Thrips-transmitted tomato spotted wilt virus is unquestionably one of the most devastating pest-disease complexes for growers in Texas and globally. Since the first report of the ‘spotted wilt’ disease of tomato published in 1915 in Australia, tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) has become a pandemic virus with an estimated economic impact over $1 billion annually. Broad spectrum and durable single gene resistance to TSWV was deployed in commercial tomato (‘Sw-5b’ gene) and pepper (‘Tsw’ gene) cultivars worldwide. However, increasingly more virulent resistance breaking (RB) strains of TSWV have been reported across the globe in recent years, which have compounded TSWV risk at an unprecedented scale. To address this dual threat, the primary goal of our inter-disciplinary team: Jeanmarie Verchot and Kevin Crosby is to develop new tools, technology, and approaches for the study and management of thrips and tomato spotted wilt.
Publications on this pathosystem
Chinnaiah, S et al. Frontiers in Microbiology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1257724
Chinnaiah, S et al. Plant Disease. https://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-11-22-2699-PDN
Gautam, S et al. Plant Disease. https://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-09-22-2274-PDN
