Recent Posts
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Georgia peanut growers need to scout their fields this week for tobacco budworm. Infestations of this pest have been on the rise in peanut over the last fourteen days, and it does not take a lot of budworm caterpillars to cause significant defoliation when the crop is less than 50 days after emergence. We do…
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If you have been walking or riding through peanut fields in Georgia over the past week you have almost certainly noticed fields with thrips injury, or as some of my colleagues say, “thrippy peanuts”. Thrips injury varies in severity from minor feeding scars on fully expanded leaflets to severely deformed or dead terminal buds. Peanuts…
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The 2021 UGA Cotton-Peanut-Soybean Insect Scout School will be held on Monday, June 7 at the UGA Tifton Campus Conference Center in Tifton, GA. The scout school will also be held in East Georgia on June 15 at the Southeast Research and Education Center in Midville, GA. Scout school will begin at 9:00 AM and…
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Several folks have contacted me this week about large numbers of white-lined (aka white-margined) burrower bugs. Most of the bugs have been on volunteer peanuts, but some were on cotton seedlings. This insect is not the “peanut burrower bug” and is not considered a pest of peanut. While it can be very abundant early in…
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Peanut planting season is also thrips season in Georgia, and growers need to be prepared to manage this tiny but damaging insect pest. I checked some volunteer peanuts in a Tift county field today, and they were LOADED with adult tobacco thrips. Recent research at UGA confirmed that thrips feeding injury can cause yield loss…
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It rained today, and the next couple days will be a great time to catch up on some UGA Peanut Team information as you get ready for the 2021 peanut season. This in-field interview with Mark Abney was produced by our friends at Florida for their winter grower meeting. If you found yourself wanting just…
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This short video demonstrates how to sample peanuts for foliage feeding caterpillars. Since velvetbean caterpillars and soybean loopers are currently present in Georgia, there is still time to use this information to help make management decisions. If you have any questions about insect management in peanut, contact your local University of Georgia County Extension Agent.
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Georgia peanut growers need to check their fields this week for velvetbean caterpillar (VBC) infestations. Moths have been present for several weeks, and populations of caterpillars are now at threshold in many fields. A field of mine that has not been treated with insecticide was averaging 20 caterpillars per row foot on Monday afternoon (31…
Posted in: Velvetbean caterpillar -
We knew they were coming, and now they are here. The calls, emails, and texts have started to roll in reporting peanut fields in Georgia infested with twospotted spider mite. Finding mite infestations early, choosing an effective miticide, and applying the miticide correctly are critically important if we hope to manage this pest. Correct application…
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We routinely get questions in mid summer about how to manage peanut burrower bug. The things that have been proven to reduce burrower bug injury are deep tillage and the use of granular chlorpyrifos. It is obviously too late to do anything about tillage choices, but growers who are concerned about burrower bugs still have…
Posted in: Burrower bug