Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Insect Update for the Week of July 7

A combination of adult tarnished plant bugs and clumping aphids are being reported from more fields and areas around the state each day. Overall, little rainfall has fallen in about two weeks. Therefore, crops, especially corn and cotton, are under some level of stress. Therefore, most growers are choosing to target both plant bugs and aphids with this application.

I have not had any calls on mites in the past few days but that does not mean that populations are not building in select fields. So far, abamectin at 10 oz. per acre has given good control on mites in treated fields.

Immature plant bugs are present now in the oldest cotton. I have observed several fields where a threshold of three immatures per 5 feet has been recorded on a black drop cloth. When plant bugs become imbedded in cotton in July (all stages present – eggs, immatures and adults) quite often multiple applications are needed to bring the population under control. For those that want to use the IGR Diamond, now is the time to do so. An adulticide plus Diamond, at 6-9 oz. per acre, should give control of the population for 14 plus days. It is my opinion that most of the adult plant bugs have now left wild host plants and are now in cotton. We just don’t seem to get that many moving from corn here in Alabama.

Moth traps in central Alabama captured an abundant number of both bollworm and budworm moths last week. 2014 may be the year that fieldmen, consultants, and scouts really prove their worth. There is just no way to time the appropriate chemistry at the proper time without someone monitoring insects. This looks like an above average insect year for cotton and we haven’t even reached the primary stink bug window yet. In sweeping for adult plant bugs last week, I was capturing brown stink bugs in about every set of sweeps.