Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus (w/ Pix)

[b54red]

Sure looks like TSWV to me. I found another infected plant two days ago when leaning and lowering the tomatoes. I would have seen it sooner if I had gotten around to lowering it when I should. It is a Rebel Yell and it has produced a lot of fruit so far but only has a couple of medium sized green ones on it now. I will leave it and hope the remaining fruits start blushing. So far not bad with only four plants getting TSWV by mid June.

I set out my last batch of grafted plants about a week ago and will not graft anymore this year so I hope those plants will give me a few tomatoes in the late summer and fall. It has just been too hot for grafting in my greenhouse and I now have over 60 plants out in the garden now with less than half of them at producing size.

Bill

[brooksville]

Found another yesterday afternoon while i was spraying. It was a red barn. What has really surprised me is the performance of mule team. That plant really likes our garden and I'll bet each vines has 15-20 big fruits and looks the most healthy!

[clkeiper]

So, I don't think I have TSWV but just thrip damage. I had a patch of cilantro growing along the edge of the high tunnel that was supposed to be for beneficial insects only I think it was hosting thrips. That is where all of the damage was concentrated to. WAAAAAHHH!!!!! so I cut it all down and then sprayed the whole patch with an insecticide. I haven't seen any more fruit that looks like the pictures I was seeing for TSWV either. I never thought about my beneficial flowers being a host for non beneficials.

[brooksville]

Here we go! Just found a baby w TSW. The cut worms are still laying some down and TSW shows up.....

[b54red]

Originally Posted by brooksville

Here we go! Just found a baby w TSW. The cut worms are still laying some down and TSW shows up.....

I hate to hear that. I'm in south Alabama so I guess I need to start watching for the signs. My tomatoes have only been out about two weeks and are about 15 inches tall and just starting to show some blooms. When I noticed the blooms the other day I checked several to see if any thrips were in them but didn't see any. TSWV was much worse on my bell peppers last year than my tomatoes. Good thing I planted a lot of bells last year because I lost at least 20 to TSWV but luckily had few problems with BLS.
If one thing doesn't get em down here something else will.

Bill

[Snozzcumber]

I am in South Georgia and have what looks to be my first casualty of TSWV. I have a pepper plant that looks suspicious as well. May go ahead and remove it too.

[Shrinkrap]

First time for me, or at least first time I recognized it. Last year I learned to recognize thrips.

[b54red]

I knew it would happen but never thought I would be lucky enough to last until the last week of May before losing some tomatoes to TSWV. Yesterday I pulled three plants two were very young plants only in the ground a little over two weeks. The really bad loss was one of the best looking tomatoes in the garden and was over six feet tall and loaded with fruit. I usually don't pull a large plant like that but it went from a few specks on some of the upper leaves to half the plant wilted in just a few days so I knew it wouldn't last until the fruit ripened. It is rare for such a large healthy plant to fail so fast but it does happen.

Bill

[b54red]

One more definite this morning and two more possibles. I may be able to replace these since they are between 2 and 3 feet tall so maybe a 16 inch replacement will work in my lean and lower system. I'll try and find out.

Bill

[b54red]

Well it is looking like this is going to be one of the worst TSWV years ever or maybe the worst. I pulled seven more plants yesterday that were definitely infected with TSWV as the signs got worse each of the last few days. The trouble is that there are more that are starting to show some of the earliest signs and so this round of TSWV is probably not over. I have now pulled a dozen or so plants and this is still early in the season. I am making note of all the plants and varieties that I am having to pull and I will try replacing some of them today. I am not worried yet about the loses as I planted more tomatoes this year than any of the past six or seven years so I can afford to lose a few, but some of my beds are looking a bit ragged with so many gaps and with lean and lower it is hard to make replacing some of the larger plants work since they would be completely shadowed by the larger surrounding plants.

Today I will be fertilizing and watering all my tomatoes so I will be spending hours looking at the plants as I do this so I may run across some more TSWV infected plants as I work. So far I haven't seen any peppers that show signs of TSWV but it seems that it takes longer to show up on bell peppers and the signs are more subtle until the new growth starts disappearing and the plants stop growing. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Bill

[b54red]

I am up to 16 tomato plants that I have had to pull due to TSWV. One bed in particular was hard hit with half the plants having to be removed and the one right above it also has quite a few losses.

I have also had to pull a few bell pepper plants and it looks like there will be more of them to fall to it before the season is really even started.

Bill

[Shrinkrap]

I'm so sorry!

[b54red]

At the time the TSWV started this year I had around 80 plants already set out so the loss wasn't that great and most could be replaced. It is not unusual for me to lose between 10 and 20 percent each year to TSWV. Some years it is less and some it is more.

If things go according to pattern then this will be one of the bad years since there is still a lot of season left and usually there are scattered infections throughout the summer but hopefully the worst is behind me. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Bill

[Lee]

Bill, sorry to hear about the TSWV woes this season. I certainly hope your plant losses are over now.
I’ve been fortunate the past couple of years, but noticed the presence of thrips on a plant while trying to collect pollen.
A week or so later I saw that one of my plants nearby had become infected.
Pulled it and two others that had fallen prey to some vascular wilt.
So far I haven’t seen any other infections, so hopefully that will be all.

By the way, the variety I observed the thrips on is looking great and growing well. Unknown if these thrips weren’t spreaders of the virus or not but if so, this is a good one to grow that may have some tolerance. Mountain Gem is the name and I know it has good disease tolerance built in. Also it has become a top 3 favorite hybrid alongside Big Beef and Sungold.
Just checked this thread. http://tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=48529

It does have TSWV tolerance built in.

Good luck!

Lee

[b54red]

The TSWV infections have slowed in the tomato plants but I am having more infections in my bell peppers. So far a little over a half dozen gone but I'm sure more will get it before the summer is over and I haven't picked a single bell pepper yet. TSWV is much harder to spot in peppers than in tomatoes because you don't usually see the speckling of the leaves as much. The first thing to look for is a plant that is really slow growing compared to the others planted the same time. Next look to see if there are any new blooms and new fruit. Sometimes the leaves will look a bit weird and unhealthy. Eventually there will be no new growth and sometimes a burned look where the new growth should be. I have a few more showing symptoms and will probably be pulling them soon. I planted another bed of peppers the last week so instead of trying to replace the ones that die from TSWV I just have some extras in the ground already. Not sure how well those plants will do as they have sat on the hardening table for a long time and were terribly root bound and very old for transplanting but I stuck them in the ground anyway since I had plenty of room since removing my cucumbers and squash.

Bill