Thrip Control

Most Effective Products

Supreme IT Insecticide
Suspended Concentrate
As low as $54.99
Dominion 2L Insecticide
Suspended Concentrate
As low as $37.24
Keith's Pro Tips

"When spraying Supreme IT on shrubs and ornamentals, make sure to spray the underside of leaves as these are prime areas where Thrips will hide out of sight."

Thrip Control: How To Get Rid of Thrips

This page is a general Thrip control guide. Using the products and methods suggested you will get control of Thrips. Follow this guide and use the recommended products and we guarantee 100% control of Thrips.

Among the damaging pests you can find in your garden are Thrips. These tiny little speck-like insects make their way onto your healthy lawn and garden with one thing on their mind: sucking the insides of all your plants. The sign of Thrips feasting on a plant is usually the appearance of little black dots or scrapes, which are their feces.

Damage from Thrips may be minor at first but as the population multiplies, there will be many little Thrips feasting away on your plants which can open them up to contracting a plant disease or even dying if they are damaged enough.

When these pests begin to show up on your lawn, it is vital that you take action swiftly before damage is done, not just to your plants, but to you and your pets in the form of stings. Fortunately, with the DIY guide below, we have just the right approach to follow and the right products to use get rid of this irritating invader properly.

Identification

Thrips can be difficult to identify with the naked eye, however with a small lens, you might be able to make some of their characteristics:

Thrips are very tiny insects, measuring a mere 1/16th to 1/8th of an inch long. They range in color from clear or yellow to brown or black with fringed wings. Thrips also have sucking or piercing mouth parts, perfect for tearing into plants they would like to feed on. Thrips are a mobile insect and can crawl, jump, fly and maneuver themselves to any target they are set on.

thrips identification how to get rid of thrips

Thrips feed in large groups and can create some substantial damage to plant life wherever they are prevalent. They frantically devour the sap of whatever plant they target, depleting the plant of its life source. This results in plant leaves turning pale, splotchy, and silvery, before dying. Injured plants can become discolored and mangled looking.

It doesn't stop there as Thrips can also transmit fungus and disease from their biting and sucking. Thrips are also known to bite humans when they are in close proximity. The result is an itchy and irritating rash which many people mistake as a mosquito bite when they cannot tell what bit them because Thrips are so small.

Inspection

Once you have identified that Thrips are on your property, you can they proceed with an inspection. During the inspection, you will need to examine areas where Thrips have been active and gauge the severity of the infestation.

Where To Look

Indoors look inside your potted plants. Outdoors search in fruits, vegetables, flower beds, ornamentals, and gardens.

What To Look For

You're looking for Thrip damage in plants. This includes discoloration, wilting, and silvering in the leaves surface. The damage also looks like brown spots on leaves and vegetables. A quick test you can perform to confirm you have thrips and not vegetation disease is to hold a white piece of paper under the affected vegetation and shake the leaves or plants to see if any Thrips fall on the piece of paper, if many small insects fall on the piece of paper you will have identified Thrip activity and will know where to apply treatment.

Treatment

Once you have confirmed Thrip activity it is time to begin treatment. Remember to first read all product labels and follow the application instructions on these labels, and stay safe by wearing personal protective equipment.

To treat Thrips in your garden or houseplants, we recommend using an insecticide labeled to treat them. Both adult and juvenille Thrips feed on plants so an insecticide like Dominion 2L may seem appropriate. Dominion 2L is a systemic insecticide that when applied appropriately at 1.5 oz. of product per 100 gallons of water will absorb into the plant and elminate Thrips feasting on plant root and leaves. However, Dominion 2L will not permanently remove Thrips and will only suppress them.

For this reason, we recommend using Supreme IT to both treat the lawn and your garden plants that have been damaged by Thrips as well as to create a barrier around your home to keep Thrips from coming indoors.

Step 1: Physically Remove Thrips

Spraying House Plant

Depending on the infested plant, you may want your first step to be physical removal. Different options you can take is to use cotton swabs dipped in alcohol or if the plant is strong enough you can rinse it off in the bathtub.

You will want to be avoid oversaturating your plants roots with to much water. While this process is cost-efficient, it will need to be repeated once every several days.

Step 2: Applying Supreme IT Insecticide

Reclaim Insecticide thrips treatment

Supreme IT is a synthetic pyrethroid insecticide that can treat over 70 different common pests, including Thrips. It is known for its exceptional residual control where it can stay effective for up to 90 days after application.

Determine how much Supreme IT you will need to apply by calculating the square footage of the treatment area. To do this, you will need to measure and multiply the area length times the width (length x width = square footage).

To treat Thrips, mix 0.25 to 0.5 fluid ounce of Supreme IT with a gallon of water inside a pump sprayer to treat 1,000 square feet. To mix Supreme IT, fill your sprayer with half a gallon of water and add your measured amount of product. Add the rest of the water up to the 1 gallon-line. Close the sprayer lid, and shake to ensure an even distribution. Pump the sprayer to produce a low pressure spray.

Spray the top and bottom of plant leaves until they are coated with the solution, but not to the point of run-off. You may need to move house plant outdoors before you spray them. Remember that Supreme IT should not be sprayed on plants meant for consumption as food.

You will do a perimeter treatment in your structure. To do this you will need to spray three feet up and three feet out from the foundation of your structure while also spraying window frames, door frames, eaves, soffits, rain gutters, and cracks and crevices.

You will then do a broadcast treatment. Start at the back of your lawn and make your way to the front until the entire garden and turf is covered uniformly with the product. Reapply the product as needed until you see no further Thrip damage.

Prevention

After you have eliminated Thrips from your property, you will need to make sure a reinfestation doesn't occur by implementing some preventative measures.

Thrips prevention dominion tree and shrub

Regularly prune the affected foliage of vegetation. This will not only reduce their possible harboring sites and the Thrips themselves, but it will also prevent diseases from spreading to the whole plant.

Repeat applications of Supreme IT can be applied preventatively every 3 months or so for continued protection.

Key Takeaways

  • Thrips are tiny pests notorious for damaging garden plant by sucking the sap from the vegetation they target or indoor potted plants.
  • To control Thrips, we recommend applying Supreme IT as a broadcast treatment around your outdoor property and as a barrier treatment around your home.
  • Prevent potential reinfestations of Thrips by pruning your shrubs and foliage and conducting preventative applications of Supreme IT every 90 days or so.
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