image: Early vs late planted cotton. view more
Credit: Sally Taylor & Seth Dorman
St. Paul, MN (August, 2019)--Tarnished plant bug is one of the most harmful pests of cotton in the mid-Atlantic states of Virginia and North Carolina. To learn more about this threat, Sally Taylor and Seth Dorman, of Virginia Tech Tidewater Agricultural Research and Extension Center (AREC), scouted and studied cotton fields from 2016 to 2018. They present their findings in the webcast "Tarnished Plant Bug Management Strategies for Mid-Atlantic Cotton."
Taylor and Dorman encourage growers to avoid planting cotton beside other hosts of tarnished plant bug, including wheat and corn, and emphasize weed management to eliminate the proximity of other hosts. Taylor and Dorman also report that cotton planted later in the year and certain varieties of cotton, such as mid- to full-maturing and smooth-leaf varieties, require more intensive management.
Taylor and Dorman conclude that scouting and using thresholds are the most effective strategies for managing tarnished plant bug. They also recommend strategies for insecticide use and resistance management.
This webcast complements "Tarnished Plant Bug in North Carolina and Virginia," which gives a more general overview of the pest's relationship with cotton.
Both webcasts are available through the "Focus on Cotton" resource on the Plant Management Network. This resource contains more than 75 webcasts, along with presentations from six conferences, on a broad range of aspects of cotton crop management: agronomic practices, diseases, harvest and ginning, insects, irrigation, nematodes, precision agriculture, soil health and crop fertility, and weeds. These webcasts are available to readers open access (without a subscription).
The "Focus on Cotton" homepage also provides access to "Cotton Cultivated," a new resource from Cotton Incorporated that helps users quickly find the most current cotton production information available. These and other resources are freely available courtesy of Cotton Incorporated at http://www.plantmanagementnetwork.org/foco.
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About Plant Management Network: Plant Management Network (PMN) is a cooperative, not-for-profit resource for the applied agricultural and horticultural sciences. Together with more than 80 partners, which include land-grant universities, scientific societies, and agribusinesses, PMN publishes quality, applied, and science-based information for practitioners. All subscription-based information on PMN can be accessed for an annual subscription fee.
About the Cotton Board: The Cotton Research & Promotion Act established the Cotton Board as a quasi-governmental, nonprofit entity to serve as the administrator of the Cotton Research & Promotion Program. Funded by America's cotton producers and importers through the cotton check-off, the program's research and promotion activities are conducted worldwide by Cotton Incorporated, the Cotton Board's sole-source contracting organization, to increase the demand for and improve the market position of cotton.
The Cotton Research & Promotion Program continues to work in all areas of cotton's pipeline--from the field to the consumer--to keep cotton the number-one fiber choice in the United States. For more information about the Cotton Board and the innovative activities stemming from the program, visit http://www.cottonboard.org.