The problem with mites has been especially difficult because of developing chemical resistance, the increased attractiveness of crop plants to mites at flowering, and because a few mites cause rapid deterioration in cut-flower quality. The relationship of mites to corm and bulb pathogens was defined in the early 1970s. It was found that mites fed on Fusarium and bacteria growing on corms, and populations were severely limited when this food supply was lacking. Other factors governing mite populations, such as irrigation methods and varieties susceptibility, were partially delineated for floral crops during the early 1980s in an effort to make control procedures more effective.

In the late 1970s, floriculture was plagued by the Liriomyza trifolii leafminer that mined leaves of chrysanthemum, gypsophila, aster, and many other crops. Losses occurred from the presence of the mines on the harvested crop and from pathogens gaining entry through larval exit holes. The problem was exacerbated by the heavy use of pesticides and their effects on naturally occurring biological regulators of the leafminer and the beet armyworm. By the early 1980s, programs that incorporated scouting, action thresholds, and selection of least disruptive pesticides, and modified cultural practices had been developed and made available to flower farmers. Adoption of these programs and the introductions of cyromazine and abamectin insecticides for leafminer control led to the elimination of the leafminer as a threat to stability in the industry.

The silverleaf whitefly arose as a new threat to many floricultural crops including poinsettia and hibiscus in 1986. In the months and years that followed, methods of screening the pest from greenhouses and some shade houses were developed as were cultural techniques unfavorable whitefly population development. Stage specific insecticides were identified and new insecticides were developed, giving growers excellent additional tools for control.

During the last two decades of the last century, the floricultural entomology program has helped change the complement of insecticides and miticides available to flower growers. The older broad spectrum organophosphorus, carbamate, and chlorinated hydrocarbon groups that once predominated were largely supplanted by more target specific, environmentally benign, and safer insecticides of many new classes. The newer insecticides, as a group, are less disruptive to naturally occurring or applied biological controls and the present wider choices among chemical families should reduce the development of insect resistance to the available insecticides.