Effects of daytime red LED lighting on thrips control in chrysanthemum plants grown in greenhouses

Abstract

To investigate the effect of daytime lighting with red LED lights to suppress thrips’ infestation in the chrysanthemum plants grown in greenhouses, we conducted experiments using this strategy, in the fall 2021 and in the summer 2022.

Compared with the treatment without daytime lighting, the treatment with daytime lighting slightly reduced the infestation density of thrips as well as the number of damaged leaves in chrysanthemum plants. The same effect was observed with exposure to daytime lighting on the side of the greenhouse.

Furthermore, a survey of adult thrips trapped inside and outside the facility using yellow sticky traps revealed that daytime lighting was effective in preventing the intrusion of thrips into the facility from the outside in both the treatment areas.

However, exposure to daytime lighting markedly delayed the flowering in the chrysanthemum cultivar “IwanoHakusen”. Therefore, caution is required regarding the use of the treatment, and further investigation will be conducted in future tests.