How to keep your tropical plants clean from pests

Greenhouse Grower (GG): What best practices are available to growers to prevent/reduce insect pests?

Sarah Jandricic (SJ): It sounds trite, but given the variety of insect pests that can come with tropical plants, regular monitoring really is your best chance to find pests and eliminate them early or prevent their spread. This means knowing the best way to scout and monitor for each pest. For example, more foliage-dwelling thrips, like Echinothrips americanus, don’t get stuck to yellow sticky cards above the crop. They prefer darker colors (that look more like foliage), such as dark blue and green. You can even cut monitoring cards into smaller sections and lay them on top of leaves for the best result. For Thrips parvispinus, because it seems to damage crops at such low levels, plant washes of the growing tips are really the best way to monitor for this pest, as well as looking for damage.

Continue reading.

Source: