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Greenhouse IPM. Thrips, Whiteflies and Aphids.
By admin | June 12, 2007
One of my mentors used to say “Kill ‘em Good” whenever he saw me in my Tyvek suit ready to spray for bugs. I’ve tried to pass this wisdom on to my growers, but I’m not sure if it’s sinking in. This season has been an especially difficult one with regards to pest management. I’ve been in this line of work for the last 12 years and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a year like this one. Aphids, thrips, fungus gnats and whiteflies have been our biggest problems. Pretty much everything expect mites have come and gone in our greenhouses this year, and we did have a few spider mites on some Dracaena this year. We were able to stay ahead of them early in the year, especially on our young plants. I always use a preventative spray rotation as part of my IPM program in our young plant production. I feel that preventative spraying is our best management practice for pest control with our young plants because I have no tolerance for pest populations of any kind. We can’t afford to send out insects with our liners or vice versa. So what I’m saying is we didn’t have too many bugs early, but like most greenhouses in the spring, once we shifted our focus from production to shipping, we were unable to maintain proper spray programs. Everyone has this problem, or maybe I just tell myself that to make me feel better, but we must do a better job with scouting and spraying during the shipping season. Perhaps I should start an IPM crew whose sole responsibility is to scout, track and control pest populations in the greenhouse. I hound my growers to give me data from their yellow sticky cards in their respective sections but after late April we are all just trying to keep up. Now the dust has settled and we have more time, but it’s hot and dry and the thrips are thriving. So we have to come back to the greenhouses in the evening and spray. If we don’t, we’ll be in big trouble and since thrips vector viruses, we can’t take any chances. I’ll try to post some recommended spray rotations for thrips and other greenhouse ornamental pests. Unfortunately, we have to keep spraying and try to Kill ‘em Good.
Topics: IPM |
