A Stinky, Tarnished Situation

Kevin Cotton says the area’s biggest issues have been with stinkbugs and tarnished plant bugs, but another plant bug species is causing some concerns.

“We’ve been dealing with a lot of tarnished plant bugs, but now we have a lot of clouded plant bugs, too,” he says. “We haven’t faced any resistance with plant bugs like they’ve had in the Delta. We have periods in the early season where we’ll get plant bugs and fleahoppers at the same time. If you’re timely with your residual insecticides, you won’t see square retention drop.

“In Bollgard cotton, fall armyworms have been fairly persistent and you can get some damage from them. When you switch over to WideStrike varieties, you can get thresholds of corn earworms high enough that you have to do something,” says Cotton.