Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

It appears thrips have moved from my celery onto some silverbeet plants, capsium, chilli, eggplant the whitefly infested kale.

The best solution I can think of is to just pull everything out and start again, but I feel they will just come back, they always do. Plus if I pulled everything out I'm not sure how large an affect that would have not the fish, and the use of nitrates in the system.

What is the best way to treat the problem of Thrips? I have heard planting Dill can help as this attracts bugs which can eat the thrips, but I'm not sure how effective that would be?

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Depends on the kind of thrips but predatory mites work. The dill will take awhile and there's no guarantee it will bring exactly the bugs you need (still if you have the space it does help). I usually get Ladybugs and wasps among others. For Dill the main thing was Faye was trying to rid you of the thrips by giving them a food selection they don't like so much.

for those who haven't seen the pictures the brocollini thread was where this discussion started - http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=20042

How do obtain these beneficial bugs, do you attract them using plants, or buy them like earthworms?

The only wasps we get around here are paper wasps, and they have a rather painful sting, which the dogs and cats don't appreciate, although they still try to catch them...

The caterpillars are easily controlled with Dipel, but the whitefly I still have no luck with either, which seems to be the same for everyone.

I find more negative bugs are attracted to the aquaponisc system, whereas the garden it's really only snails, and sometimes slaters. Is this a health of plant problem making them more susceptible to attack?

A bit of both. Some types of plants are good for attracting beneficials, dill is one, fennel also works well, parsley works but not as well for me. Careful with the dill and fennel they will grow everywhere if you let them go to seed. You will get lots of wasps (large and small) so put them in an out of the way spot where you don't have to push them out of the way to get through. Paper wasps are pretty even tempered, hornets and yellow jackets are another story though. I've never been stung by paper wasps (and their are lots around here), even when painting a building within inches of their nest.

As far as other beneficials, I've been able to find them locally depending on the season. Some of the suppliers might have them all year long. I haven't tried these first guys -

http://www.naturescontrol.com/controls.html
http://www.buglogical.com/
http://www.arbico-organics.com/category ... -parasites

This next one sells Ladybugs, and praying mantis. I have bought their products but from a local box store that they are sold through. They also sell beneficial nematodes but it doesn't list these on their website. Might need to contact them to get the full picture since their website doesn't look finished.

http://www.nwbeneficials.com/about.html

One thing about the thrips is they are hard to get rid of in AP and it takes time. It's better if you catch them early. Faye's idea of starting over with plants that the thrips don't like might reduce the numbers much faster and keep them from spreading further.



Possibly. Mine are the other way around with the AP having lots of bugs but fewer bug problems during the growing season. The exception would be Slugs and Snails which get into the AP whenever they can.

Well part of attracting good bugs to the garden is having a diversity of flowering plants and habitat, it also helps to know what the good guys look like when they arrive. Many wasps are tiny and look like flies, so they might be there you just don't recognise them.

A parasitic wasp may lay eggs in a caterpillar, mmmm herefore if you have killed all the caterpillars there is no host for them . This is why an ecosystem is so important. Here is one of my photos of a what was a caterpillar and the first wasp is emerging. I have another ripper photo, just have to find it. It makes you look at the world quite differently when you know what to look for, I think.

That is quite interesting. A lot of things I never knew about bugs and ecosystems.
I guess I always just saw the damage caterpillars did in a physical sense without realising what else they have to contribute.

Hopefully a good dose of seasol and washing off the dipel should encourage more bug interaction.

Have seen a few more different varieties of bugs around the last few days.

Is there particular companion planting that can help reduce the population of white fly, or will my kale forever suffer?

Agree with Faye about the importance of a balanced ecosystem, I had a similar experience where I have introduced friendly bugs (earwigs) to control some of the aphids and white fly, the problem came when aphids and whitefly population got completely wiped out by them, unfortunately as soon as the prey was off the menu the predator became vegetarian and started to eat some of the herbs (skeletisation of my parsley form earwig munching's)
Luckily earwigs situation was also easy to control as the earwig action was localised to one specific plants, also they are nocturnal all I had to do is to go at night and shake the bugs off the tips of the plants and onto a tray(way easy!).......... of course I feed them to my trouts!
Nothing was ever wasted .....that is what I define an efficient food chain management!