Seasonal Dynamics of Sweetpotato Whitefly

T.F. Watson and J.C. Silvertooth


 
ABSTRACT

The sweetpotato whitefly (SPWF), Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius), was first collected in Arizona from cotton, Gossypium spp., in 196 and in California in 198 (Russell, 1975). Throughout the past decade, the importance of the SPWF as a pest in irrigated vegetable and fiber crops has increased dramatically in the desert regions of the southwestern United States in Arizona and California, and in the adjacent state of Sonora, Mexico (Brown, 1991). Populations in cotton reached unprecedented levels in 1981 in Arizona and California (Duffus and Flock, 198; Butler and Wilson, 1984) and in vegetable crops including carrots, Daucus carota L., lettuce, Lactuca sativa L., melons, Cucumis melo L., squash, Corcurbita spp. Duch., and tomatoes, Lycopersicon esculentum Mill., in the southwestern US and west coastal, Mexico (Brown and Nelson, 1984). More recently, the problem proliferated to include additional crops over wider areas. It has now developed the capacity to infest and severely damage other crops such as alfalfa, Medicacro sativa L., broccoli, Brassica oleracea L., cauliflower Brassica oleracea L., and peanuts, Arachis hypogaea L., (Watson and Silvertooth, unpublished). During 1991, severe problems developed on cotton and/or vegetables in such diverse areas as Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas.



Reprinted from 1992 Proceedings Beltwide Cotton Conferences pp. 657 - 664
©National Cotton Council, Memphis TN

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Document last modified Sunday, Dec 6 1998