Crop Scan Ag Report: Helpful Rains, Watching Insect Pressure
July 8, 2024 
After some helpful rains across most of the Cotton Belt, the overall crop appears to be in pretty good shape moving into insect management time, with an eye on plant bugs and moth flights. And concerns, too, over what the remnants of Hurricane Beryl will bring to south, central, and eastern Texas and parts of the Mid-South.
Here’s what our contributing consultants had to report for early July.
Chad Harrell owns and operates Harrell Agronomic Services in Northeastern North Carolina.
Since the last update, moisture has been our biggest concern. We have just been hot and dry during the month of June.
Our earliest planted cotton started blooming last week harder than we would like to see. Most areas received much needed rain over the weekend, and the cotton is already starting to look better. Hopefully, we can see more rain this week to get cotton back moving before an early cutout.
Lygus pressure has picked up over the past week with some fields reaching threshold, but they still remain spotty in most areas.
Wes Briggs consults on cotton, corn, peanuts, soybeans, and small grains for growers in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida.
We have pivots going again. Rain helped us catch back up and get some subsoil moisture back and help some of our dryland acres out. Some of the dryland crop wasn’t far from blooming out of the top, but we’re maintaining 4-5 nodes above white flower on our oldest dryland cotton.
Our oldest cotton is going into the second week of bloom, and we’ll have a lot of cotton starting to bloom this week. I also have some cotton that has seven or eight leaves on it, so we still have long way to go. The cotton crop is looking better each week.
Photo: Wes Briggs
We’re still addressing fertilizer and sidedressing and are starting to treat plant bugs in spots. Plant bugs are not terrible, but we do have them. Spider mites are starting to build again. We had some rain a few weeks ago that knocked them down a little bit, but we seem to be heading into round two in some fields. Aphids are pretty heavy this week in cotton we’ve been in so far. We’re seeing a new moth flight of corn earworm and tobacco budworm in other crops besides our Bt cotton right now and hope we don’t have any escapes. We’re also spraying a few stink bugs on a limited number of acres of cotton.
Overall, cotton looks really good. We have a lot of PGR going out. We’re still cleaning up weeds in spots. Some growers are running layby rigs for weeds, and others are making their last over the top herbicide applications.
Tucker Miller is a Mississippi-based independent private consultant for cotton, soybeans, corn, peanuts, rice, and vegetables.
The cotton in our area looks really good, ranging from 18 nodes to just starting to bloom. We have been hot and dry for weeks. Our pivots have made three circles, and we are watering down the row for the second time. We are lucky to be mostly irrigated. Dryland corners are blooming out of the top now.
Photo: Tucker Miller
Insect pressure has been low to normal so far. We have made one and in some places two lygus sprays. We are currently under a bollworm moth flight and are picking up around 20% egg lay. We notice a lot of eggs on dried bloom tags and hope the BG III will hold. We will be watching this closely this next week for any escapes.
Corn is denting now and some of the older corn has a 20% milk line. We have had no insect or disease issues. Soybeans are at R5 with no insect or disease issues yet. Dryland beans are pretty much toast and will not produce much of a yield.
Mark Nemec is an independent agricultural consultant for cotton, wheat, grain sorghum and corn in the Blacklands and Brazos River Bottom area of Central Texas.
The Central Texas cotton crop has been progressing rapidly. It has dried out and warmed up throughout the area. High temperatures both day and night have really pushed this crop along with a lot of heat units. Most of the earlier planted cotton is in full bloom, with the later planted just starting to flower.
It’s hard to believe after our wet start this year, but we are too dry now. Irrigation is going fast and furious in the Brazos Bottom to try and keep the older stuff from cutting out too soon.
PGRs have been applied to most of the crop, especially where we are irrigating. After a hard fight, most of our weed control has been achieved. Our fleahopper numbers have finally started to come down just in time for the stinkbugs to start migrating from the corn and milo crops. Our worm pressure is also increasing now.
Our biggest concern right now (July 8) is Hurricane Beryl coming into the Central Gulf coast. This will be affecting a lot of farm land. We are hoping and praying that we can get by with minimal damage.
Kerry Siders is Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Agent-IPM for Hockley, Cochran, and Lamb Counties.
The West Plains of Texas have received some general rains to start the month of July. This sure adds to the prospects for our cotton crop.
Weeds, though, have been a real challenge to stay on top of. Producers need to get back in the field – and soon – to continue their efforts to manage weeds. Another challenge is getting fertilizer placed. I would encourage producers to have their fertility in place in the next three weeks.
Combine this moisture with some good sunlight and July heat, and some of this cotton could have a potential for really growing vegetatively. This is not bad to a point, but we must balance vegetative and reproductive growth patterns. Monitor the length of the top four nodes. We are currently averaging less than 1” in internode length. As it exceeds 1.5,” you will want to apply a mepiquat chloride product. I might suggest an 8-to-16-ounce application soon, and then be ready in another 10-14 days to possibly do it again.
Insects continue to be relatively quiet. Since we are squaring, fleahoppers are our primary concern for 2-3 more weeks. We can find an occasional cotton aphid, but no established colonies. Grasshoppers have also been present where fields are adjacent to pastures and rangeland. Scouting fields on a weekly basis is critical. We cannot afford the loss of young fruit. Keep an eye out for lygus and other plant bugs, as well as any larva pests.
So, priorities over the next few weeks are weed control, getting fertilizer out, managing cotton plant growth, scout insects, and maintaining good square set.
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