Onion Thrips

Our first garden pest of the new season.

Our onion and scallions easily survived our mild winter this year.

However, we were noticing discoloration on the leaves, but couldn’t find any bugs.

Thrips gather on the leaves, leaving white blothces, eating away the chlorophyll.

We treated the leaves with Pyrethrin, an oraganic compound that paralyzes the insect.

Is it safe for human consumption? If you trust the goverment, the USDA says “it is probably the safest of all insecticides for use in food plants”.