FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

My VFTs have some yellow thrips. I didn’t do anything other than kill some by hand and now I saw a lot of baby thrips like at least 4 ( which I killed all ). I don’t see any noticeable damage yet but I know for sure that they established themselves on the plants. What is best? Neem oil, or submerging in distilled water?

Captain Jack's Dead Bug Brew has worked really well for me treating thrips. All of the plants tolerate it very well.

My country doesn’t have this insecticide unfortunately.

Look for something with Spinosad as the main ingredient.

I haven't found neem oil particularly effective on thrips, and submerging hasn't worked for me for ANY pests. Spinosad however works amazingly well if you can find it.

I found something with spinosad! But does it need to have certain percentages or do other chemicals harm? One I found said that it has spinosad but didn’t say anything else.

What I use is .5% so that would likely be too strong. I can't comment on the other ingredients, because I can't read Greek. Sorry.

It is a naturally occuring product, so you may look for it at an organic gardening store.

That’s the problem. It doesn’t say the other chemicals. The greek writing just says how it kills different kinds of insects. Also I didn’t show the part where it says how to use it on different plants but they were mostly consumable plants.

Generally non-active ingredients in these products won't be a problem. From the concentration and the price though, that sounds like one intended for professional use (and it's obviously highly concentrated so it needs to be diluted.) Also my ready to use spray bottle contains 0.001% spinosad so I can't even imagine how much spray you could make with that product.

I found 2 other insecticides with spinosad. They have different concentrations. This one has added things to lure insects. Those things are: vitamins, sugars, flour, water, soda, oil. It doesn’t specify the ingredients.

The other one is more concentrated. It doesn’t say what the other ingredients are but it’s cheaper.

Which one do you think is best?

I'm not really sure about the whole "bait" system with the first one. The second one will certainly need to be diluted before use.

Good! Then I will use the second one. I will buy it after I finish the finals which is in about a month, so I will keep updating.

To be clear, follow the directions on the label when it comes to diluting to make sure you end up with the correct concentration.