Thrips are a common agricultural insect pest that negatively affect yield in several crops during the seedling stage. Some crops are more susceptible than others to thrips feeding on tender new growth, while others, such as peanuts, can resist feeding injury quite well. However, this injury isn’t the only threat thrips can pose on a plant. Thrips are also vectors of plant diseases, which can greatly reduce yield beyond feeding alone. In peanuts, tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) is one of the most prevalent thrips-transmitted diseases, and can cause yield losses of up to 40% to 60% in both moderately resistant and susceptible varieties. Thus, implementing practices to control thrips and TSWV incidence is critical to peanut management. Some mechanisms of control include resistant varieties, planting date, and insecticides. This project aims to utilize these three mechanisms to determine how well they control TSWV, both by reducing thrips feeding on seedling peanuts and by altering the plants’ immune response to the virus. Three planting dates were used: late April, mid-May, and mid-June, along with three different varieties of peanuts. These planting dates and varieties were then either treated or not treated with 5 lbs per acre of Thimet 20G (phorate). Data collected included stand counts, thrips injury ratings (0-5 scale), peanut seedling vigor ratings (0-10 scale), percent virus incidence, and yield.
