If Peter Piper picked only perfect peppers, how many peppers
would Peter Piper pick?
This year, not very many in Georgia farmers’ fields.

Martie Boyd, a Berrien County farmer, said the disease is worse
than he’s ever seen in
his bell peppers. “(The peppers) won’t mature or will be
spotted. It’s just nothing you
can put into a box.”

Boyd figures 20 percent to 25 percent of his 18 acres of peppers
are infected.

“We’ve seen damage caused by tomato spotted wilt virus all over
the state,” said
Danny Gay, a plant pathologist with the University of Georgia
Extension Service. “It’s
in peppers, tomatoes, tobacco and even already in peanuts.”

Darbie Granberry, an extension horticulturist, said the virus is
infecting the crop earlier
than in most years. “We would usually expect to see it in late
May and early June,” he
said. “But there was already a problem here in early and mid-
May.”

The killer disease has already wiped out about 30 percent of
Georgia’s bell pepper
crop, 15 percent of tobacco and anywhere from 5 percent to 20
percent of the state’s
tomatoes.

Produce buyers select only top-quality fruits, said Berrien
County Extension Agent
Tony Roberts. “They’re selective because they know consumers
want only the
best-looking vegetables,” he said.

But perfect peppers may be in short supply this year. Georgia
bell pepper farmers could
lose as much as one-third of their normal $73 million crop. And
as the supply drops,
Gay said, veggie lovers will pay more for the produce they
crave.

Commercial farmers aren’t the only ones with TSWV problems. “In
every home
garden I’ve looked at,” Gay said, “there’s been at least some
TSWV on the peppers
and tomatoes.”

The virus stunts and even kills plants and causes misshapen or
spotted fruits.
Unfortunately, farmers and home gardeners can’t do anything
about tomato spotted wilt
once it’s in their fields or garden.

Tiny insects called thrips carry the virus that causes the
disease. The insects ride the
wind into a field and land on plants where they feed.

Farmers may spray insecticides to kill the thrips, but the virus
is already in the plants.
Once their crop is infected, farmers can only watch as the
plants shrivel from the
effects of the virus.

Gay said Georgia farmers play the market window against the
chance of infection. To
get the best prices, they must plant as early as possible. But
the earliest-planted fields
are more vulnerable to tomato spotted wilt infection and
damage.

“The thrips go to the first thing green they see to feed,” Gay
said. “If they choose an
early crop of peppers or tomatoes, then the farmer can’t stop
them.”

The early and heavy infection in vegetables and tobacco has
peanut farmers worried,
too. Gay said the virus-carrying thrips could keep moving into
peanut fields, spreading
the disease as they go.