- Author: Neil McRoberts
This is the first update on western flower thrips for 2016.
It has been a warm winter so far. Warm weather means faster thrips development, so this year might see the optimum treatment period for thrips in processing tomato occurring slightly earlier than normal (whatever normal means these days...). In the Sacramento Valley we are projecting the first generation thrips egg hatch will be happening about now with peak adult numbers for that generation in about one month. The second generation egg hatch will happen around the last day of April. The cooler, wet weather forecast for the next few days is likely to slow development and increase thrips mortality so despite the warmer general conditions thrips numbers might not build too quickly, at least in the immediate future. So far we have no reports of TSWV so risk of damage is currently low.