Efficiency of insect exclusion screens for preventing whitefly transmission of tomato yellow leaf curl virus of tomatoes in Israel

Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) is the most frequently occurring virus in tomatoes in the Middle East, and the most harmful one. It is transmitted solely by the whitefly Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius). Within 4-6h of inoculative feeding, a whitefly can transmit TYLCV to a healthy plant with 80% probability. The symptoms are apparent after two to three weeks whereupon fruit-set is effectively terminated. The only means of controlling TYLCV is by controlling the whitefly. Until 1990 this was exclusively by insecticides. Starting in 1990, growers of greenhouse tomatoes in Israel began adopting insect exclusion screens to prevent inoculation of TYLCV. This article reports on the methods used in the search for efficient screening materials and presents data on their relative efficiencies in excluding B. tabaci and several other greenhouse pests. Ten materials were tested, of which five were found to be effective in excluding B. tabaciunder laboratory conditions. This number was reduced to three following field trials and trials in commercial tomato greenhouses. These materials are now in widespread use in Israel: by 2000 practically all table tomatoes in Israel were grown under exclusion screens. The use of exclusion screens has been shown to be an economically viable pest management method.