Thrips species associated with west Texas peanut
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West Texas peanut, Arachnis hypogaea L., were sampled for thrips during the seedling, vegetative and bloom stages during the 1999 and 2000 growing seasons to determine species composition, abundance and distribution. Seven thrips species were found on production peanut. Three of these [western flower thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande), tobacco thrips, Frankliniella fusca (Hinds), and onion thrips, Thrips tabaci (Lindeman)] are known vectors of tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV), a tospovirus that has caused significant yield reductions in peanut. Thrips abundance was higher on blooms compared to terminals or seedlings. A total of 736 western flower thrips were collected in 1999 (80.3% of the total) and 2,541 in 2000 (82.0% of the total), representing a significant portion of thrips attacking peanut in West Texas. Tobacco thrips comprised 159 (17.9%) of the total thrips collected during 1999 and 543 (17.5%) of those collected in 2000. Ten onion thrips were collected during 1999 and five in 2000, indicating low population densities and a low probability for transmitting TSWV to the West Texas peanut crop. Western flower thrips were found at all locations for both years during peanut seedling, terminal and bloom collection dates. Tobacco thrips, the major vector of TSWV in previous epidemics in Texas, exist in higher densities on peanut grown on the east side of a geological barrier known as the "caprock escarpment." No visual symptoms of TSWV were detected from any of the 234 sample sites (3,557 row m) in 1999 or 315 sites (4,788 row m) in 2000.
