Source: Anders Huseth, NCSU COOPERATIVE EXTENSION, 4/26/19


Tobacco thrips surveys across the northern coastal plain found moderate numbers of tobacco thrips in weeds and wheat (Bertie, Camden, Edgecombe, Nash, Pasquotank, Wilson). As temperatures warm, populations are expected to grow rapidly over the next few weeks. With this buildup, thrips populations pose a risk to damage seedling cotton, especially if temperatures cool and early planted cotton grows slowly.

Plan for tobacco thrips movement from weeds and wheat into seedling cotton. Predicting thrips infestations will be most important for the earliest cotton when planting conditions may be marginal. To understand which fields are at risk for damage, the Thrips Infestation Predictor can be a useful tool to predict relative thrips injury risk for specific planting dates and fields.

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