Source: NCSU COOPERATIVE EXTENSION, 5/4/20


This is the fifth of our weekly TSWV and tobacco thrips risk assessment updates. Third generation flight timings are were pushed back a one to three days later again for all sites, but predicted risk remains higher than a normal year. We recommend checking frequently close to your transplant date–the best timing for additional intervention may change when flights shift by just a few days!

Managing tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) in North Carolina tobacco requires both pre transplant and post transplant decisions, which are most effective when timed to thrips movement into tobacco fields. The winter of 2019/2020 was historically mild which raises concerns about increased infection due to greater survival and reproduction of thrips vectors of TSWV.

In order to give growers a sense of TSWV risk moving into 2020 transplant, we will be producing weekly reports from the TSWV and Tobacco Thrips Risk Forecasting Tool for selected locations in eastern NC where TSWV may be problematic. In these posts, we’ll provide a summary of model outputs to date for each location and suggestions as to how growers might use this information to make management decisions. These predictions will improve as we get closer to transplant dates, and growers should use the most recent information to make management decisions! Growers are also encouraged to look at predictions more frequently than weekly as they get close to transplant.

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