. My city has literally had thirty inches of rain in the past two months and there are still dozens of thrips to be seen in each flower. It's just one of those things, and I try not to worry about it. I don't exhibit though, otherwise I would be more concerned.

Edited to add-- No chilli thrips yet though, and that could totally be due to all the rain. Yay!

Here's a picture of the product. Bonide is the brand.

Thanks Kentucky Rose! :-)

Trips were really awful here last year. Normally they are happy to stay on the daylilies. Last year it was a three way battle for the flower. Japanese beetles, cucumber beetles and thrips verses lady bugs, praying mantis and spiders. The flowers were crowded.

For sytemic -cides, I always want to know how fast the material translocates in the plant. In this case, how much does it take (sprayed when and where) to kill a thrips when it first feeds on a petal.

Has anyone had some successes and could you remember the times involved?

Water doesn't help. If anything, rainy/wet conditions brings on the infestation more, this is because they hide between the petals and in the creases of new growth.

Conserve SC is the best product for thrips. The uptake takes about a day or two, although my money is on the thrips being attracted to the taste/smell of the chemical, ergo they come out to feed on the poison. I've heard of placing a small amount of sugar to an insecticide mix to draw them out, but I've never tried this.

My problem with Orthene and Bayer Advanced stuff is that you eliminate many beneficial insects that feed on the thrips. This leads to bigger infestations, but when the numbers are high you sometimes have to attach head on.

If you have common thrips, you should consider yourself lucky that your only damage is discolored blooms. A good cutting back and proper disposal of the cuttings is often a good tactic (but then you don't get to see your plants bloom.

By the by, I've seen chili thrips as far north as Virginia. I went to a Lowes while on vacation and spotted them on a few rose plants (I recognized the damage to new growth right away and went in to examine further).

Conserve SC is one of the brand names for spinosad.

Regarding chilli thrips in Virginia--there are winter "canning" operations in Texas and the Deep South where bare roots are potted and forced under plastic so they are in bloom for sale in spring farther north. It's likely that's where the little nasties got on board. Hopefullly they won't survive the winter in VA, unless maybe in Virginia Beach and such places. Still, it's frightening that canners and vendors and the USDA would allow this to happen.

Very true, Conserve SC is one brand, but it is the one with the higher concentration of Spinosad. Most other cheaper products are much weaker and less productive.

If brand A has 2% active ingredient, and brand B has 4%, the label for brand B will call for twice as much water per TB of product, so you end up with the same concentration of active ingredient in the tank.