Content
Thrips can appear on tomato seedlings regardless of the type and variety of the crop. These harmful insects cause significant damage to tomatoes, and if you do not start fighting them in a timely manner, you may be left without a harvest at all. To prevent this, every gardener should know how to identify the pest in a timely manner. You should also familiarize yourself with the basic measures of protection and prevention of damage.
Thrips lead a secretive lifestyle
Description of the pest
Thrips are small insects whose size does not exceed 3 mm. They belong to the order Fringed Pterus. The pest has an elongated body and a cone-shaped head. The color of insects can be black, gray, brown, depending on the species.
Female insects are larger in size than males. They can fly, and their narrow wings have a fringe of cilia. The larvae look the same as the adults, only smaller and without wings.
Insects have three pairs of paws, which are equipped with special teeth and bubble suction cups. This allows them to easily hide and be held on the underside of tomato leaves.The mouthparts of thrips are of the sucking type.
Female pests are particularly fertile. They lay up to 300 eggs at a time, from which voracious larvae hatch after 10-12 days. Insects hide in the root system, buds, flowers and under leaves.
Types of thrips
Tomatoes can suffer from several types of thrips. There are no significant differences between pests, with the exception of their preferences in nutrition and color.
Types of thrips that attack tomato seedlings:
- herbivorous (Frankliniella intonsa);
The heterovorous type affects flowers and ovaries
- California or flower (Frankliniella occidentalis);
Californian is a carrier of tomato bronzing virus
- rose (Thrips fuscipennis);
Rosen lives in buds
- tobacco (Thrips tabaci);
Tobacco is distributed throughout the world
- bulbous (Liothrips vaneeckei).
Bulbous is most often found on gladioli and lilies.
Reasons for appearance
Increased temperature promotes the appearance of thrips on tomato seedlings. Therefore, thrips can mainly be found on tomato seedlings grown on a windowsill or in a greenhouse with irregular ventilation.
Other provoking factors;
- lack of preventive treatment of soil and planting material;
- purchasing infected seedlings;
- non-compliance with crop rotation;
- dense plantings;
- lack of timely feeding;
- close proximity to other crops that also suffer from thrips.
What does tomato seedlings look like when infected with thrips?
The danger of this pest is that it is very difficult to recognize the lesion at the initial stage. Thrips are able to successfully hide in one bud or under a certain leaf at first.And only subsequently, during mass reproduction, do signs indicating damage appear:
- openwork light mesh on the leaves;
- sticky discharge on shoots, plates, flowers;
- general dejected appearance of seedlings;
- deformation of shoot tips;
- slow development.
What harm can they cause?
Thrips, feeding on the cell sap of tomatoes, significantly weaken them and reduce resistance to diseases. Also, their vital activity disrupts the process of photosynthesis in the leaves, which negatively affects the overall development of seedlings. The leaves dry out, the shoots become deformed, the flowers and ovaries fall off.
Thrips are also dangerous because they are carriers of viral diseases. In this case, the affected seedlings must be dug up and burned to prevent further spread of the infection.
How to deal with thrips on tomato seedlings
You can only get rid of thrips on tomato seedlings using comprehensive measures. They include chemical and biological drugs, as well as folk remedies. But for the treatment to be successful, you need to follow the rules for their use.
Chemical preparations for thrips on tomatoes
These products help quickly reduce the number of pests. They should be used to spray seedlings when characteristic signs of damage appear. The peculiarity of chemicals is that they can cause addiction in pests. And for repeated treatments, products with different active ingredients should be used.
Chemicals begin to work two hours after treatment. They cause paralysis and subsequently death of adults and larvae.But the active component does not penetrate the shell of the eggs. Therefore, it is necessary to treat tomato seedlings against thrips every seven days until the signs of their vital activity completely disappear.
Effective chemicals:
- Aktara;
Aktar should be used for watering and spraying seedlings
- Fufanon;
Fufanon belongs to the category of chemicals of the third hazard class
- Actellik.
Aktelik requires increased precautions
Biological agents
You can also treat tomatoes against thrips with biological preparations. Their peculiarity is that they do not contain toxic chemicals. Such products do not pose a danger to the environment. But they have a delayed destructive effect on thrips.
The best biological products:
- Fitoverm. This drug is obtained on the basis of waste products of soil microorganisms. It protects plants not only from thrips, but also from ticks and aphids. The drug begins to act 3-4 hours after treatment, and causes the death of pests within 3-4 days.
Fitoverm cannot be used when tomatoes are flowering.
- Aktofit. The drug is based on avermectins, which are natural specific neurotoxins. Has a contact-intestinal effect. To destroy pests, you need to dissolve 10 ml of the product in 1 liter of water. Carry out the treatment in the morning or evening.
Actofit causes the death of thrips two days after application
- Guapsin. This biological product has insecticidal and fungicidal properties. Before use, it must be diluted with water in a ratio of 1:40. The visible result becomes noticeable after two days
The duration of the protective action of Guapsin is seven days.
Folk remedies
These control methods are effective when the number of pests is small, as well as for preventing damage. Folk remedies have a repellent effect on thrips due to their sharp, rich odor.
Helps against pests on tomato seedlings:
- Marigold. An infusion from this plant should be used against thrips. To prepare it, you need to pour 50 g of marigold flowers into 1 liter of water. Then you need to bring the mixture to a boil and set aside. Let the product sit for three days, then strain and spray the seedlings with it.
- Lemon. To prepare an effective remedy, you will need 150 g of citrus peel. It needs to be finely chopped and add 10 g of garlic, crushed to a paste. Then mix the resulting mixture with 1 liter of water and boil for a quarter of an hour. After this, cool the product, strain and spray it on tomato seedlings.
- Tar soap. The smell of this detergent also disgusts thrips. To combat the pest, you need to rub 100 g of tar soap, add 1.5 liters of hot water, mix well. After cooling, strain and dilute with water in a ratio of 1 to 2. Spray the resulting product on the seedlings and the top layer of soil.
Prevention measures
You can protect tomato seedlings from thrips if you follow simple preventive measures. They cannot completely eliminate this possibility, but they reduce it to a minimum.
Basic preventive measures:
- treatment of substrate and seeds before planting;
- timely picking of seedlings;
- proper feeding of seedlings to maintain a high level of immunity;
- compliance with the rules of caring for tomatoes;
- spraying with folk remedies.
Conclusion
Thrips on tomato seedlings are a common occurrence, and therefore the sooner the gardener detects the problem, the less damage they will cause to the seedlings. Since, given the fecundity of this pest, any delay can lead to the death of plants. Therefore, it is important to regularly inspect the leaves of seedlings for pests in order to prevent the massive reproduction of thrips.
