Supplies & Monitoring

How you know it's working

Biological control is quiet. The predators are half a millimetre across, they work on the undersides of leaves and inside the substrate, and there is no dramatic moment where the pests visibly die. That makes monitoring the difference between confidence and guesswork.

Sticky traps

Horiver yellow sticky traps catch adult thrips, whitefly, fungus gnats and winged aphids. Their real value isn't the small number of insects they catch — it's the trend line. Count what's on a card, replace it, count again in a week. Numbers falling means your release is working. Numbers climbing means it isn't, and you'd rather know now than in a month.

Place them at canopy height near the plants you're worried about, and keep them away from the point where you release parasitic wasps or winged beneficials — the glue doesn't discriminate.

Feeding your predators

Breeder's Blend is a food supplement for predatory mites. Generalist species such as swirskii, cucumeris and californicus can survive on pollen and alternative food when pest numbers are low, and supplementing them keeps a preventative population established through the quiet periods instead of letting it die out and having to start over.

Specialists like Phytoseiulus persimilis won't use it — they eat spider mites or nothing.

Clean surfaces

Physan 20 is for benches, tools, pots and propagation surfaces between uses. Not for use on plants carrying an active biological release.