So far we are not seeing much boll damage from stinkbugs. We think this is due to the overall very hot, dry weather we are experiencing. Week before last I saw 106 degrees on a local bank billboard in my hometown (Franklin, VA), the first time ever according to the ‘old-timers’. This week Johnny Parker with Commonwealth Gin reported that he looked at a couple of thousand acres and found only about 3 bolls total with stink bug damage. He says he has never seen stink bug pressure this low. Yesterday he found a hot spot in an irrigated field approaching 10% boll damage with about 15% dirty blooms. The only insect in the field was tarnished plant bug so he assumed they had caused the boll damage (spots with light internal damage).

Corn earworm/bollworm is on the rise. Trap catches started increasing this week, up from near zero last week, and we are seeing moths flying in soybean, peanut and cotton fields. Stan Winslow with Tidewater Agronomic, Inc. in North Carolina reported today that they were finding an increasing number of bollworm eggs in cotton. We are recommending that growers not react to eggs, but wait to see how they progress and base any sprays on worm escapes. If worm pressure gets high, we can expect some escapes. For example, last year we found 2-4% boll damage on some Bollgard 2 and Widestrike varieties. But time will tell. We may or may not have to treat depending on how many worms break through the Bt and Widestrike toxins.