The Alabama cotton crop is growing rapidly resulting from
abundant rainfall from multiple thunderstorms that have occurred during the
last 10-14 days.
Insect wise things have been rather quiet on cotton but not the
case with soybeans which I will discuss later.
Tarnished plant bug numbers have not increased as rapidly as
expected in fields that I have observed. An occasional adult and or nymph can be
found, depending on the age of the cotton. Migrating adults went to the earlier
planted cotton first and have had time to now produce offspring. Cotton planted
on April 10 is now blooming in Autauga County, Alabama.
To my surprise, I’m finding as many adult southern green
stink bugs as I am adult plant bugs. We need to begin watching stink bugs in
early bloom cotton. As I have stated before, these stink bugs will feed on
thumb size bolls as soon as the dried bloom sheds. A huge stink bug population
is waiting in corn. These adults will migrate to cotton, soybeans and peanuts
as corn begins to dry down. This may be the largest population in corn that I have
ever observed. There seems to be mating pairs in every corn plant at our
research farms in Shorter and Prattville, Alabama this week. Most are the southern
green species with an occasional brown in the mix. That will be to our
advantage in a few weeks since the pyrethroid chemistry does a nice job
controlling the green species.
The other insect that is building on cotton is aphids. They are
clumped in terminals on occasional plants in numerous fields at present. These clumps
will spread field wide before natural diseases wipe out the population. I would
project that aphid population decline will not occur until around July 20.
The most intense insect pressure at present is Kudzu bug
populations on soybeans in select fields throughout the state. Ten to 50 adults
and over 200 immatures per plant can be found in many April planted beans. More
adult Kudzu bugs are moving into beans from Kudzu daily. Beans will have to be
scouted weekly for the remainder of this and future seasons. One to three
sprays may be needed to protect beans this season. This will open the door to
pod and foliage feeding caterpillars for the remainder of the season.
Information on the management and control of the Kudzu bug in soybeans has been posted in blog entries previous to this one and also on the Alabama Crops website (alabamacrops.com).
Information on the management and control of the Kudzu bug in soybeans has been posted in blog entries previous to this one and also on the Alabama Crops website (alabamacrops.com).
