Thrips Slow Release Sachets (Amblyseius cucumeris)

This is a preventative control, not a rescue treatment. Introduce Amblyseius cucumeris before thrips become a problem, or at the very first sign of them. Each sachet holds a breeding colony of roughly 1,000 predatory mites that emerge gradually over four to six weeks, which gives continuous cover through the vulnerable part of the season rather than the boom and crash of a single release.

Thrips are hard to control for a specific reason, and it explains why these work where sprays do not. They are only 1 to 2mm long and they hide: inside flower buds while feeding, deep in leaf axils while resting, and down in the soil during the pupal stage. A spray reaches none of those places. Predatory mites are small enough to follow them in, crawling through leaf crevices and hunting across the soil surface, reaching the larval and pupal stages that nothing sprayed can touch.

Most people notice the damage before the insect: silver flecking on leaves, flower buds that distort and never open fully, and black frass spots on leaf undersides. Thrips also transmit viruses, which is what makes them serious on valuable ornamentals rather than merely annoying. The sachets work against all thrips species, including western flower thrips, onion thrips and rose thrips.

The colony breeds inside the paper sachet on a bran and pollen substrate and keeps producing new mites throughout its active life. The sachets are weather-resistant and designed to hang from a plant or clip to a cane, and they cope with normal humidity and light misting.

Apply about one sachet per plant, or one per square metre. Larger woody plants such as chillies, aubergines and tomatoes benefit from two or three per plant on a rotating basis through the season. Pack sizes run from 4 sachets for a few houseplants up to 200 for commercial glasshouse use, with 10 suiting a standard domestic greenhouse of 6ft by 8ft or smaller.

Safe for people, pets, pollinators and every beneficial insect in the greenhouse. Live product, despatched fresh, and it cannot be returned.