SOIL Freaking thripes

[BapusO]

I have gotten thripes on several of my grows. I know how to treat the problem but I'd like to avoid it altogether. I clean my grow room between grows. Where do thripes come from and how can I keep my plants from becoming infested?

[ellz]

Did a quick search and found a couple of good articles on the subject. I have never dealt with them personally but I am sure others have.

For you question "Where do they come from?"...
Thrips invade greenhouses in myriad ways. First of all they reside in structures year ’round, hiding in the smallest of places. They also enter greenhouses on plants, of course, which highlights, again, the need for serious plant inspections before plants are accepted and allowed to take up space in your greenhouse. The adult thrips are also flyers. Their wings are more like feathers having fringes of hairs, or setae, and are very difficult to see-especially since they keep them close to their yellowish to dark green to brown-black elongate bodies when not in use. They do, however, function well. Their wings carry them, combined with natural breezes, over great distances.

https://greenmethods.com/thrips/

For your question on how to manage them or prevent them...
Thrips are difficult to control. If management is necessary, use an integrated program that combines the use of good cultural practices, natural enemies, and the most selective or least-toxic insecticides that are effective in that situation.
Monitoring
If thrips are a suspected cause of plant damage, thrips adults and larvae can be monitored by branch beating or gently shaking foliage or flowers onto a light-colored sheet of paper, beating tray, or small cloth. For thrips that feed in buds or unexpanded shoot tips, clip off several plant parts suspected of harboring thrips, place them in a jar with 70% alcohol (ethanol), and shake vigorously to dislodge the thrips. Strain the solution through filter paper so thrips can more readily be seen. Watch the online video demonstration of this technique.

Adult thrips can also be monitored by hanging bright yellow sticky traps in or near host plants.

Be aware that the presence of thrips does not mean that damage will result from their feeding. Large numbers of thrips in traps, or adults in flowers feeding on pollen, do not necessarily indicate that control action is needed. Plants suspected of being infected by thrips-vectored viruses can be reliably diagnosed only by sending properly collected samples from symptomatic plants to a laboratory that tests for plant pathogens.
http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/p...tml#MANAGEMENT

I hope this helps in some way until someone with a bit more knowledge comes along. Best of luck with your grow!

[Dagmar]

Do you do any outside gardening? I've had repeated problems with spider mites and decided that I am bringing them in from my vegetable garden. So far, knock wood, the littler buggers haven't shown up on my current indoor grow. The precautions that I now take: I only go into my grow area first thing in the morning before I've gone outside. I've even put a sign across the grow room door as a reminder lest I forget. The rest of the day, I stay out of that area of the house. I also put up a gate to keep the dogs out of that area in case they might carry some buggers inside on their fur.

I didn't realize until reading what eliz posted above that thrips could fly. So I don't know if this will help much for thrips but it might.....

[BapusO]

Alright, thnx guys, your advice helped a lot.