"Spraying tomatoes with kaolin, a type of powdered clay, and one of three plant essential oils cut in half the incidence of tomato spotted wilt disease, which is spread by thrips.
According to Stuart Reitz, an entomologist with the ARS Insect Behavior and Biocontrol Research Unit’s Tallahassee, Fla., site, kaolin forms a white coat that may interfere with thrips’ ability to zero in on color cues during flight. Thrips that do still land on treated plants may find the kaolin coat difficult to penetrate with their juice-sucking mouthparts. This, in turn, may diminish their transmission of the TSW virus, which is present in the insects’ saliva. " Jan Suszkiw
Source: USDA (ARS) http://www.ars.usda.gov/
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