Help Me Identify This Insect

[eien_herrison]

Hi everyone,

I've been relatively busy in my garden and have a lot of things planted up both inside and outside, and am starting to see the first shoots of various plants.

However, I'm having a problem: I bought a twelve-pack of strawberry runners last year, and planted them out in December. They've been well-watered and sheltered from the worst of the cold, but I noticed some of them starting to die off. On a friend's suggestion, I moved the still-healthy ones from a strawberry planter I have in to individual pots. On a whim, I had a look at the root system of one of the dead plants, and found a ton of these scurrying insects on it. I checked the still-healthy plants only to find two of them infected and one still bug-free (so far).

Basics: the planter was on the ground, and the death seems to have gone from the ground up. They had been sitting on a plate which came with the planter, directly on some loose bark of (an) unknown wood(s). I have two potted raspberries on the same bark in a similar location that are fine.

The bugs are tiny, white-brown (they look white on the plant, brown on my gloves), and can hop/fly a far distance (we lost a few while trying to take a photograph). I have checked websites and they don't seem to be similar to any of the usual strawberry pests -- more experienced people than I am may say differently.



I would really like to know what this is, where it's come from (if possible as I suspect the bark might be the culprit), and how to get rid of them (ideally with as little harm to anything else, especially as my cat has taken to eating some of the plants we've got). Thanks for your help :)

Edit: I'm in SE England, just on the outskirts of London city.

Edit 2: They're thrips.

Comments

[loligo]

Sometimes it's not the bugs that cause the problems -- sometimes the bugs *follow* the problems. I don't know what these little guys are, but the fact that the problem started from the bottom of the planter and moved up makes me wonder if the soil at the bottom stayed too wet for too long, and the roots started to rot, thus attracting the bugs.

Most small, soft insects that hang out on leaves and stems are susceptible to soap spray, but I'm not sure what to do if they're mostly in the dirt.

[eien_herrison]

It was something I was thinking (they're simply taking advantage of the situation), but the two supposedly healthy ones we pulled out had the bugs on them, and I noticed the leaves on one were starting to go brown. A friend suggested washing out the roots, but I'd personally want to know what they are before, just in case they are damaging and it crops up again.

Thanks for your ideas though :)

[mrs_tribble]

It could be whitefly; they tend to lay eggs in the soil and you don't notice them until they're adults.

Did you use soil from your own garden, or was the soil provided? I'm always very wary of bags of compost and prefer to sterilise all composts and manure before use.

[eien_herrison]

I've had a look and they don't seem to be similar (whitefly look to be triangular while these are more oval).

The soil was provided, bags of Westland vegetable growing compost. It's been used in pretty much everything in our garden at the moment, so if that is the cause we're going to have major problems. How do you sterilise your compost/manure?

[mrs_tribble]

To sterilise the manure we regularly get from someone, my OH placed it in a metal bucket, put it in an oven at 80 degrees centigrade for an hour or so and allowed it to cool down. It kills any seeds, eggs and bugs hiding in the soil :)

[eien_herrison]

Good to know, thanks :)