Developing a Monitoring System For Tospovirus Vectors
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Vectors
TIMING IS EVERTHING:
A NEW MONITORING SYSTEM GIVES GROWERS PEST-MANAGEMENT CUES
”When?” The question taxes growers daily (and nightly) as they
face a host of environmental variables. When it comes to applying a pest-management
strategy, timing is critical. Applied too early, or too late most control
efforts are wasted, plants suffer, and sales sag. Realizing few growers
are experts on insects or plant disease, a team of veteran, Endowment-sponsored
researchers are developing a system of crop-monitoring aids that gives
growers welcome input on “When?” in pest management. The team is currently
focusing on low-tech, easily installed “stations” of indicators useful
in detecting thrips and the tospoviruses (including tomato spotted wilt
virus and impatiens necrotic spot virus) the insects may carry.
During the first year of studies, the team made progress in developing
a monitoring system for field-grown crops. Directional yellow sticky traps
were used to monitor thrip activity and numbers, while select petunia cultivars
served as tospovirus indicators. (The sensitive petunias develop lesions
within 3-to-7 days of tospoviral infection.) How many infective thrips
are too many? The researchers intend to find out. In the meantime, in an
early trial, a grower using the monitoring system to advantage reduced
tospovirus incidence to less than one percent — at a site with a history
of incidences of 70 percent or more at harvest! Now, the research team
is adapting the monitoring system for use in greenhouses.
As time passes, the system’s benefits may well multiply. By aiding
growers in making informed and timely pest-management decisions, investigators
believe the new system will likely lead to a reduction in pesticide use,
which will in turn benefit thrip predators.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT RESEARCH-PROJECT LEADER:
Diane Ullman, Entomologist, University of California at Davis
E-MAIL: <deullman@ucdavis.edu>
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