IN THIS ISSUE: * Crop Situation * 2001 Cotton Season Could Be Real "Buggy" * Field Scout School

Crop Situation
The most critical situation for all crops at this time is accumulating some heat units. The recent cool temperatures have slowed the progress of plant development. Since May 1st we have accumulated 210 heat units and since May 15th 87 heat units (DD 60's). Thrips are the first pest concern of the year in cotton. Keep close watch for the next several weeks. Thrips are not considered an economic pest in peanuts. We are still on our own this production year in the management of cotton boll weevils. You or your consultant need to set traps out to determine if an application for weevil management is required.

Weeds are always a concern, yet we can anticipate quite a lot of pressure in all crops this year because

at-planting seed treatments or in-furrow systemic insecticides are still working as long as you don't have any reproduction as evidenced by very small wingless thrips. Once immatures show up, it is time to spray if average thrips numbers equal or exceed the number of true leaves present per plant. Producers who opted to save money this year by foregoing their routine Temik applications are probably having second thoughts. I would expect that many of these farmers will need to treat at least twice to pull their cotton through the thrips vulnerability period. Address, Orthene, Bidrin and dimethoate are all good choices when spraying for thrips. I've heard of producers in the Southeast using pyrethroids for thrips control. While these may work for some species, they are relatively ineffective against our dominant species, western flower thrips. Also, I would not recommend using pyrethroids this early in the season. Our resistance management strategies have us hold off their use until August. The beet armyworm scare is on! With several kinds of looper, armyworm, cutworm and army cutworm moths flying about, cotton producers are very nervous about a repeat of the 2000 season when heavy yield losses and astronomical spray bills were the rule. We've had the rains to green up the landscape and produce abundant host plants for beet armyworms. And now we have confirmed reports that beet armyworms are infesting some fields of corn.
The Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation trapping program has collected large numbers of beet armyworm moths in West Texas. In fact, moth trap catches are up 177% in west Texas traps compared to last year but down 42% in Foundation traps run in the South Texas/Winter Garden area. This area did not have problems with beet armyworms like we did last year. With high infestation levels late last year, it is to be expected that we would overwinter a large population of beet armyworms in the area. My only hope is that these early beet armyworm numbers do not translate into later headaches for cotton farmers. We've already had reports of one or two cotton fields sprayed in the Gaines County area. Producers need to be on the lookout for this pest. We do have very effective materials available to control beet armyworms in the form of Tracer, Steward and Intrepid labeled this year for beet armyworm control and also have Denim cleared for use through a Section 18. But these are not cheap insecticides and with the depressed economic climate surrounding cotton, producers can ill afford to wage battle again with this pest.

Posted at this web site by:
texagnet Internet Services.

The Texas A&M University System, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Commissioners Courts of Texas Cooperating