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philipatx

Material shared, and chili thrips...

philipatx
2 years ago

I feel I have to operate under the assumption that I *might* have chili thrips in my garden, and have not exchanged cuttings of plants for years as a consequence. I have only rarely seen evidence of what looks like a mild case of chili thrips in my no-spray rose garden over the last 2 1/2 years, but I could attribute that to the possibility that I might have predators keeping them in check.


Having said that, as I am entirely no spray and would have no reason to expect any resistance to treatments in any pests in my garden, I wonder if it *could* be safe to share cuttings, even if I should have the buggers, were I to strip the cuttings of leaves and judiciously treat the bare stems with a systemic insecticide such as Imidacloprid...


I realize that if I have them, I could *not* expect to eliminate chili thrips in my entire garden since they are polyphagous and would be established beyond anything I could treat, but I would assume that such a treatment might work for a small batch of isolated cuttings. (The symptoms are so mild, they wouldn't be worth tackling in my garden anyway.) Since they would need time to root prior to being planted out, the insecticide would presumably dissipate before any pollinators could be harmed, by the time the cuttings might bloom.


Also, I'm curious... Is there any other ailment that might mimic mild to moderate thrip infestation on only one or two random plants in my entire garden for a very brief period at the end of the season? I'm in Central Texas, and I've only ever seen damage in or around early October. No signs of such yet this year, despite warm temps, relatively wet weather, and at least 2 good flushes of blooms having been completed on most of my plants. 90+ % of my roses have *never* shown signs of such, and it hasn't appeared on the same plants either of the last two years.


...but I do NOT want to risk sharing CT's, in view of what I've read about them...

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