Host Plants Melon thrips is a polyphagous species, but is best known as a pest of Cucurbitaceae and Solanaceae. Among vegetables injured are bean, cabbage, cantaloupe, chili, Chinese cabbage, cowpea, cucumber, bean, eggplant, lettuce, melon, okra, onion, pea, pepper, potato, pumpkin, squash, and watermelon. Tomato is reported to be a host in the Caribbean, but not in the United States or Japan. Tsai et al. Other crops infested include avocado, carnation, chrysanthemum, citrus, cotton, hibiscus, mango, peach, plum, soybean, tobacco, and others.
Leaves become yellow, white or brown, and then crinkle and die.
Heavily infested fields sometimes acquire a bronze color. Damaged terminal growth may be discolored, stunted, and deformed. Densities from one to 0 per cucumber leaf have been considered to be the threshold for economic damage in some Japanese studies. Feeding usually occurs on foliage, but on pepper, a less suitable host, flowers are preferred to foliage. In addition to direct injury, melon thrips are capable of inflicting indirect injury by transmitting some strains of tomato spotted wilt virus and bud necrosis virus.