Search the Community

I seem plagued with thrips. Having a partner that had recently completed her PhD in the field of agricultural biological control agents we decided to embark on a experiment in terms of controlling different forms of insect control. Her research primarily focused on that of specific nematode species. These are tiny worms that live in the soil and exert specific types of host seeking behavior in order to track down their pray. This got me tracking down a few companies, notably Jamies garden which I was not that impressed with in terms of feedback, delivery and other factors. In any event, living seeds sells these IPM's (integrated pest management) solutions, however their prices are borderline criminal. So this led me to find Koppert, they do take some time to reply to emails so its best to really investigate in advance if you would like to use one of their control mechanisms. So these are the products I specifically queried on: Swirski-Mite - 1L bottle (contains 50,000 mites) R422 Sportnem-T rather Capasanem 2 x 25Mil R256 Thripex-Plus , 500 sachets R1246 Thripex-V 1L NA (price not provided as Plus was) My approach for future grows will be that of a two attack approach, I will use steinernema carpocapsae, which is a nematode species referred to as SportNem-T, this will be used as a soil drench you will notice the amounts you get (50 million), they are very small and barely noticeable with the naked eye. They will seek out soil born insects such as larvae and potentially even fungus gnats yet to start flying. They do this by action of entering the opening of the insect and releasing a bacteria into the host insect and slowly begin to digest it. These nematodes in particular are harmless to the plant and humans and pose no environmental risk at all , in fact you most likely have them in your garden already, or some other specific species of them such as steinernema feltiae. The other approach will be the use of Swirski mites, 50,0000 of these go for 422 where living seeds charges 89R for 250.... These are predator mites and will hunt down thrips, and various other broad mites. Anyways, thought i'd share some info on this and the company I will be getting my biological control agents from.