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Thrips are very small, minute insects with sucking mouth parts that belong to the insect order Thysanoptera, a name that means bristle or fringe wings. Barely visible to the naked eye, about 1/50"-1/25" in size, they have 2 pairs of long narrow, fringed wings. Thrips can be found feeding on flowers, fruits and foliage on a variety of garden and greenhouse plants. Some are predaceous, feeding on mites and small insects, some eat fungi and decayed vegetable matter, but most are destructive to plants, piercing and sucking plant juices. Their injury is sometimes referred to as 'white blast', where the surface of the leaves become speckled and whitened. Severe infestation can stunt plants, developing fruit and flowers. Adults overwinter in sod, plant refuse or cracks in the bark of plants and become active in the early spring as the weather begins to warm up. Eggs are laid in plant tissue and hatch within a week. Young nymphs will feed for 1-3 weeks, rest on the foliage or in the soil near the host plant, until they molt to an adult in approximately 1-2 weeks. Thrips may breed continuously this way in greenhouse environments, outdoors there may be up to 15 generations per year during the warm season. Dormant oil sprayed on fruit trees will help control overwintering adults, beneficial insects such as the minute pirate bug ( Orius tristicolor ), lacewings and lady beetle will also aid in their control, blue or yellow sticky traps can be used to catch the adults or insecticidal soap, pyrethrin or neem can be used.*
Treehoppers are closely related to leafhoppers and although they belong to the same order Hemiptera, suborder Homoptera, they each belong to different families. Treehoppers are members of the Membracidae family and are sometimes referred to as membracids. Members of this family are characterized by having a pronotum ( the thorax region of the insect ), that is enlarged and grotesquely developed into horns, knobs and other strange shapes. Treehoppers are bizarre looking insects, some have been described as resembling miniature dinosaurs. When there are high populations, concentrated on a branch, they almost resemble thorns, but you know something is not right when the plant isn't supposed to have thorns. Treehoppers cause injury to trees and shrubs in two ways, nymphs feed on plant tissue and suck out cell fluids with their sharp needle-like mouth parts, but the primary injury is caused by the females that cut into the bark to lay their eggs. Eggs will overwinter in the tree bark and hatch in the spring, newly developed nymphs will drop to the ground and feed on the sap of various weeds and grasses and other plants for about 6 weeks, after which time they molt into adults, and return to the trees to feed and lay eggs. Plants often affected include ornamental trees, shrubs, stone fruits, vegetable, legumes, grasses and forage plants. Dormant oil sprays can be used to kill overwintering eggs. |
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Thrips - 
Treehoppers - 