Thrips on Monstera: Hear to my Experiences to Get Rid of Them

Have you spotted Thrips on Monstera and you are searching for a way to get rid of them? First, isolate your Monstera, second, prune the infected foliage, and finally wash its foliage with water and spray with Captain Jack’s Dead Bug spray and Bonide Systemic Granules. The Yellow Sticky cards can also be helpful.

Hi, I’m a horticultural consultant and Plant protection is my academic major. I have great experiences in growing houseplants and write this blog based on my knowledge and experiences. So, I’m here to tell you everything you need to detect the culprits and eliminate them and if you have any problem with thrips on Monstera, please feel free to ask me your question below this page.

In this article, we will follow the three following steps:

First step: I will show you the symptoms of thrips-infestation on Monstera to detect your problem correctly.

Second step: I will help you to detect thrips on your houseplant by their images.

Final step: I will guide you on how to treat the thrips on your Monstera.

If you are ready, let’s get going.

 

Step One: What Are the Symptoms of Thrips Damage on Monstera?

Thrips are tiny bugs that hide behind the leaves and suck the sap of your houseplant like a vampire. So, most house gardeners see the symptoms of thrips infestation before spotting these tiny bugs on houseplants.

So, if you couldn’t find out about thrips infestation early through the symptoms, they will kill your lovely Monstera. In the following, I will help you to detect the problem early.

Please watch the pictures below while reading the following explanations and finally try to compare these symptoms with your infested Monstera.

Early symptoms of thrips infestation on Monstera:

If you can detect early thrips infestation on your Monstera, you are good luck. Grab your magnifying glass and come on to start.

• In the images, you can see yellow spots on leaves that may convert to silver in colour. These spots are the result of digging the leaf’s surface for sucking or laying eggs inside it.
• You may see black tiny dots on the above yellow spots, those are the thrips’ excrement.

Serious symptoms of thrips infestation on Monstera:

• Yellow or brown areas on leaves. It can be because of various factors. In thrips infestations, you usually spot these areas without any specific shape or any determined spreading pattern that may occur in the middle or edge of the leaf.
• The deformation of leaves to Drooping, or Curling along with the following spots can be other symptoms of thrips infestation on Monstera.
• Sucking the sap of a plant will cause it the losing the houseplant vigour and end up wilting and dying.

Step two: how to identify thrips on Monstera?

The adult thrips are about 2 mm, so if you hope to detect them on your Monstera, grab your magnifying glass. To the naked eye, you will spot thrips (white tiny bugs on your houseplant) usually in colonies as in the below image:

If you spot them close enough under your magnifying glass, you will see:

• Tiny long and thin bugs with black-to-cream bodies are dependent on their age.
• They have short antennae but you must see them closer.
• The adults are winged.

Compare your tiny bugs with the above images. If you see another bug under your magnifying glass, please take a close picture of it and send me to detect it. To take a picture easily, put a sheet under your potted plant and shake it, some of the thrips will fall on it and you can see them easier. Try to do it out of the peak of thrips’ activity. Read “The five main ways that thrips come from” to gain more details about thrips habits.

Never forget that every pest has its specific treatment. Hence, you have to detect the culprits correctly before doing anything.

Final stage: How to get rid of thrips on your Monstera?

After identifying the guilty, it is time to design a plan to get rid of them. To devise a sound plan, you should know about the habits of thrips. if you are concerned about thrips bite, read my other post to know more about it. In the following, you can find a guideline to get rid of them.

1- After detecting thrips on your Monstera, first you must isolate the infested plant to prevent infection of other indoor plants.

2- Prune the infested parts of your Monstera, put them into a plastic bag, tighten them and discard them.

3- Wash the foliage of your Monstera with water. You can do it with a spray and you have to wash the whole of the plant, especially under the leaves. Avoid overwatering and soil runoff.

4- Spray your Monstera with Captain Jack’s Dead Bug spray, Bonide Systemic Granules, or Neem oil and repeat it each week. Read “Make Your Homemade Neem Oil Spray” to learn how to make it and tell you critical tips about using Neem oil on houseplants.

5- Sometimes, in heavy infestations, spraying with a horticultural soap may work better than neem oil. Read “Tiny Silver Bugs on Houseplants” to learn how to make them and tell you important tips about using soap spray on indoor plants.

6- Using chemical pesticides is not my recommendation because they are expensive and have specific threats. However, if you don’t mind, I suggest you buy a systemic insecticide, because if you add it to soil, it will absorb with roots and spread throughout your monstera. so, thrips will be killed after feeding on your houseplant.

Never forget to read the label of the pesticide carefully before performing it.

7- Put a yellow sticky card on the base of your Monstera pot and hang a blue sticky card on the foliage. It will work well to decrease the thrips population.

8- Biological control by Ladybugs: you can also get help from ladybugs to control Thrips, I discussed it in my other post in detail.

Conclusion

Now you can identify the thrips on your Monstera based on their symptoms and appearance. You found out how to treat thrips on your houseplant step by step. Did you succeed in detecting thrips with your magnifying glass? Were the symptoms of your infested Monstera similar to thrips infection? Do you think the above thrips treatments will work well? Do you know a thrips control method that wasn’t mentioned above? Please share your idea below this page.