Many growers decide when to apply pesticides based on the calendar, instead of scouting for pests. This approach accelerates the development of pesticide resistance. However, effective post-harvest treatments are not available for all flower crops. For these commodities, approved quarantine treatments, or a change in the current quarantine law, is required. In addition, we are developing new quarantine treatments for control of green scale on gardenia.
Preliminary indications are that thrips are randomly distributed within orchid plantings.
Distributions of thrips were not heavily influenced by orchid variety. These findings will be used to develop optimal sampling methods for thrips detection. Although natural enemies of thrips were present, they did not provide effective control. On anthuriums, it was found that natural enemies did not bring thrips under biological control despite continuous presence of the pest for one year. Results also indicated that thrips may be resistant to an insecticide commonly used against this pest by anthurium growers.