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Fighting Pests In Your Grow Room.
Author : Dean Geoffrey
Submitted : 2011-11-15 Word Count : 870 Popularity: Not Rated
Tags: Hydroponics equipment, indoor gardening, pest control
Some indoor growers have been using hunter predators for years to manage the plant eating insects that cause us all trouble, predators are basically insects that survive on the little sods that do the damage to your crop. If you are growing things outside these predators reside along side the pests so generally there is no requirement to add your own.
The indoor grower however would need to add these to stop the pests from breeding and quickly getting out of control in your growing area.When ever producing your flowers, veg or fruit in your indoor grow tents you my have to deal with thrips the first indicators you will notice is slug like trails and yellow spots on your plants leaves. This happens because the thrips are consuming your plants by sucking out the contents and causing your plants to suffer and even die if they are not controlled.
The thrips you are in all likelihood to come across are the western flower thrip which generally are brown in colour and are confine and can be very hard to see. Plants that are in their vegetative state they will spend the majority of the time on the underside of theleaves eating their way through your plant. When you hit the flowering cycle they will head up to the flowers of the plant making them even more challenging to spot. The adults adults do have wings even though they dont take wing very well they use this limited flight to hop from leaf to leaf and plant to plant which means that it doesnt require a long time to get round even larger crops.Their life cycle lasts from thirty to 35days which is not that long but in that time the females can lay a volume of one hundred and fifty to three-hundred eggs.
They do not set the eggs on top of the leaves like most other insects they enclose the eggs into the foliage, flowers or fruits of the plant one egg at a time. Each of these eggs will hatch in around four to seven days and enter their first two feeding phases as larva all of this lasts for six to ten days. The next cycle of their lives is the pre-pupa in this time they fast but that only lasts for one to two days before they go into the pupa stage and turn into adults this will usually happen on the ground or on the growing medium and this key fact will take between three to four days. When they emerge as adults they will rapidly move up your plant and start feeding, mating and laying more eggs.
The temperature that thrips will thrive in is twenty to twenty five degrees c, thats sixty eight to degrees f at these kinds of temperatures they will continue to reproduce and get out of control.As well as consuming your beloved plants they also carry viruses so it is important that once you notice that you have got a problem situation you do some thing about it one of the most effective ways to overcome thrips is to add the Amblyseius cucumeris a voracious mite that will stay and fight your corner against the thrip.
Author's Resource Box
I am a hydroponics expert with over ten years experience in growing
plants useing hydroponics systems and indoor growing techniques.
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