GENERAL SITUATION: A cool day (54 F) on Wednesday and then back to hot, dry and windy kept the pressure on dry fields of all crops this week. Many fields of sorghum in the area were showing severe drought stress this week. Some fields were so devastated that little yield potential appeared to be left. Other fields were in apparent good shape. Soil moisture was obviously different from field to field. Most other crops in the LRGV were also showing some drought symptoms, but the worst hit area seemed to be around Lyford and west. Cotton, though shorter in stature than desired, appeared to be holding on, but just barely in the worst of the dry areas. Irrigation of sorghum, corn and cotton were ongoing.

Conservation Tillage Conference April 25

There will be a Conservation Tillage Conference held in Weslaco at the Palm Aire hotel on FM 1015 across the Texas Agricultural Research and Extension Center. The date is Wednesday, April 25. Registration will start at 8:30 am and the first session of the workshop will commence at 9:30 am. The attached agenda will provide the details of the Conference. We hope to see there.

Boll Weevils Still Here

Boll weevil trap counts were relatively lower in some areas, but increased in others. The higher trap counts were north of Edcouch-traps 17 & 18, west of Santa Rosa- trap 63, east and south of San Benito-traps 101-103, and north and west of Rangerville-trap 106. (See trap graphs in this newsletter). Our long standing traps northeast of San Benito also had the highest counts (averaged 4.5 weevils per trap for this week) of the three permanent sites around the LRGV. The other two permanent sites averaged nearly 0 weevils this week.

Lower weevil trap numbers continued in many areas this week which probably means that more weevils are finding their way to squaring cotton fields. Overwintered weevil sprays need to be applied now on cotton that is just beginning to square. And all overwintered weevil sprays need to be completed within the next two weeks so as to avoid any significant amount of spraying in May.

Fleahoppers Increasing

Reports of cotton fleahoppers ranged from 0 to 25 per 100 plants this week. Reports indicated that the highest counts were being found in the oldest cotton. All cotton should be checked for pests routinely, especially for fleahoppers now since cotton is just beginning to square.