Thrips dispersal and the epidemiology of tomato spotted wilt virus in North Carolina

Thrips-transmitted Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus regularly causes severe losses in pepper, peanut, tomato, and tobacco in the southeastern US. In N. Carolina the tobacco thrips is the predominant early season vector, with western flower thrips being important locally in tomato and pepper. Crop losses are strongly influenced by the timing and magnitude of thrips population growth on and dispersal from overwintering non-crop hosts. On a landscape scale, winter and spring temperatures and rainfall during particular intervals play important roles in determining the timing and magnitude of thrips population growth and dispersal in spring, and TSWV spread among non-crop plants that serve as sources for spread of TSWV into crops. While these factors define the potential for TSWV spread, local management and crop production practices play a crucial role in determining the amount of spread that actually occurs in individual crop fields.