Tarnished Plant Bugs Starting Off Big in 2011

This is certainly starting off like a “big” plant bug year.  Most everyone is reporting threshold to 3 and 4 X thresholds of adult plant bugs moving into cotton that is squaring.  Most people are also reporting unusually high numbers of plant bugs in group IV flowering soybeans compared to most years and I had one report the other day of a corn field with 4-8 nymph plant bugs per ear on purple silk corn.  Gus Lorenz at the University of Arkansas posted a very good article on their blog about plant bugs a few days ago that is very similar to our situation.  I encourage you to read it by clicking on the following link: Plant Bug Situation Heating up in Arkansas Cotton.  Also, I cannot stress enough the need to monitor square retention prior to bloom.  With high numbers of migrating adults that keep moving into cotton fields this will be the only good way to evaluate how your plant bug applications are actually working.  I posted this article a couple of weeks ago Monitoring Square Retention is Critical for Migrating Plant Bug Adults on how to monitor square retention.  The reason I feel so strongly about square retention counts prior to bloom is it is not uncommon to make an application for plant bugs and next check you may have more in the field than before the treatment.  It can appear that you are getting zero control based on numbers alone, but if square retention is holding, it is working.  Also, we have a lot of data that shows an application of Diamond somewhere between the third week of squaring and first bloom will help keep nymph numbers down going into bloom.