Nothing is really hot this week in terms of insect pests. We are seeing a few potato leafhoppers in peanuts but not heavy or widespread. We are concerned about the early results of our annual program for monitoring corn earworm pyrethroid susceptibility, but this issue is covered in detail in another of today’s advisories. In soybeans, we are hearing of more than usual numbers of fields with 3-cornered alfalfa hoppers girdling seedlings. This is a tough insect to make a call on in terms of when to pull the trigger. We have documented some feeding by Asiatic garden beetle in cotton (see attached image slide collection) in one county in the northern part of our cotton area. I noticed that Dominic Reisig at NCSU commented on seeing some of the same in his state. This is a new pest of cotton and we do not know much about it. If the damage is limited to the adults feeding on leaves, we can handle it with some fairly decent guesses as to how much leaf feeding seedlings can tolerate before a treatment is needed. If you view the attached images, you will see some seedlings in the infested area were completely striped of leaves. Will this slow these plants down? Hard to say. This damage will likely not be as damaging as the feeding by thrips that concentrates on the developing bud. But we also know that Asiatic garden beetle grubs can do significant amounts of root feeding. Are they feeding on cotton roots? Would the common cotton insecticide seed treatments offer any protection? All good questions with no immediate answers. This outbreak does tell us that we should be more vigilant when it comes to scouting cotton fields during the period from post-thrips to early squaring. Additional information: asiatic-garden-beetle-cotton-king-queen-va-2012-pptx