My tomato leaves are curling upward and crinkled and the plants are stunted. I see tiny white flies. How do I save the crop?
How to manage tomato (tamatar) leaf curl virus by controlling whitefly in Karnataka?
MManjunath Reddy6 महीने पहले · 294 व्यू
7 जवाब
🌾Farmer.in Krishi Teamविशेषज्ञ ✓6 महीने पहले
Tomato leaf curl is a virus spread by whitefly, and once a plant is infected there is no cure, so the whole strategy is to stop the whitefly and keep the virus out. Start with virus tolerant or resistant tomato hybrids, raise the nursery under insect proof net, and use healthy seedlings. In the field, remove and destroy infected plants early so they do not act as a source, control weeds that harbour whitefly and virus, and use yellow sticky traps to monitor. Use barrier or border crops and reflective or plastic mulch which reduce whitefly landing. For chemical control, rotate recommended insecticides for whitefly per label and KVK advice and avoid repeating the same group, but remember insecticide alone will not save a heavily infected crop. Early management at nursery and transplanting stage matters most.
SShivakumar6 महीने पहले
Net covered nursery made a big difference for me. The plants going to the field are clean and the virus comes much later than before.
NNagaraj Hegde6 महीने पहले
Silver mulch helped me cut early whitefly landing. The reflective surface confuses them and fewer settle on the young plants in the first weeks, which is exactly when keeping the virus out matters most. I pair it with sticky traps to watch the numbers.
CChandrashekar Gowda5 महीने पहले
Pull out the badly infected, stunted plants early, do not feel bad about it. I used to leave them hoping they would recover and they just fed whitefly that spread the virus to the healthy plants. Removing the sources kept the rest of the field producing.
LLakshmi Reddy5 महीने पहले
Starting with a virus tolerant hybrid took a lot of pressure off for me. The susceptible variety I grew earlier got curled and stunted every season however hard I sprayed. The tolerant hybrid still gets some virus but it crops through it much better.
BBasappa Hegde5 महीने पहले
Keeping the weeds down in and around the field helped, because the whitefly and the virus were sitting on the weeds between crops. Once I cleared the bunds and the field edges the early whitefly numbers were lower and the virus came in later.
MManjula Gowda5 महीने पहले
Yellow sticky traps let me watch the whitefly numbers so I spray only when they actually rise, instead of on a fixed schedule. A caution though, do not rely on insecticide alone. On a heavily infected crop the spray did not bring the plants back, so getting the nursery and early stage clean matters far more.