Lady bugs make sense they’d be active around the plants and they’re active hunters, I got recommended hypoasapis which are soil dwelling.
I get thrips start in soil but I had an infestation and prededatory mites just don’t work for that situation, adult thrips and hypoasapis mites aren’t going to meet too frequently one lives in soil and the other on leafs.
Orius insidiosus/ Pirate Minute Bug will be better for thrips than lady bugs, the pirate minute bugs will knock down the numbers and you can add a predator mite that can work cooperatively with the pirate bugs to help get the stragglers. Make sure that if you are going to spray, spray and wash off well before you add the beneficial insects.
100% thrips. Like has been said here a few times. Whatever spray you choose, you HAVE to use it every 48-72hrs for a good 10-14 days in order to kill them all.
Don’t spray anything in flower you plan to smoke.
Don’t spray azamax on anything you plan to flower. Especially if it gets in the soil. Have to take clones from new unsprayed growth and even then it can still be in the plant.
Edit: didn’t mean to reply to you capn 
Its all good shit im taking it all in man.Ive been through aphids,Dirt gnats,Spidermites leaf cutters,Leaf hoppers,Caterpillars,Ants why not throw some mutant yellow green microscopic worms in the mix lol.The Safers end all and The BTI seem to be working sprayed a couple times and had a nice drench cant see anything alive with the scope wiggling around .Clone has been seperated from everything else in quarantine.Keeping a close eye on everything all else is clean.If i wasn’t experimenting on killing shit i would have just tossed this one i have plenty of cuttings.
Some of those thrips complete their life cycle on the plant with no need for the soil. hah hah trust me, they were thriving in hydroponics.
Thrips, so far hardest pest I’ve came across. As stated before, you need to break the life cycle. They will also winter, hide out and come back later to reinfest. Fought with them for over a year. Always was one adult that would hide out and return. When all else fails see picture
@Inflorescence
Not sure if you’re actually recommending this??? Looks like systemic control for ornamental plants.
Lay out yellow traps, get a good sprayer, and if you’re in veg use spinosad.
Lol. You realized who I was, eh?
I certainly hope not… systemic control for borer insects, at that. Not sure how effective it would be against thrips, and imidacloprid is moderately toxic to people as well as insects. That’s just studies on ingestion and accidental exposure, I doubt anyone’s studied what happens if you smoke it. 
When you guys say soak the soil - what are we talking about soaking with - the same product you’re spraying with?
I have had similar issues with thrips coming back and while I’m hitting the sprays every 3 days, they have still come back and my only guess is from the soil.
Just curious what I can soak the soil with that will kill the thrips and not the plants?
As long as you don’t go really heavy, you can water with neem oil/bronners mix. Should do the trick for a lot things. Also strategic dry backs or drenches help depending on the environment preferred by your pest
Others have already chimed in about thrips occupying the foliage but for your question specifically -
I’d probably look into an entomopathogenic nematode like Steinernema feltiae from a reputable distrubuter if I was going to treat the soil. Rove beetles and soil mites ( Stratiolaelaps scimitus Womersley ) if you want to get crazy with more preventative layers.
Hey lusid, no bud it wasn’t any particular reason tbh.
I was thinking I like your approach to them, they’re to be hit hard from the start.
Nope, was a nuken joke. If you look at the instructions only says for suppression on thrips so who knows. Definitely wouldn’t be best approach. I can’t stand them $!#@ers. 
Blue sticky traps and nematodes. Thrips
For now I’d try this and you can get a sample size for cheap.
https://organishield.com/
I used this outdoor last summer and indoor in veg w/ little issue. Neat product smells like surf wax.
In the future I would recommend a better IPM regiment. I won’t say we all get these issues from time to time, but cleaning and a proper regiment should help. If you’re bringing in plants ( clones ) rethink that.
Sierra Natural Sciences has some decent products I have used as well. Beneficial oils and stuff you could do a drench with.
Hot pepper capsaicin may actually eat through the exoskeleton of those bugs too if they’re soft. Your plants will like that too if you spray it in the foliar just be careful because if you fuck with super hot it’ll take your breath away.
In the end best defense is a good consistent offense.
Btw I use beneficial insects as well as a regular IPM regiment.
Good luck.
When im saying soak the soil im personally using BTIs i use a product called Microbe lift.It uses a spore that attacks soil bourne larvae as well as mosquitoes.Does a pretty good job with dirt gnats and squiggly shit in the soil.I also have Dr Zymes which i have heard works well as a drench also.I have a bunch of soap nut too with all that saponin
Relentlessly shock and awe them with these. Bomb them a few more times after you think they are finally gone.
I watched a very long Youtube interview with an expert on thrips. Key takeaway I got was that in addition to the every three days treatments 4x, they are spectacularly good at developing resistance. So it can’t be the same treatmentc twice in a row.
I planted green beans, which they liked better than my cannabis, then removed all the bean leaves to depopulate the thrips.
Sprayed every leaf and stem of every plant top and bottom with spinosad, then 3 days later with isopropyl alcohol which burnt the leaves badly - I didn’t really think about how the lemon tree is fine with it because the cuticle is thick. Online it says to dilute it, but I don’t know it that would have worked. Also of note, the damage in the leaves matched the location thrips like to v insert their eggs. I have no proof, but I think the alcohol got into the invisibly damaged parts of the leaves and killed the thrip eggs along with or by drying that part of the leaf into a crisp.
Then I did Spinosad at the same drenching level again and removed the bean leaves again.
Meanwhile, 1,000 ladybugs arrived. They don’t mind spinosad, and must have eaten any last stray thrips.
I had tried beneficial mites and sprays before to no avail.
Also I noted that my attempt to close down my grow to starve them would possibly have worked if I had kept the temp in there up around 80f so they couldn’t just hide out in a sort of hibernation state.
Good luck everyone!
Mine are gone 100% now.
