Monday, December 11, 2006 - 9:23 AM
0460

Relationship of thrips population levels to yield and damage in California-grown timothy

Dominic Reisig, ddreisig@ucdavis.edu, University of California - Davis, One Shields Ave, Davis, CA, Larry D. Godfrey, ldgodfrey@ucdavis.edu, University of California - Davis, Entomology, One Shields Ave, Davis, CA, and Daniel Marcum, dbmarcum@ucdavis.edu, University of California, Univ. of California Cooperative Extension, P.O. Box 9, 44218 A Street, McArthur, CA.

Timothy is grown as a high value forage crop in California. Thrips (Anaphothrips obscurus Müller) have recently been implicated causing damage and lowering the value of this crop. Studies that have explored thrips impact on yield and damage in timothy are minimal. Furthermore, management options for this pest are extremely limited. We performed studies in 2006, manipulating thrips levels with disruptive insecticides and exploring the timing of insecticide applications. Thrips levels were documented and yield and damage was assessed. During the study, there was a significant range of thrips levels among treatments. Moreover, we found that there was no significant impact of thrips levels on yield, but that damage was visible between treatments. This information is directly applicable to timothy producers in California to establish an economic threshold.


Species 1: Thysanoptera Thripidae Anaphothrips obscurus (grass thrips)

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