Here is a very timely article from the August edition of UGA Cotton Team Newsletter by Dr. Phillip Roberts.<\/p>\n
“Producers in Georgia have the opportunity to fully utilize an integrated<\/strong> approach to pest management<\/strong> (IPM)<\/strong> utilizing a variety of control tactics rather than relying solely on one method of control such as insecticide use.\u00a0 Scouting and the use of thresholds, cultural practices, variety selection, biological control, and insecticides used on an as-needed basis are the building blocks of an IPM program.\u00a0 Pests are managed so that economic damage and harmful environmental side effects are minimized while maximizing profits.\u00a0 In most IPM programs insecticide use decreases resulting in lower production costs, delayed resistance problems, and improved competitiveness and profitability.\u00a0 A successful and economical cotton pest management program mandates the use of this multi-tactical or IPM approach to insect control.<\/p>\n The most common insect requiring insecticide treatment at this time is stink bugs<\/strong>.\u00a0 Stink bug numbers are up compared with previous years and most fields will require insecticidal control.\u00a0 Scouting will allow growers to properly time needed applications or maybe even avoid having to treat.\u00a0 When treating stink bugs be aware of other pests in the field<\/strong>.\u00a0 The presence of corn earworm, whiteflies, and\/or mites should influence insecticide selection when targeting stink bugs.<\/em><\/span>\u00a0 Granted the primary objective is to control the problem pest (i.e. stink bugs) but we must also consider other pests while doing so.\u00a0 Avoid products known to flare the previous mentioned pests if present.<\/p>\n Corn earworm<\/strong> escapes in Bt cotton are very spotty and as a whole we would say infestations are generally low.\u00a0 However, there are some fields which have exceeded threshold and required treatment.\u00a0 None of the Bt technologies are immune to corn earworm damage.\u00a0 Differences in performance do exists.\u00a0 Three-gene Bt cottons provide the greatest control of corn earworm followed by the two-gene Bt cottons Bollgard II and TwinLink, and then WideStrike.<\/p>\n Agents, scouts, consultants, and growers are monitoring silverleaf whiteflies<\/strong> closely.\u00a0 We continue to see whitefly populations build, especially in areas historically infested by whiteflies.\u00a0 Hot and dry conditons favor whitefly development.\u00a0 There are some hot spots which were treated for whiteflies in recent days.\u00a0 It is extremely important that whitefly insecticides are applied in a timely manner when the threshold is met.\u00a0 Conserve beneficial insects when possible, only spray other pests if thresholds are needed based on scouting.”<\/p>\n As Dr. Roberts mentioned, we have been monitoring silverleaf whiteflies (SLWF)<\/strong> in the county.\u00a0 Whiteflies are now present in many fields in the county, but only a few<\/strong> fields have reached the threshold for treatment.\u00a0 Let’s keep a close watch on cotton fields, especially some of the later planted cotton.\u00a0 Information on scouting and managing SLWF is available at the Worth County Extension Office.\u00a0 If we can be of assistance, please call the Worth County Extension agents at 229-776-8216.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here is a very timely article from the August edition of UGA Cotton Team Newsletter by Dr. Phillip Roberts. Scout and Use Thresholds (Roberts) “Producers in Georgia have the opportunity to fully utilize an integrated approach to pest management (IPM) utilizing a variety of control tactics rather than relying solely on one method of control […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":276,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,5,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cotton","category-entomology","category-insects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/worthag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/worthag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/worthag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/worthag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/276"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/worthag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/worthag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":600,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/worthag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions\/600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/worthag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/worthag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/worthag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Worth County Cotton Insect Update<\/h2>\n