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The cotton boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis Boheman) is thought to have first entered the United States near Brownsville, Texas in 1892. Once the insect gained a foothold, it began a journey north, west and east across the U.S. Cotton Belt. By 1922, the pest had moved into other cotton growing areas of the United States from the eastern two-thirds of Texas and Oklahoma to the Atlantic Ocean. In a further expansion of weevil migration, the northern and western portions of Texas were populated by the pest in the period between 1953 and 1966.

The weather and climate across the South that allowed an abundance of cotton, also provided a favorable environment for the boll weevil. During the cold, winter months when food was unavailable, the weevil adapted itself to a diapause, or over-wintering, cycle. As the cotton season in an area neared an end, cooler and shorter days signaled the weevils to end their reproductive phase. Their bodies would now turn to laying down additional body fat that the weevil would use for food as it hibernated in the winter.

In much of the Cotton Belt, cotton was grown adjacent to thickets, trees or underbrush or open prairie that provided a thick ground mulch and other over-wintering habitat. As weevils began to enter their diapause phase, they would seek out these shelter areas that would help protect them from the winter cold. As each season advanced, so did an emerging population of weevils in the spring.

Within 30 years, the boll weevil infested more than 600,000 square miles. It had begun its relentless journey west to California, east to Virginia and north to Oklahoma and southern Kansas. By the mid-1900's, the proliferation of the pest across the US had became a serious threat to "King Cotton".

The boll weevil moves across the US during a period of 100 years.

As the weevil advanced across the nation, its economic impact to the cotton industry rippled across the very heart of cotton country. Land values began to fall, and continued efforts by farmers to control infestations of the pest increased the cost of production. And with all their efforts, cotton growers still sacrificed a large amount of their cotton production potential to the damaging weevil each year.

Over 100 years later, cotton farmers still battled the weevil. In the course of one century, cotton farmers had lost over $13 billion to the boll weevil's destructive impact.

The boll weevil is still considered as one of the most devastating insects to cotton, costing farmers millions of dollars in control efforts and lost production each year.

Next...a look at boll weevil biology