Planting Progress and Early Season Weed/Thrips Control

A good deal of progress was made this past week with respect to getting the 2013 cotton crop planted.  Rainfall during the middle part of last week put planting activities on hold until Friday afternoon (of last week) or Saturday with some being out of the field until Memorial Day.  A few areas of extreme north Mississippi received rainfall on Friday (of this week) and are temporarily on hold.  A portion of this years crop remains in the bag; however, depending on potential rainfall today (Saturday) and tomorrow (Sunday) we should be nearing the finish line in the upcoming week.

A number of questions have come in this week regarding Palmer amaranth control and thrips control.  Most of these questions were about tankmixing Liberty herbicide with an insecticide for thrips control.  Be aware that it is important to know if you are making these applications to Liberty Link cotton, Glytol + Liberty Link cotton, or Widestrike cotton.  Liberty Link and Glytol + Liberty Link cotton have more robust tolerance to Liberty herbicide compared to Widestrike cotton.  Given the greater level of tolerance of Liberty Link or Glytol + Liberty Link cotton to Liberty, it stands to reason that these varieties should also be more tolerant when an insecticide is tank mixed with Liberty.  

The safest insecticide to mix with Liberty herbicide for thrips control is acephate.  Radiant also appears to be similar in crop safety to acephate; however, the body of research with Radiant tankmixed with Liberty is much less than research conducted on crop safety of other thrips products tankmixed with Liberty.  Bidrin tankmixed with Liberty has a greater potential for injury compared to acephate (and most likely Radiant).  Dimethoate tank mixed with Liberty will likely produce the greatest amount of crop injury.