Common Rose Pests - Part 1: Aphids and Thrips
will only partially open. (Although this is not a single indicator, as high humidity will also keep roses from fully opening - called "balling".) Sometimes, the buds will simply wither and die.
My technique for checking for thrips is to take a blossom and, with your fingers, pull back the petals. If you see small slivers of creme, yellow, brown or black scurrying about headed for cover, these are thrips... well, actually the larvae. A hand lens will assist you in identifying these critters as they are only about 1 - 3 mm long.
Controls: As with the aphid controls, we rosarians have an arsenal of weapons with which to combat these pesky critters. These range from those high-pressure watering wands designed for insect control to natural predators like lacewings and predatory mites to botanical and chemical pesticides.
Next time, we'll look at more plant sucking rose pests including spider mites, scales, mealybugs and whiteflies. In future articles, we'll talk about plant chewing critters like beetles, caterpillars, borers, and the Leaf Cutter Bee.
Note: Entomology information contained within this series is distilled from numerous on-line and text sources including those of Cornell, Florida State, Kentucky, North Carolina State, Oregon State, and Texas A&M universities; the Bio-Integral Resource Center, Berkeley, CA; U.S. Dept. of Agriculture; and Agriculture Canada. Additional reference materials from Insects of North America (McGavin; Longmeadow Press: Stamford, CT; 1993); Common Sense Pest Control (Olkowski, Daar, and Olkowski; Taunton Press: Newtown, CT; 1991); The IPM Practitioner (William Quarles, ed.; BIRC: Berkeley, CA); and Simon & Schulster's Guide to Insects (Arnett and Jacques; Simon & Schulster, Inc.: New York; 1981)
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