agriculture

Suhas Vyavhare, Extension Cotton Entomologist, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service Showers over the last week should help cotton that was struggling earlier to stay alive and catch up with the progress. Most fields should fairly be safe from thrips at this stage. Many fields have already started squaring and becoming more attractive to flower feeding plant bugs such as the cotton fleahopper. Cotton fleahoppers prefer to feed on small squares (pinhead size) and can drastically reduce the fruiting sites in no time when in large numbers. When scouting for fleahoppers one should pay attention to both number of insects in field and the percent square retention especially during the first three weeks of squaring. I haven�t seen any major cotton fleahopper activity yet as numbers still remain scarce. This may be due to earlier hot and dry spell and the unavailability of alternate host plants to buildup fleahopper populations. However, fleahopper populations are unpredictable and can rise...

After a very quiet spring, fall armyworm trap captures shot up this week to twice the 6-year average. The average trap capture this week was 228, but significantly, 106 of these were caught in the last two nights. This indicates that a possible very rapid population increase might be underway. I was taking data this morning in a corn trial near Ralls. The corn was at V8 growth stage, and the non-Bt corn in the trial ranged from 20 - 50% of the plants per plot with fall armyworm damage. In the plots with the most damage, the average damage rating was 5 on a 1-9 scale. This is still below the level of concern, but if we are indeed in a time of rapid fall armyworm increase then noticeable damage in sorghum and non-Bt corn will be appearing soon.

After what has been a wonderfully quiet spring, the first day of summer brings news that fall armyworm numbers are on the increase. The trap captures at Lubbock jumped in the last week and are now near the 6-year average. Expect to start seeing damage on whorl stage corn and sorghum. Additionally, sugarcane aphid has been confirmed in Tom Green and Nolan counties. This is discussed on the  Sugarcane Aphid News site here .

Suhas Vyavhare, Extension Cotton Entomologist, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service Early planted cotton with adequate soil moisture should now be safe from thrips damage. However, fields with less than 4-5 true leaves/plant should be continued to scout for thrips. Normally, once we are past thrips season, I shift my attention towards cotton fleahopper. This year, however, grasshoppers can come into play early in the season. Last year we experienced grasshopper outbreaks in spots causing severe stand reduction and defoliation on larger plants. With the extended spell of hot and dry conditions on the Southern High Plains, my antennae are already wiggling for grasshoppers. Grasshopper populations can increase dramatically under low rainfall and dry weather condition and be very destructive to young cotton. Grasshoppers have a high reproductive capacity. The female can lay up to 400 eggs in variety of crops as well as non-crop areas including ditches, fence rows, grassy fields, along ...

Kerry Siders, IPM Agent in Hockley, Cochran and Lamb counties, has posted a special edition newsletter that describes heat damage to cotton that may be mistaken for thrips damage. The reprint is below. Special Edition  West Plains IPM Update  - Not Thrips Damage So I have received a few calls about seeing what was thought to be thrips damage to cotton, even on 4-7 true leaf cotton. See damage referenced in pictures below. So the scouts and I are finding a few thrips but in most all cases well below threshold. The damage you are seeing below and I suspect in many if not most all fields is this cupped, puckered, damaged cotton leaves. Looks like thrips, but if you look on the underside you do not see the feeding damage from thrips rasp ing on the leaf causing rupture of tssue and leaking of plant fluids. This then results in a scared silver tissue. The damage we are seeing now is on the uppermost new tender leaves. This is caused by the hot desiccating winds. So it may be 102 de...

A Lubbock County grower came to my office this morning with a bottle that held 20 or so beetles he collected from the edge of a field. His concern was that they were blister beetles, and I was pleased to be able to say that they were soldier beetles. However, given the high numbers he described in the field, soldier beetles must be very abundant this year. Photo credits: Ed Bynum and Pat Porter There is some resemblance, but these beetles are different enough to be separated on sight. One problem though is that he showed me a web page that incorrectly identified soldier beetles as blister beetles; the internet strikes again. Texas growers can always send us a photo of an insect if they want an identification. Soldier beetles, insect Family Cantharidae, are predacious on other insects as both adults and larvae. Blister beetle larvae, insect Family Meloidae, are predacious on grasshopper eggs and the larvae of wild bees. When disturbed, blister beetles exude hemolymph (the insect versio...

Cotton ranges from seed just placed in soil to four true leaf stage in South Plains region. In most areas thrips pressure remains low, however, we are seeing some hotspots in counties north of Lubbock where thrips numbers are well beyond economically damaging levels. As the wheat is drying down and becoming an unfavorable host for thrips, adults are taking flight on breezes and winds to young cotton plants. Thrips feed on the lower surface of cotyledons first or any exposed true leaves before moving to the very tender terminal bud or growing point of developing seedlings. With their piercing-sucking mount parts, they stab and rasp away at plant surfaces causing severe scaring and then suck up the plant juices.   Young cotton leaves damaged by thrips Controlling thrips at an early stage is very important as we try to protect these young and rapidly developing plants from damage. Excessive amounts of damage to these first leaves or growing point can have a huge impact on how the p...