Thrips can cause extensive damage within a short period of time, so understanding their life cycle and how to best control them is very important.
Thrips live on the back sides of leaves and sometimes in the buds of flowers. Thrips leave a stippling, typically presenting as yellow splotches among the foliage. The bugs are feeding/sucking on the Chlorophyll. The backside will have tiny black dots, the thrips droppings, especially concentrated where the thrip was feeding. Unique to Thrips: the new growth come in twisty.
It is recommended to do a quick 5 min inspection each day. Otherwise give each plant on your wall a look 3 times a week and treat with a safe spray like neem oil or safer soap (in your Annual Amendment pack) once a week if needed.
Thrips and spider mites will leave really similar damage with the stippling. Spider mites will just have a lot more small almost hard to spot black dots, given that in the case of spider mites the little black dots are the bug itself. Also look for webbing. The webbing is spider mites!
© 2020 All Rights Reserved
