agriculture

Suhas Vyavhare, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service With the daytime highs over 100 degrees almost each day, cotton is squaring with some fields starting to bloom. Although we have received light and spotty showers, we need more over the next couple of weeks for the cotton to continue to grow. Insect pressure remains very low in most places. I know only of a couple of fields that needed to be treated for cotton fleahoppers (Swisher County) so far. Cotton fleahoppers are generally considered a pest in early squaring cotton. As plants increase in size and fruit load, larger numbers of fleahoppers may be tolerated without yield reduction. With the fields starting to bloom, the next insect pest we should look for is a lygus bug. Both adult and immature lygus can feed on cotton with their piercing and sucking mouth parts. The damage occurs primarily by insect feeding on the squares and small bolls.  As a result of lygus feeding, small to medium sized squares usually darken, shriv...

Now that sugarcane aphid has been found in Floyd County  it is safe to assume that we will shortly find it in surrounding High Plains counties. We all went through the aphid invasion last year and there is no need to go in to great depth on scouting and management, so I will just hit the highlights from lessons learned last year. If you want to read our complete 2016 sugarcane aphid management publication  it is here . Early planting is going to pay off The earlier the aphid arrives during crop development, the more damage it can do. Infestations prior to boot can cause sterile panicles and decrease yields to essentially zero. Infestations at or after flowering, while still very serious, are somewhat less potentially damaging. This is why our treatment thresholds vary by crop stage. Treatment threshold: Pre-boot : 20% of plants with aphids. Boot : 20% of plants infested with 50 aphids per leaf. Flowering to Milk : 30% of plants infested with 50 aphids per leaf. Soft dough thro...

Suhas Vyavhare and Blayne Reed, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service The high temperatures, high humidity, and the passing of light cotton showers over the last couple of weeks have been very conducive for rapid crop growth and development. Most cotton fields on the Southern High Plains are past the 5 th true leaf stage and are sporting pinhead through � grown squares.  This should mean they are no longer vulnerable to economic damage by thrips. There are some late fields and re-planted fields which can still be injured by thrips, however, and we should continue to scout these fields for thrips. With the high temperatures potential for rapid plant growth, and a lessening thrips pressure in general these field might be able to escape from any serious thrips damage. As the crop is approaching reproductive phase, we should be looking for fleahoppers�many of us scouting regularly in the field are already seeing a few on squaring cotton.  There are already a small handful of r...