Thrips associated with dragon fruit (pitaya) (Hylocereus undatus) in South Florida

Thrips (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) recently emerged as significant pests of dragon fruit in South Florida. Several thrips species inhabit dragon fruit groves, but which of them damages the fruit is not known. We monitored thrips populations in three dragon fruit groves by deploying conventional blue and yellow sticky cards, pan traps of the same colors, and directly scouting flowers and fruit at different developmental stages. The sticky cards captured large numbers of thrips (230 /week in average) throughout the ten-month sampling period. The blue cards caught more thrips than the yellow, but it was not possible to identify the thrips species caught with sicky cards. Blue pan traps also caught more thrips than yellow pan traps. The most abundant species found in the pan traps was Frankliniella bispinosa (Morgan) (162 specimens), followed by F. occidentalis (Pergande) (53) and F. tritici (Fitch) (42). Scirthothrips dorsalis (Hood) and F. insularis (Franklin) were less abundant, with 11 and 4 specimens found in the pan traps, respectively. However, 98% of the specimens collected directly from the fruit or flowers were S. dorsalis and just 2% were represented by F. occidentalis, F. schultzei (Trybom) and Thrips palmi Karny. Our results suggest that S. dorsalis is the main thrips pest of dragon fruit in Florida and that the presence of some species in the field does not necessarily mean they are causing damage.