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Pesky Virus Plagues Jamaican Peppers
It has been called “the king of Capsicums” and the “Prince of Peppers.” The scotch bonnet pepper of Jamaica is so hot that just handling the seeds requires wearing gloves to prevent being burned. This pungency has made the peppers highly prized. Aficionados claim that the peppers have a “smoky-fruity” flavor—that is, if you can get beyond the burning sensation! In Jamaica, scotch bonnet peppers are the most profitable of any export crop and provide employment and income for 3,000 people.
Yet, scotch peppers could be much more profitable were it not for a highly destructive virus that attacks 70 percent of the crop. Virginia Tech plant pathologist Sue Tolin has researched the invisible culprit—the tobacco etch virus (TEV)—for six years. She has learned that combating the pest is not an easy thing.
In addition to reducing yield, TEV deforms the peppers and mottles the leaves, making them unmarketable. The leaf mottling, or “etching,” is what gives the virus its name. TEV is spread by aphids, and aphids appear in great numbers after rains. Weeds increase, and aphids come to feed on the weeds, bringing with them the virus that then hops onto the pepper plants.
The traditional method of treating the virus was to spray it with insecticides, which besides having a negative effect on the environment, did not stop the problem.
What Tolin found is that the solution lies in a combination of management tactics. Farmers need to protect seedlings with aphid-impermeable netting before transplanting; they need to use stylet oil, a biodegradable fungicide and insecticide; they need to remove weeds in and adjacent to pepper fields, and they need to destroy old pepper fields that may harbor TEV.
In addition, according to Tolin, researchers need to share their findings; and port inspectors, as well as import administrators, need to understand the latest in research.
Tolin hopes that her findings will not only help with the production of healthy pepper crops in Jamaica, but will also contribute to an understanding of aphids and TEV in general. What she learns about aphids in Jamaica can be applied in the United States and in other places where peppers are grown.
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| Scotch Bonnet Peppers |