Onion Thrips (Thrips tabaci Lind.) Infesting Cabbage1

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Infestations of thrips, principally T. tabaci, but including small numbers of Frankliniella fusca, F. tritici (Fitch), F. exigua, and F. tenuicornis have seriously damaged maturing fresh market cabbage in production fields in eastern Iowa. On the basis of trapping records, the thrips apparently migrated from alfalfa and winter wheat where they had attained great numbers which were counted in periodic samplings. The thrips were not controlled by DDT nor, in fact, by other compounds after they had become established within the cabbage head. A series of insecticides were compared in field plots in 1956 and 1957 through a method of visual rating of relative plant damage at harvest. Heptachlor was the most effective in preventing thrips damage. Following a weekly schedule of applications of heptachlor at one-half lb./acre the marketable crop was increased 30% above that of untreated check plots where losses ranged from 36 to 39% of the crop. The problem of thrips damage to cabbage, though not widely recognized is potentially serious.

This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit: