INSECTICIDAL CONTROL OF BROAD MITE AND WHITEFLY ON SERRANO PEPPER, 2007

Broad mite can be a destructive pest on peppers in south Florida causing malformed leaves, aborted blooms and russeted fruit, while whiteflies, though generally not damaging to the crop, transmit tomato yellow leafcurl virus for which pepper is a reported non-symptomatic host. Therefore, there is reason to control both pests in this crop. For this field trial, greenhouse-raised pepper plants were transplanted on 21 Feb at 18 inch spacing in single rows on a set of 3 beds, and covered with polyethylene film mulch. Approximately 25 % of the fertilizer was preplant soil incorporated (granular 15-015) with the remainder applied as liquid 8-0-8 delivered by drip irrigation. A 120 ft length section of each row was used in this experiment. Plots were 20 ft long assigned across the 3 beds, 4 times in a randomized complete block design. The first application was made on 11 Apr using an EZ-Dose sprayer with a pressure of 45 psi and a flow rate of 3.7 gpm. Treatments were applied at 20 gpa. On 11 May, a high clearance sprayer was used operating at 200 psi and 2.3 mph with the spray delivered through two vertical booms using yellow Albuz® hollow cone nozzles that applied 10 gpa each. Application was conducted at 60 gpa. Populations of broad mite and whitefly were monitored on 11, 19, 30 –Apr, 7, 16, 23, 30 – May, and 6, 12 – Jun by collecting a terminal leaf from 5 plants in each plot. Eggs, nymphs, and adult of broad mite and eggs, nymphs and pupa of whitefly were counted. Data were subjected to ANOVA, and means separated by Fisher’s Protected LSD, P = 0.05.