Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus (w/ Pix)

[feldon30]

Yellow sticky traps are little square yellow rectangular cards that you set up in your garden.

[shelleybean]

Okay, I guess I've never seen one. I'll look for something that looks like a card then. Do they sell them at the hardware store?

[feldon30]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...w+sticky+traps

[Suze]

As an alternative to purchased yellow sticky traps, one can take those yellow plastic party cups, smear them on the outside with vaseline, and mount on a pole/stick/whatever.

[shelleybean]

I like the cup idea because I already have yellow cups. Wish I'd done that this past summer. I hope it helps. Thanks.

[shelleybean]

By the way, do you guys in Texas have to deal with TSWV every season? I've been growing tomatoes many years but I've only had this happen twice. This year, of course, and I think it was 2001 or 2002. I can't imagine having to worry about this virus every year. What a pain! I'm starting to worry about it again because the weather has been so mild and that means more thrips. I want it to get cold and stay cold for a while to zap those critters!

[Suze]

Originally Posted by shelleybean

By the way, do you guys in Texas have to deal with TSWV every season?

I haven't had hardly any problems with it, myself. But there's always next year, or the year after that... and I sure hope it won't become one, since there's not much you can do once a plant is infected.

I've specifically used the cups before for whiteflies, worked very well.

[shelleybean]

In my case, with room for only one or two of each variety, the potential is there for TSWV to wipe out all of my tomato plants, so if there's a cheap possible solution, I'll try it. I have ordered some of the cards and I'll try the cup too. Even if it doesn't work, I didn't spend that much trying. And ya gotta try, right? :wink:

[Lee]

I don't think it is just the mild winter that impacts TSWV for us.... When I first saw it around here they said the winter wheat harvest had been seriously damaged that year. The thrips that carry the spotted wilt thus had to look for another source of food and the young tomato crops proved to be quite attractive.

Another thing I noticed is that the both years I had a bad case of TSWV, the plants near a big cedar tree were unaffected. Here's my theory.... The thrips are blown in by the wind. The tree blocked any from getting to these two
or three plants. Thus only the plants that were not protected by the tree were vulnerable.
If this is true.... you might be able to set up a 7' barrier to
keep the thrips from reaching (via wind) your main garden bed. The tree was on the North side of the garden. Also, you could bag all of your blossoms before they open as that seems to be what attracts the thrips...

Just some thoughts,

Lee

[Vince]

Yesterday I noticed that my Sungolds had spottty leaves. I defoliated them in hopes of containing the infection. Them after reading about TSWV I thought that maybe they have this. The most affected leaves are already in the trash but I found this one today, have a look. I am not sure if I should pull these or not, thanks for the advice in advance.

Top and bottum view of affected Leaf.

[Lee]

Hard to decide at this point. TSWV is spread by thrips. Do you have thrips in your
part of CA?
If so, check on the flowers of your plants and see if you can detect some really
small looking bugs that resemble fleas.

I have found that TSWV pretty much kills the plant eventually, so there is no
reason to keep it, unless you have ripening fruit when you first see the disease.

At this point, though, I would wait and see what transpires before taking such
drastic measures.

Lee

[shelleybean]

I agree with Lee. It's hard to tell from just those few spots. Don't pull your plants just yet. I did what you did, cutting off the spotted foliage. If that's what it is, it'll be all over a bunch more in a couple of days and you should have a better idea of what it is and maybe you can post another picture. I hope, for your sake, it's not TSWV. It's such a frustrating situation because once the plant has it, there's nothing you can do but take it out.

[Vince]

I don't know for sure if there are thrips in my area. I couldn't find anything specific to my area by googling. But, I found some information about thrips in Irvine CA, which is about 45 minutes from here. Apparently there is TSWV and thrips there, so since its so close I probably do too. I will wait and see what the plants look like in a few days when the new leaves come in.

Vince

[nctomatoman]

Sungold is very, very susceptible to foliage spotting early in the season, especially when cool and rainy. I've seen this many times - the plants recover when the weather warms up.

[feldon30]

The thing is, once you identify TSWV, you're supposed to pull and trash the plant immediately to prevent your other plants from getting infected by tomato-hopping thrips.

Sucks to wait. Sucks to pull the trigger.


If I got wiped out by TSWV one year, then I'd probably reach for a nasty chemical if I knew it would work particularly well the next.

So it was nice to find this article (which I'm sure some folks here have already read and may have even been linked to already) which says that after trying both really toxic insecticides and less toxic insecticides, they found the most effective solution was tin foil hats. No wait, I mean highly UV-reflective mulch. So we may have found a way to foil this problem. I really shouldn't post before I've had coffee.