How to Manage Pests
UC Pest Management Guidelines
(Reviewed 1/08, updated 1/08)
Avoid planting tomatoes in the same field year after year. Rotating to a nonhost crop can significantly reduce pest populations in the field. The table below provides information on nonhost crops that interrupt certain tomato-associated pathogen, nematode, and weed cycles.
If your field is infested with nematodes or pathogens listed in the table below, consider choosing a listed nonhost crop. Although longer nonhost crop rotations are ideal, they often are not economically feasible. A rotation of lesser duration is still beneficial, but to a lesser degree. In general, avoid solanaceous crops as rotation choices.
For winter annual weed control, choose wheat or small grains and control these weeds with a suitable herbicide. Manage summer annual weeds by growing a corn rotation and using selective herbicides and cultivations.
Volunteer tomato plants and other nightshades around the field edges of a rotation crop will perpetuate nematode populations. If your field has a history of nematodes, be sure to destroy all volunteer tomatoes.
UC IPM Pest Management Guidelines:
R. M. Davis, Plant Pathology, UC Davis