I breed oats where I work, and face a huge challenge with aphids. They damage the yield a little, and are quite inconvenient, making the plants all sticky and nasty.
My friend is having a go with fava beans. She’s struggling really bad with thrips. They’ve destroyed all her plants this year.
I’m wondering how people manage pests in their breeding material in the greenhouse.
For the aphids, I’ve tried parasitic wasps (Aphidius colemani, and A. ervi) which seems to work some, but not enough. Ladybugs are insanely expensive.
We can also order lacewing larvae, but they are sort of expensive and they eat the pollen when they grow up. That is often a concern with breeding material.
Does soap really work to prevent these things? Will that destroy the pollen in the fava beans?
I immagine aphids and thrips (and other pests) are a concern in other cultures as well. While I’m mainly looking for tips for the cultures mentioned above, I’m also curious what other people do in other plants
