Hi.
We've been a bit slow getting the thrips risk and TSWV updates up and running this year. We hope you are all safe and well. We also want to say thank you to everyone involved in food production and agriculture in general for keeping the food chain flowing during the COVID-19 epidemic.
Current outlook After a warm, dry winter we're expecting thrips pupal survival over the winter to have been high and the numbers to pick up quickly. The recent late season cold/rain system that passed through over the weekend will have checked them somewhat. Based on the Davis weather station, we're currently projecting generation 1 adults to peak in the middle of April, with generation 2 in the second week of May and generation 3 in the first week of June.
Generally, generation 1 doesn't present much of a risk for carrying TSWV into processing tomato. In recent years, TSWV hasn't been present until generation 3 or 4, but we will gather up status report before our next update in case there's any virus out there early this year and action is needed on generation 2.
As ever, if you're seeing high thrips counts or obvious signs of TSWV we'd like to hear from you via your local UCCE adviser. Best wishes for a good growing season and for as much normality as possible in these difficult times.