Is this little thing really what's destroying my gardens?
 

The Background
I planted out a little over 2 months back (used walls of water to protect the little ones). For at least a good month, I had the healthiest looking tomato plants I've ever worked with. They were super green, blossom heavy, and best of all, when I used my vibrating toothbrush to rattle the flowers, at least half of the viable looking ones set fruit a several days later. So things were looking great, and then around 3 weeks ago...

The Decline
... I began to noticed yellowing of the leaves of some of the larger plants. The leaves weren't always the lowest, often midriff the plant. I'd been spraying weekly with a combination of AgriFos(Exel-LG)+Actinovate (and also Green Cure fungicide). I didn't notice any obvious pest issues, but nonetheless every couple weeks I sprayed with an insecticidal soap (also BT).

A week later the problem had become more apparent, affecting nearly all of my plants in my raised beds (these have freshly mixed grow medium). I culled out many stems/leaf branches to the order of many lbs of plant matter. I also started to spray with Daconil on something more like a 4 or 5 day cycle (in addition to the former fungicides).

In this last week and a half , I've noticed that many of my booms are bronzing/yellowing and just not looking viable. But, there are still some lovely, yellow ripe flowers, usually a few on every truss. Here's what I noticed recently...

The Baddie Bugger
I was out midday vibrating my blossoms (most of which BTW are just falling off now), and as I was cupping the blossom to get a better angle, I noticed on vibration that a spawn of little, slender bugs spewed out onto the palm of my hand. They looked about the size of dust, and I think I could have easily mistaken them for that, or pollen, had I not cupped the blossom and noticed them scurrying all around on my hand. As I was inspecting the ten or so crawling there, they one after another just took flight and disappeared into the ethos.

That got me curious, so I began cupping the rest of my blossoms while vibrating. Around three hours later, I had vibrated the remaining 20 or so plants. (It usually only takes 10-min. to do this, but I was very focused on finding and attempting to squish these bugs.) I found that every alive, sex-ready blossom was essentially infested with these small insects. I could obliterate them on my hand, well mostly. That's what I spent all that time doing. The next day, I vibrated again, and lo, they were all back in the blossoms. And again, and again, again...

Somewhere along the way, I started spraying after vibrating in hopes of catching the bugs outside their homes, but they're always back the next day. I started spraying with Monterey Spinosad, then Take Down garden spray, then Green light Neem Oil, then AzaMax, and most recently a 1/2 diluted strength of the first three. I even gave a half-strength spraying of Sevin, but my honey noticed I bought it and blew a gasket after reading about its health concerns, so back to H.D. it went.

What I've noticed is that whereas I used to get 50% + fruit set on my blossom trusses, I'm not getting 0%. Yes, that's right, 0% -- I've got so many raw, yellowing truss wires, I'm ready to cry. (Ok, there have been some cherries setting, but that's it and at a much lower rate.) I've noted that my yellow flowers are actually turning brown on their tips, presumably from the insect infestation. Now, my plants are also more stressed by the disease that I presume these bugs are infecting them with, so that might also be why the flowers aren't setting. My plants are strange looking. They have a nice set of fruit on their 1st and 2nd trusses, then sparsely set fruit on the next 1 or 2, and then the remaining 3-5' of tomato plant is bare.

Today, I noticed the same bugs in the blossoms of my work garden, and that garden hasn't really set any fruit. I got started about a month later there. So I'm of a mind to blame most of my garden problems--to ascribe their destroyer as to be--, these pesky little bugs.

I've attached my best impromptu attempt to capture the bug (a dead one) on my camera phone. Maybe you can at least make out the size. They actually range in size and color from smaller, to middling (what's shown) to a bit larger; light brown/red to black. I've also posted a couple pics of the less deathly looking yellow leafs (post culling).

The Questions
- Are these bugs Thrips, as I suspect they must be.
- In any case, what is the best spray regimen to get rid of them? What else can I do, short of nuking the world with man/earth-harming chemicals?
- Can my plants recover from this, or are they doomed to set fruit no more? I mean, is my theory that these bugs are to blame for the fruit set problem sound? Note, weather has been great. I've changed nothing in my feeding (minimal) and water regimes.
- Anything I can do differently next year to guard against these so they don't take hold. I really hate how it seems like they are able to hide in the flowers, even from my poison sprays. They've got me beat it seems, but I can't join them because I'm a human after all and don't fit beneath the stigma pedals of a tomato flower.

Thanks for helping.
-naysen

hmmm.....I'm curious too as I never check the blooms for critters.

I may be wrong but I don't think Thrips go into the flowers. Just the stems or stalks. Again, I may be wrong.

Guess who's going to check his flowers tomorrow??

Best of luck.

Greg

Same to you Greg. Maybe these aren't thrips, in which case I darn well want to find out what it is they be. Don't let those little creatures abort your unborn tomato fruit.
-n

[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=2]Naysen,[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=2]I can feel your pain. Sorry to hear about your problems. Yes, thrips can cause blossom drop. [URL]http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-1191/[/URL] Here's a web address that will clarify some of the questions that you have. About 3/4 of the way down the page you can read about thrips. I also noticed that your were concerned about what you might spay on your plants. There's a product called EcoSMART that is all organic, that will supposedly kill thrips. I have not used it, but I know others who have. I couldn't really tell from your pics if they were thrips or not. I know their very small. If you can look at them under some kind of magnifier, you should be able to identify them from pics online. Nasty little buggers. Some thrips are carriers of TSWV which is usually devastating. If you find that you have thrips, there are some specific steps that you will need to do so that you can eliminate the recurrence of them next year. I'm sure that those procedures are discussed in most articles about thrips. I almost forgot, some that I know use sticky pads in their greenhouses or field to catch them. I hope some of this helps. It's a tough problem to deal with. Got my fingers crossed; hope your successful dealing with those nasty little buggers.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=2]Dale[/SIZE][/FONT]

Naysen, I wonder if you could snip one of those blossoms and put it in a zip baggie to have someone look at? Might be one way to catch one of the little buggers :)

Sorry to hear about this, Naysen. FWIW: I had a bad case of thrips on my roses this year. They're especially attracted to the white-flowering ones. But what I've noticed, in this and earlier years, is that they seem to run their course in a few weeks and then disappear, after which things return to normal. Maybe this will be the case with your tomatoes. I sure hope so. Thrips are hard to treat, but hang in there.

Naysen, give these people a call and see if they can help identify your pest and suggest a fix. They deal in organic solutions and are located in California. They normally deal with commercial growers but will work with home gardeners as well. Ami

E-mail [email]bugnet@rinconvitova.com[/email]
Call 800-248-2847 (BUGS) or 805-643-5407

If they are thrips minute pirate bugs can be bought online and will stop the life cycle of thrips since they drop into ground and emerge and start the cycle all over again. [URL]http://www.arbico-organics.com/product/Minute-Pirate-Bug/beneficial-insects-organisms[/URL] Might be pricey but spraying of blooms might affect pollen.

[QUOTE=dpurdy;281399][FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=2]Naysen,[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=2]I can feel your pain. Sorry to hear about your problems. Yes, thrips can cause blossom drop. [URL]http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-1191/[/URL] Here's a web address that will clarify some of the questions that you have. About 3/4 of the way down the page you can read about thrips. I also noticed that your were concerned about what you might spay on your plants. There's a product called EcoSMART that is all organic, that will supposedly kill thrips. I have not used it, but I know others who have. I couldn't really tell from your pics if they were thrips or not. I know their very small. If you can look at them under some kind of magnifier, you should be able to identify them from pics online. Nasty little buggers. Some thrips are carriers of TSWV which is usually devastating. If you find that you have thrips, there are some specific steps that you will need to do so that you can eliminate the recurrence of them next year. I'm sure that those procedures are discussed in most articles about thrips. I almost forgot, some that I know use sticky pads in their greenhouses or field to catch them. I hope some of this helps. It's a tough problem to deal with. Got my fingers crossed; hope your successful dealing with those nasty little buggers.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=2]Dale[/SIZE][/FONT][/QUOTE]

Dale, you've nailed it! After hours of web-searchino trying to find the answers to my questions, you've managed to hit the web site that succinctly answers just about all of them. Yes, I do have thrips.

I think this information is worth posting from the site, so others searching for information on thrips can access it here:
[B]Thrips[/B]

[IMG]http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-1191/Images/fig-12.jpg[/IMG][B]Figure 12. [/B]Thrips in a tomato blossom
Several species of thrips may infest tomatoes, including western [I](Frankliniella occindentalis)[/I] and eastern [I](Frankliniella tritici)[/I] flower thrips, melon thrips [I](Thrips palmi),[/I] and tobacco thrips [I](Frankliniella fusca). [/I]These are tiny (1/16 inch), slender insects that may vary in color from yellow to dark brown or black (Figure 12). They prefer to feed in flowers but also occur in flower and leaf buds and, ooccasionally, on leaves. Thrips damage tomatoes in several ways. Feeding in blossoms may cause blossom drop, or fruit may not develop properly and become deformed. Feeding on foliage may cause a bronzing or silvering of foliage. Eggs inserted in fruit causes dimpling, and the infested area may appear white. Thrips are also vectors of tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV), a potentially devastating disease of tomato. Infected plants have dark lesions on the foliage (Figure 13) and fruit show characteristic halo markings (Figure 14). Refer to Extension publication ANR-836, "Virus Diseases of Tomato," for more information on this disease.
[IMG]http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-1191/Images/fig-13.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-1191/Images/fig-14.jpg[/IMG] [B]Figure 13. [/B]Bronzing symptoms of tomato potted wilt on tomato leaf [B]Figure 14. [/B]Symptoms of tomato spotted wilt on fruit Research has demonstrated that even low numbers of thrips may be enough to infest fields with TSWV. However, high populations are more likely to result in a greater incidence of virus in the field. To determine thrips presence, sample one flower per plant during the routine scouting procedure. Thrips may be visible inside the flower using a hand lens, or the flower may be shaken over a piece of paper to dislodge the thrips for observation. If the area has a history of TSWV, insecticide application is recommended if any thrips are found. If TSWV has not been a problem in the past, the recommended thrips treatment threshold is five thrips per flower. Application of imidacloprid (Admire) at planting may help to delay the onset of TSWV symptoms in the field. Recent research in Georgia has indicated that insecticides applied during the first 4 weeks after transplanting provide the greatest protection against yield reduction from TSWV. As indicated for aphid control, reflective (aluminum-colored) mulch may also help to reduce thrips infestations and spread of TSWV.

[QUOTE=lakelady;281409]Naysen, I wonder if you could snip one of those blossoms and put it in a zip baggie to have someone look at? Might be one way to catch one of the little buggers :)[/QUOTE]
No, I'm pretty sure they're thrips now. I just never knew they fed and lived in the flower heads. They're so small, that I'd been mistaking them for pollen on vibration. Yeah, they're a little chunkier than your typical pollen stream, but I just figured they were clumps of pollen. Not a bad idea though, for a trap to ID.
Thanks,
Naysen

Gary, thanks for your sympathies. Do you think they ran through their life-cycle because the rose flowers were no longer appealing, nectar-wise or whatever-wise it is they get out of the rose organs?

Ami, thanks for the contact. I will certainly give them a call. I've tried every organic solution I know of, short of purchasing beneficials. (They always seem to just fly away, and it certainly seems like they would so close to a greenbelt, as I am.)

Kurt, I'll check-out those "Pirates."

Thanks,
Naysen

Wow Kurt, those sure are expensive hired guns. I'm not sure I want to open that door. Who knows where it will lead. If I knew they would settle down for future years, I think I'd go for it. They apparently lay their eggs in available plant tissue, which I assume means the tomato plants. I wonder if that has any negative side-effects.
-naysen

Thrip love to get into blooms. They will also put a toxin in the plant. It takes a while for the plant to recover from them. If it is a heavy infestation they can deform the growth of the plant.

They are naturally occuring in almost all areas,they feed one other insects only,infestations occur when one is not there to balance the other.As your posted info says that 5 per flower is norm then the 10 or more is a infestation.The problem for me early in my growing was the "lets go buy chemicals"and wipe everything else out.So now my regimen is to use beneficials onlyI buy one order of Lbugs,Lacewings,Pirates per season.Same cost as the chemicals per season in the beginning.All in all over the years things have balanced out.We have probly more insects here in Fla. so the beneficials stay around and keep everything in check.Good thing about pirates they love more than one pest insect.Since you have created a "new/garden"enviorment and food source in your area your balance curve will get stabilized after a while.I admire your diligence.For the thrips keep in mind that they do come out of the ground so maybe some plastic now will stop those generations from hatching and moving to plants,and will stop eggs from dropping down into ground.Good Luck

[URL]http://greenmethods.com/site/shop/buy-bugs/4/#BOINSA[/URL] More options and less expensive for thrips.

Thanks again Kurt. I might bite on the NEOSEIULUS CUCUMERIS (BNCUCP-10 pks - $16.99) offering. Worth a try at least.

Naysen, every year I buy a bunch of ladybugs from an organic garden center here. They are refrigerated (they sleep when cold) and at night I go outside and sprinkle a small handful of them into the gardens over a series of several days. Yesterday I saw a bunch of them hanging out and they didn't fly away so I'm assuming there is some good bug food for them to eat there :). They are about 6 dollars here for a container that probably has hundreds of them.

I'm thinking of getting the praying mantis eggs next ,but they eat ladybugs in addition to the bad bugs too.

Ladybugs DO eat thrips, not sure about praying mantis, but I've read they have a voracious appetite.

Naysen, I'm sorry to hear about your troubles but it may not be so bad. I also had a thrip infestation this year - noticed it about 2 to 3 weeks ago. I always have some thrip when the grasses and weeds die on the levee behind me and the thrip move to live plants. This year seemed worse but I think it is because I replaced my lawn with native annuals. It was a beautiful wildflower meadow for 2 months then died with the rest of the levee annuals so probably I was hosting more thrip than normal or possibly it is a bad thrip year in our area. I emailed arbico organics and asked for a recommendation for thrip in our area. (not all predators do well in our dry hot weather ). Their recommendation was lady bugs or lace wings. It is expensive to order live lacewing larva or adult but not bad for the eggs. The eggs take a few weeks to hatch and be useful. So far I haven't done anything except give the plants a brisk spray with water to knock off as many as I can and gave the plants some micronutrients (azomite) and organic tomato food. I'm still considering ordering lacewing eggs but I am starting to see more ladybugs in my yard. Although I had some flowers drop in the last few weeks most of the plants are starting to set fruit again so I may not do anything. I think next year I will order lacewing eggs early so they are hatched about the time the local annuals die. I have never sprayed with any pesticide in my yard because I want the butterflies and native bees. So far it seems the benificials always show up soon after the pests. Hopefully that helps.

Marla

Lakelady, I hope the ladybugs work out well for you. In my past experience, the lady bugs just seemed to fly off after a day or so. Probably on the wind to various neighboring yards. I haven't yet tried meting out the bugs/eggs over a span of time, and they are so cheap it probably wouldn't hurt to try. I have a hillside that abuts a greenbelt, and the hillside itself my garden area and main backyard. Both the hillside and the greenbelt are not but dry grass and weeds now, so I think Marla was right in her suggestion that they move on to live plant material after the original host area dries up and dies. I probably have an infinite supply of thrip warriors ready to charge the hill and make for the relative safety and luxury of my fertile garden. Probably one solution would be to weed hack down the hillside and remove all the refuse, and do this well before everything dries up. That would also help with the potential fire hazard the dry grasses represent as well.

One of the problems is that even if I find a way to control/remove the thrips(and leaf-hoppers), they seem to have already inflicted mortal damage. I'm hopeful I can defer the end long enough to achieve some harvest this season.

Marla/Lakelady, let us know how your beneficial bug tactics pan out over the season.

Thanks,
Naysen

I'm sure the ladybugs do fly away; the garden center told me to spread the dispersal out over 4-5 days. They fly away in the hot sun, but hang around a few days if you put them out in the evenings or dusk.

Maybe I need to find out what plants they like to BREED on and plant some of those!

ah, here we go !

[URL]http://www.mcshanesnursery.com/how-to-care-for-ladybugs/[/URL]

Nice little read. I wonder if they do as well against thrips as they do for aphids. I'm coming to realize much of my plant malaise is also due to mass fusarium as well as the other issues brought on by the thrips, though I don't know that I can pin the F and V on them.
Good luck with your release!
-naysen

Thrips in the corn tassels!
 

Sure, my phone camera is pretty much worthless for up-close captures, but I thought I'd post these pics anyway. I'm trying to harvest pollen from my corn tassels to use in manual pollination of the silk that's now showing. I was amazed at how many thrips came out of the tassels; certainly more thrips than pollen.

One visitor I was happy to see fall out were 3 or 4 small black insects that seemed to be having a field day chewing up the thrips. I tried to capture it below, but you really can't see that it has an adult thrip in its chompers. Very cool stuff. Now if I just had another hundred thousand of these soldiers working on my side. Could they be pirate bugs?
-naysen

I usually get some thrip damage on my tomato seedlings (see photo below). I never knew what they were until this year. I finally found this article [url]http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7429.html[/url] which has a photo that looked like the damage that I have been experiencing every year (white areas with black stippling). I sprayed my plants less than a week ago with Captain Jack's Deadbug Brew (Spinosad) and I have not noticed any more new damage but I never looked inside the blossoms! I also never knew that there were that many different kinds of these little buggers!

Robin, yes, the thrips abound everywhere. Maybe they'll stop eating the young scrumptious foliage once sprayed, but the spray doesn't seem to deter them one iota once they make their way up and into the blossoms. It's like a kind of safe have for them. After all, who is going to open up the flower organs one by one and spray inside, obviously so doing would also render the blossom likely defunct, if not lay a poison trap for a poor unsuspecting honeybee. Perhaps more of these small black insectivors/thripivores (made that up) are the answer.

Good luck,
Naysen

Naysen,

I do hope that your tomatoes recover! Keep us posted.

I checked, and three plants out of 12 in one raised bed have one or two thrips inside each of the blossoms, most do not have anything inside the blossoms, but there are thrips on all the leaves. It's not a full out invasion... YET. I didn't spray these plants last week, just all my young plants because I saw the damage mentioned above. I plan to spray everything with the Spinosad but I have to wait for the wind to die down and it may be Saturday before that happens. Growing tomatoes in Reno is basically like growing tomatoes in a wind tunnel. It's often hard to find a day when I can spray.

Naysen, how are you making out? I was thinking of you because this weekend I stopped at my local organic (mostly) gardening center. We've become great friends and I bring them some plants etc., to showcase their beautiful planters (they had no idea what dwarf tomatoes were!). Anyhow, one of the girls gave me a container with 2 cocoon like cases in it that house praying mantids. I have hung them up in 2 of the gardens and now am awaiting their entry into the garden. I do find a ladybug here or there so maybe not all of them flew away. Bad news is that I've heard the praying mantids eat ladybugs too, they have a voracious appetite. The other thing I thought of for you.....if you have blossoms that have not opened yet....perhaps spraying them, then covering them like you do when saving seed pure...I would think that they will open, minus any thrips, then once pollinated, you can safely remove the covering. Lot of work, and probably would work best on varieties that form clusters. I did note that covering blossoms does lead to some blossom drop on my own plants. I used reemay fabric.

Hi Antoniette, well I'm out of town right now, but as of last check, the garden was hanging on, and I'm even getting a few ripe fruit. So far, the standout for flavor has been Goose creek -- man that plant can put out the maters. I'm still succumbing to some kind of disease or condition, and really need to ensure I've got it nailed down by end of season. Thrips abound in every flower, so I'm not sure any amount of neem will really phase them. I worry that spraying the flowers may affect their ultimate virility. I hadn't considered trying to keep the thrips out by covering -- I'm not sure I could get the cover-wrap tight enough.

All the best,
Naysen

Naysen, that's great your garden is hanging in there and you are getting some tomatoes. My Goose Creek is still green but I'm glad to hear it will be tasty. Have a good trip and I hope you come home to a productive garden.
Marla

And those who fail to learn from History are doomed...
 

Or something like that. So here I am almost exactly a year later, this time growing mainly grafted tomato vines, and I find myself scratching my head over the same problem: an upward Yellowing of leaves on my near mature to mature tomato plants.

It was about the same time last year when my plants had been setting fruit for about 3+ weeks and were getting to be mature in their 5' plus size and as the heat of early summer started to kick in, then I began to see this yellowing of leaves leading to total branch necrosis. At first just a few at the bottom of the plant, then quickly advancing to the majority of the vine except the very top quarter of new growth. And now I'm dealing with the same conditions and symptoms, only this year with yet another new bed+soil (and the old) and with grafted vines.

Toward the end of the season last year, I had convinced myself that I must have Fusarium of some sort, but when I finally pulled the plants and checked for the telltale signs of browning in the stem tissue, there was none to be found. It was also a bit hard to believe, in retrospect, as I was dealing with mostly brand new soil/grow-media. So now I have grafted vines that should be resistant to 2 forms of fusarium, thus all the more reason to doubt an outbreak of it.

So what else could it be? Well, Steve (Heritage) did find Tomato Russet Mites (TMRs) on a sample of a dying seedling that I sent him several weeks back. But those seedlings were exhibiting different symptoms from what I have here. Also, since learning of what Steve found, I've gone on the offensive with an organic spraying campaign that's involved every other day sprayings of things like Neem, Pyrethren, BT, Mineral Oil, Safer Soap, DE dashing, Spinosad, and more elaborate fungal products. I've spent many many hours examining my foliage from different points on the plant under a 40x hand microscope, and I find no evidence of mites. Also, I am not finding any bronzing of the the stems of the plants.

I do find a dead thrips here and there, and sometimes a bit of evidence of thrips damage. But with all my spraying, I've managed to keep the thrips invasion somewhat under control, though they have a way of spiking their population back if I haven't recently sprayed Spinosad. Thrips cause a whole other class of problems (flower drop, virus vectors, etc.), but I don't believe they are the source of my yellowing leaves.

Not all of the vines show the problem as much as others. Those most effected are (all grafted to Maxifort):
- All 4 of my Wes plants (the more mature the plant, the worst the problem)
- 1Work Release Paste
- 2 Van Wert Ohio vines
- 1 Brandywine Sudduth's (potato leaf and shows wilting sogginess of leaves that the other regular leave vines do not
- 1 Heshpole (potato leaf)
- 1 Pruden's Purple (potato leaf)
- 1 Barlow Jap (potato leaf)
- 1 Brandywine Cowlick's (potato leaf)
- And I'm sure there are many others I can't think of, not to mention about 1/3 or more of my vines are just not mature enough to show the problem yet.

I've been monitoring my soil moisture level with a meter. I check my pH, and it's a good range (6.3-6.9). When I made/mixed the soil, I added things like greensand, compost, TomatoTone etc. to ensure it had all the micro/macro nutrients required. I fertilize with BioBiz Bio Grow and/or Neptune's Harvest Fish/Seaweed every week or so.

I don't think the problem matches any of the fungal or mold based foliar disease descriptions that I've researched online. Further, consider the extremely dry weather we have here.

I've posted a number of pictures from some of the above noted plant varieties. Note, I recently applied Diatomaceous Earth over the foliage, so ignore the white powder. I'd sure love to know if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions as to what this could be. If I can't learn this time around, I know I'm doomed to repeat another early demise of my prized tomato vines.

Thanks all.
-naysen