Thrips
Risk near you, next 48h
See whether your local forecast favours this disease right now.
When it strikes
Treat, then re-check in 5–7 days
Pick off the worst material, apply the organic option below, and look again after five to seven days. If the spread continued, escalate rather than repeating the same treatment.
Carried by insects
An insect moves it plant to plant, so controlling the carrier matters as much as treating the symptom. Check for the vector before assuming the plants infected each other directly.
Safe to compost
No pathogen carries over on this material, so it can go on an ordinary heap with the rest of the garden waste.
When and where to look
Scout the planting while temperatures hold between 20°C and 35°C, in dry air below 60%. Risk builds after roughly 8 unbroken hours of those conditions, so the morning after such a night is the moment to look.
Rule these out first
Same category, and at least one host crop in common — so they are genuinely confusable in the same part of the garden.
The signs that lead here
Full problem lists for these crops
About
Thrips are slender rasping insects that scar flowers and foliage of vegetables, fruit and ornamentals in warm dry weather and greenhouses, and transmit damaging viruses such as spotted wilt.
Symptoms
Silvery or whitish streaks and stippling on leaves and petals, tiny black faecal specks, distorted buds and flowers, and scarred fruit; slender insects that scatter when disturbed.
Organic Treatment
Use blue sticky traps, spray insecticidal soap or spinosad, and release predatory mites and minute pirate bugs. Remove weeds that harbour thrips.
Chemical Treatment
Spinosad or abamectin, rotated with other modes of action because thrips develop resistance fast.
Prevention
Use reflective mulch, control weeds, inspect new plants, encourage natural enemies, and use insect netting on vulnerable crops.
Crops at risk
Related problems
Thrips risk by location
Each location has a month-by-month profile computed from the weather archive: how many hours a year actually meet this disease’s thresholds.