EVALUATION OF SOIL AND FOLIAR INSECTICIDES FOR THE CONTROL OF APHIDS IN TOMATOES, 2009

The objective of this experiment was to assess the efficacy of various soil and foliar insecticides to control potato aphids in fall ground tomatoes. The trial consisted of 15 treatments arranged in a RCB design with four replicates. Tomatoes were transplanted 24 inches (0.46 m) apart on 17 Jul 2009 at the Virginia Tech Eastern Shore AREC near Painter, VA. Plots were 1 row wide and 20 ft (6.1 m) long with unplanted guard rows. Rows were planted on a 6 ft row center (1.8 m) in a 6 tier field design with 8 ft (2.4 m) alleys between tiers and a 16 ft (4.8 m) center alley. All plots were maintained according to standard commercial practices. All soil drench treatments were applied on 1 Sep using a one-nozzle boom without a spray tip, directed at the base of each plant. The boom was powered by a CO2 backpack sprayer at 40 psi delivering 125 ml of water per plant. Foliar spray treatments were applied on 7 and 15 Sep using the aforementioned backpack spray rig with a 3-nozzle boom equipped with D3 tips and 45 cores that delivered 31 gpa. On 11 Sep (10 DAT-soil; 4 DAT-foliar) and 17 Sep (16 DAT-soil; 2 DAT2-foliar), the number of potato aphids was recorded per 20 randomly-selected leaves per plot. All data were analyzed using ANOVA. Proportion data were arcsine square root transformed prior to analysis. Means were separated using Fisher’s Protected LSD at the 0.05 level of significance.