Hopefully I made some lemonade out of lemons. I have a terrible infestation of thrips. Wouldn’t you know it too because my show is next Saturday. ARRGH!!! I’ve sprayed twice and will again but I figured since I had to remove all those ugly blooms anyway I might as well use some of them for crosses. I hope the thrips won’t be a problem for that? Anyway here’s what I’ve crossed so far.
Trump Card X Crimson Bouquet
Marijke Koopman X Robin Alonso
X-Rated X Chelsea Brittlyn
Chelsea Brittlyn X Robin Alonso
Crimson Bouquet X Chelsea Brittlyn
Folklore X Pinocchio
Snow Ruby X Queen Elizabeth
Iced Raspberry X Wild Plum
Iced Raspberry X Rainbow’s End
Best Friends X Rainbow’s End
These were the ones that I was interested in and that had blooms at the right stage. I like to mix strange color combos to see what I get and I hope some of these will give me something interesting. I’m sure I’ll have more ugly blooms to work with again in a few days. I hope something takes!
I don’t think a few thrips will affect the fertility of the pollen or the seed parent. I know I always see several of them in the bottom of the plastic cups I use to collect pollen. Massive amounts of thrips can be indicative of other problems. (Insects have been shown to attack the weak.)
Thanks, Jackie. The thing is that this year I’ve really had a handle on the black spot and powdery mildew. The roses are really growing well, look very healthy and are covered in buds. So I don’t understand what happened. I have never had a big problem with thrips. I get some, sure, but not like this. They’re everywhere and everything looks bruised and beat up as a result. I’ve taken off anything open or opening now and, like I said, I’ve sprayed and will do so again. But even the spray hasn’t seemed to slow them down. Can weather conditions effect thrip populations? Maybe it’s because of the weird spring weather we had? I’m just sick about it and so disappointed because of my show.
Of course weather affects insects, Sharon! You only have aphids when the appropriate temps and humidity are around. When it gets hot and dry, they disappear. I NEVER have sawfly here, but I do right now in the front, walled garden where the milder temps and humidity levels are supporting them. Everything responds to weather, from weeds, to diseases, insects, allergies, etc. You only have the problems when temps and humidity support them, whatever “them” is.
I like the look of Whimsy too, I would use it if it was avaliable locally. Instead I have DKO, which I have had for ~1 year now, and nothing to show for it lol
Yeah, I threw Clinophylla pollen onto DKO, and some other pollens like Eiffel Tower and some other CV pollens as well…all done on a whim and got no hips …was not expecting anything anyways, but whateverrrr …
lol
BTW…not relevant but since it has come up, I finally got rid of Clino altogether, had enough of it !!
Thanks, Kim! So, what kind of weather do thrips like?
Whimsy is a pretty one, PJade. Should make a nice cross with SR. I was hoping to get some blooms on Winsome to cross SR with but it isn’t co-operating, no buds.
Thrips and weather. abstract says, "Analysis has been made of possible relationships between various weather factors and thrips activity, and tables illustrating these relationships are presented. It was found, as broadly expected, that settled, sunny and warm weather was favourable for flight, and that unstable thundery weather was adverse.
It proved possible to formulate some rules to foretell whether particular combinations of meteorological factors would give rise to above average thrips activity. These included an indication of temperature and humidity, sunshine, weather and stability of the lower air."
This one addresses thrips and cotton. There are a number of articles to be found using a search for 'weather conditions conducive for thrip". I’m glad it’s too windy right here to make them happy!
Google thrips on rosesand you can find out more than you might ever want to know about thrips. Around here they seem to coincide with late summer dry heat, when the roses are looking a bit stressed anyway, so I never bother to so anything about them. For certain there are some roses that seem to attract them. Cafe Ole and Moondance seem to be the worst that I have, but I might just not notice them on darker roses. I do have some of the natural predator insects which may be another reason I only see a few during pollination.
Thanks, Joe, duh, I should have known that, lol! The ubiquitous KOs!
I have googled “thrips” and “rose thrips” but all I could find were places selling stuff and not much info. First place I went was Baldo’s site but I couldn’t find thrips on it. I’m sure they must be on there somewhere but I couldn’t find them. Definitely the worst ones affected are the lighter colors. I know some people say it just shows up more on them but I’ve also seen more on them as well. And the ones with the thicker more substantial petals are less affected than the thin petaled ones. Strawberry Romance is very pale but it has petals as think as planks and they don’t seem to like it as much as Garden Party which they decimated. Elle hasn’t had a single bloom open because they’re just all chewed up and a mess so I end up cutting them off. Peace didn’t fair too well either but Crimson Bouquet seems almost clean. Snow Ruby and Iced Raspberry weren’t hit anywhere near as hard as Yantai and X-Rated. And lovely Julia Child seems to have just laughed them off! So I’m hoping some of the less tasty ones will have some blooms for me for Saturday.
Thanks for the links and info, Kim. Yep, calm, warm and dry here for the last month or so. We haven’t had a decent thunderstorm all spring.They go north of us, south of us, all around us but here. It’s like there’s some kind of invisible wedge that pushes them around my yard. And my poor water bill could use a break! We just got electronic metering in our burb and the city sent me a notice that I had “unusually high water usage”. They wanted me to check for leaks. Yep, it’s leaking all over my 200 roses, lol! Our humidities have been way lower than usual too. We’re regularly in the 70 to 80% range but it’s been in the 40%s lately. That’s arid for the Great Lakes area. It’s been great for BS and PM but maybe not so great for bugs!
I bought yet another spray today, Ortho Rose and Garden insect spray. I very carefully read the label and it said thrips in several places. I whacked off more blooms (my poor pretties) and one by one, individually sprayed each and every remaining bud. That was labor intensive but I’m hoping it helps. And I think may just do it again tomorrow!
For what it’s worth, I did make my show Saturday. My roses were crap for the most part but I got one blue for my climber Candy Land and won the fragrance class with a really pretty Double Delight, that for once didn’t have a double center, however, it did have spotted leaves so I couldn’t put it in the HT class, lol. And I got a blue for one of my arrangements. So not great but it could have been a lot worse!
Thanks for all your help and encouragement here! I’m still battling the D@#M thrips but… I made some more crosses today and posted them on the other thread. Hope something takes!
Congratulations Sharon! A DD without a double center? I thought that was why the named it Double Delight! LOL! I honestly wonder if that plant would have been introduced, been as popular or lasted as long if it didn’t have that fragrance? Thrips are here, too, but I have worse issues with earwigs, cucumber beetles (eat the anthers and pollen, leaving an emasculated flower, but only on those whose pollen I WANT!) and Hoplias.
Thanks, Kim! I’m pretty sure you’re right about that naming thing, lol. We have earwigs and cuke beetles too. I saw them today when I was out pollinating. And worse yet I saw the first Japanese beetles of the season too. You have hoplias, we hav JBs any way you cut it, it stinks!
We have thrips most of time here too, Adam, but this year they have been epic in numbers and they damage caused. I don’t have any roses that don’t have chewed up petal edges and brown spots. Even the dark red ones are showing damage. We’ve had two brief T-storms today though so I’m hoping that will take down the numbers some what. I am so tired of spraying and there’s a ton of other stuff needs doing!