To study the effect of tomato varieties and age of plants on the infestation with
eggs. immature stages and adult stage of Ihe two-spotted spider mite, Telranychus
utticee Koch. Two experiments were carried out during summer seasons of 2002 and
2003 at South of Tahreer Province, Seheira Governorate including fifteen tomato
varieties. The results revealed that Wadistar, Ginan, MHX-396 and 'Kamak tomato
varieties were the most resistant varieties during the two seasons where plants
attacked with few number of eggs, immature and adult stages of the two spotted
spider mite, T. urticae; while Saria, King, Master-97 and Mina-97 were the highest
infestation varieties with spider mites. Regarding the relation between the plant ages
and infestation with the three stages. the plant age after transplanting could be divided
into three periods; the first from transplanting till one month later which usually
harboured little number of mites, the second from 3D 10 50 days from transplanting
with the highest number of different stages, and the third period from 50 days after
transplanting till the end of growing season in which mite stages decreased steadily. Also some vegetalive and yield characters was measured for the tested
varieties, and usually, there was no significant differences for the most tested
characters of the fifteen tomato varieties.