Entomology Update 7-13-23: Rice Stink Bug, Plant Bugs, Bollworms

Extension entomologists Drs. Nick Bateman and Ben Thrash discuss the status of the Section 18 exemption request for Endigo in rice, other control options for stinkbugs, current plant bug pressure in cotton, and more. 

Transcript

Entomology Update 7-13-23: Rice Stink Bug, Plant Bugs, Bollworms

[00:01] Intro/Outro

Arkansas Row Crops Radio, providing up to date information and timely recommendations on row crop production in Arkansas.

[00:12] Ben Thrash

Hey, everybody, today is July 13th and we're going to give you a little update on what's going on. But it sounds like everybody's wanting to know, Nick, what's going on with the Section 18 with Endigo, I'll let you, you know, give everybody a update on that.

[00:30] Nick Bateman

Yeah, that's a that's pretty much dominated my phone calls this week and I probably have talked to a bunch of y'all and told you the same thing. I feel like a politician over here saying this but you know we work with the Plant Board. The Plant Board submits it and once it goes to EPA, it's really in their hands. I mean, I could tell you that we submitted it, we had a start date in there for July one. We're sitting on the 13th right now. It sounds like maybe by the end of next week we'll for sure have this specific exemption. I can tell you that we went ahead and submitted for crises today. And we're hopeful that maybe we'll hear something by noon tomorrow. It sounded like EPA was, was open to that. But in the meantime, you know, technically it's not legal. We don't have that label. I’m sorry, I don't have better news there. I can tell you we're, we're doing all we can. But at the same time, you know, it is seems like a lot of the stink bug pressure is semi-moderate, you know, running in that and 10 to maybe 15 range and for that, you know, that level, if I'm going to spend Tenchu or potentially Endigo money if we, if and when we do get that 18, it does so promising that we're going to get it. It's just going to be a little late for some folks. And I don't know what to do about that, but I think I'm going to ride that for a little while and try to get to where I have some soft dough out there to spray one of those two products. Frankly the Tenchu supply sounds like it’s dwindling pretty quick if you get even find it at all. Allegedly there's more stored in some warehouses, but it sounds like folks are having difficulty getting it shipped in. You know, Lambda, we've got a trial out right here beside the station with a grower and we got over 85% control. Here's what happened there, too, we were running about seven and a half, eight whenever we sprayed, we got about another thousand acres headed out around it, so what stink bug pressure we did have is diluted across that, instead of on that 40 acre field. So I'll tell you that roughly 80% control is extremely misleading there. I still don’t think you can go out and expect more than 50 to 60%. It may look a little better early than what it's going to look late, but I don't think I would depend on it with some of these higher numbers I’m hearing. You know, if you cut 40 on 10 down to 20, you're still in the same boat. You still got a ton of stink bugs out there. So if you're in those situations where you running those kind of numbers and got to spray, at this time your only legal option is Tenchu. And trust me, we will update you as soon as we hear something definitive on that 18 but other than that, that’s about all there is there. 

[03:28] Ben Thrash

But Nick, what's your recommendation right now if you're running right around thresh hold on this first heading?

[03:37] Nick Bateman

I think it depends on what kind of money you’re willing to spend. If you wanted to spend Lambda money I would say stick closer to the 5 to 10 range, what thetraditional threshold is. I think if we’re going to run a Tenchu price tag or even an Endigo price tag, assuming we have it, here pretty quick, I think I'm going to try to ride that kind of population, you know, like 15 is going to be my, my kind of hard to cut off during flower to milk where I'd like it go ahead and spray. But if I running 10, 12, I'm probably going to hold for another seven days and then make an application of I still have those numbers because that should get us to the finish line. The other thing we need to mention there too is I'm getting a ton of phone calls, ‘I’m 10, 20% headed out there and I'm running 20 on 10, don't you think I need to treat?’ Me personally? I think you need to put your sweep net back in your truck and come back in another four or five days, because if you do treat, you're not treating but 20% of the field, the rest of the heads aren't out. So, you know, those numbers are going to dilute. And I understand you're concentrating that pressure more right there. But to be honest with you, the past several years, the data we get, it takes a lot more stink bugs than folks would be comfortable with out there during flower to milk to really cause yield loss. That's, that's why I'm saying around 15%, I'd prefer to be at least 75% headed.

[05:04] Ben Thrash

Yeah, you got a lot of data on that and I mean just from me looking at it, I mean we've been talking about possibly bumping the threshold up that first two weeks of heading, I mean in the future. So that's something that we're going to discuss, you know, in the future.

[05:19] Nick Bateman

I will say if you start moving into that second, two weeks, especially, you got a lot of soft dough, hard dough, I'm going to stick to a pretty firm ten at that point. The peck side of that, I'm not saying that can’t cause yield loss, there's data out there saying that, but the peck side of it, yeah, you started exceeding really 12 to 15 there and you're looking at getting pecky rice. Now to different levels depending on weather conditions and that kind of stuff. But that's why I want to stick to 10, 10 will keep you from getting to 15 during that second two weeks.

[06:00] Ben Thrash

Yeah. You good with rice Nick? I'll move up in the cotton. Plant bugs, I mean they still are our primary pest or primary concern you know, kind of this week. But pressure isn't really bad across the whole state. It seems like there's pockets here and there. I talked to one person and they'll have they'll be running, you know, five or nine per 25 sweeps on adults and then you talk to the next person and they go ‘Nah, we got them under control, you know, we really don't have any.’ But something I really want to talk about is getting reinfested with these adults out there. I mean, you got to remember people are putting Transform out and it is the best product that we got for plant bugs right now and they come back and go, ‘Man, you know, we sprayed five days go and I got just as many plant bugs as I had when we sprayed before.’ Well, what you got to be out there looking for is do you got good square retention? Are you getting a bunch of nymphs out there in the field? Those are the things you need to be paying attention to because you're going to keep getting reinfested with adults until you know they all are done coming out of the corn or out of the weeds or whatever. Those adults are going to keep coming in there. You're just trying to keep hanging fruit on that plant. And if you keep having them, you're going to have to keep spraying them. And, you know, that's just the way it is. And so there's really not there's nothing better than Transform, and, you know, so there's not much else you can do besides go ahead and spray them again. Just make sure that you're hanging fruit and you're not getting a bunch of nymphs in the field. You know, before you think that you got to got a failure out there. The other thing is, I've been seeing and I read some other people I think in AgFax or something last week and I kind of forgot to mention it. But I've been seeing way more cloudeds this year than normal clouded plant bugs. And just remember, they're, the only thing different about them is that we count them as one and a half tarnished plant bugs as compared to regular, you know, tarnished plant bug, which is just one.

[08:30] Nick Bateman

Ben, since cloudeds aren’t that common, give me a description of them real quick.

[08:36] Ben Thrash

Yeah, I mean they're, they're dark. They're usually just kind of a solid brownish color. You're a little bit longer than a regular plant bug. And the big the key identifying characteristic on them is I get an elbowed antenna. You know that first segment on their antennas kind of wide, but then it just elbows, elbows off of there. So it's just elbow in the antenna. And, you know, everybody's got a cell phone nowadays that's got, you know, Internet on it. So you need to look at a picture, a one just Google Clouded plant bug and one will pop up. And you can look at the nymphs, too. But they count as one and a half, you know, tarnished plant bugs because they eat a little bit more. But you're not going to change your control tactics away from a regular old tarnished plant bug. The other thing got mentioned is I've been seeing and I've heard I've also heard some other people mention this is I've seen way more leaf hoppers in cotton than I've ever seen in all the time I've been working in entomology. Every drop out there, it seems like I'm getting five or six or seven leaf hoppers out there on a drop. So just make sure if you got some new guys out there working for you, they're not getting leaf hoppers confused with with plant bugs because they're both kind of the same color, although they act a little different. So just kind of keep that in mind. The other thing is, you know, we're about to get into, into some worms. It seems like quite a few guys are kicking up moths out in soybean fields. It doesn't seem like I've heard much out of cotton so far, but they're taking up moths in soybean fields there are some people that are having to treat, you know, down in south Arkansas, there's some guys that are picking up 12 or 15 on 25 sweeps. But then there's a lot of fields that, you know, don't have anything out there. And there's guys treating with Heligen quite a bit now. They've taken up, you know, a few worms, about threshold of worms out there and put some Heligen out or putting out Corteva’s virus product. My minds went blank on what that is.

[11:01] Nick Bateman

Hearken.

[11:02] Ben Thrash

Thanks, Nick. So they're running that right now and that's a that's going to be a really good option for small worms and you know not quite at threshold. It may save you an expensive application in the end. But if you are in one of these situations where you are running 12 to 15, you know, worms, I would recommend going with like a diamide. Looking at the the moth trap numbers that we've had over this, you know, few weeks ago, we kind of had a long rolling population. And I think your chances of getting re-infested would be pretty good. I kind of like to stick with something with a good residual and it seems like they're kind of doing the traditional thing. You know, last year we were having worms getting into, you know, canopied up beans. This year it seems like it's open row, blooming beans that the worms are really targeting. So, you know, I'd get out there and look for them. How about stink bugs Nick?

[12:10] Nick Bateman

Yeah. You know, it's pretty ironic. It seems like every time we record one of these things, we start getting pictures of stuff the very following day, but they start bigger. Well, we are starting to pick up a few red bandeds way south like Lake Village, down through Eudora. It wouldn't surprise me if there's not some scattered around that Tiller, McGee, Dumas area. But for the most part, what I'm hearing is Eudora, Lake Village. And look, keep in mind, if you're down there red banded, all your guys have dealt with them quite a bit, threshold’s much different than regular stinkbugs. You know, you’re 4 on 10.

[12:50] Ben Thrash

25, Nick. This is soybeans.

[12:50] Nick Bateman

Do what?

[12:51] Ben Thrash

4 on 25, this is soybeans not rice.

[12:57] Nick Bateman

Oh I said 10, yeah 4 on 25 up until R6.5 then you’re going to go up to 10 and terminate at R7. But you really need to put a combination out there of something. Whether that's a neonic and a pyretheroid or the standards being acephate and a pyretheroid, particularly Bifenthrin. One, one of those combinations, I mean, they're relatively easy to kill for and what assay work says but in the field it's sort of a different story with the way they can reinfest. And in needing something with quick knockdown plus a little bit of residual out there, frankly, it doesn't seem like this year is shaping up to be a 2017. It really doesn't seem like it's going to be quite as bad as last year and hopefully that'll be the case. Hopefully that winter helped us quite a bit and then, you know, still is getting several calls on, you know, traditional steamboats, primarily greens with a few browns mixed in. And that's a whole different ballgame there. I mean, that's 9 on 25 up to R6 and then we'll double and terminate at R6.5 and generally with greens we’ll be in the bifenthrin and lambda type game versus browns you know maybe moving to some acephate. But no real need for a combination for those stink bugs.

[14:17] Ben Thrash

Yeah. And the, the redbanded deal. I mean it's like, there's really not a lot from what I've been hearing anyway. So, you know, real sporadic. But it seems like we got more than what I would have expected after this, that cold snap this winter. So you can write that down as another missed bug prediction, I guess. But anyway, anything else Nick? Oh, I was going to mention spider mites. I hope this this rain up in northeast Arkansas slowed the spider mites down. It might not completely knock them out but I think it considerably slowed them down. So maybe that's a, you know, we get some wash offs with the rain, but maybe it'll reduce a spot or not. So it's kind of a give and take, what with the rainfall.

[15:13] Nick Bateman

Yeah, I think there's something to keep in mind what you just said, wash offs, you know, we hammer on crop oils and whatnot last week, but that story hasn't changed. We need to, this time of year, it’s a safe insurance policy to help ensure a little bit better control and if you’re going out in an airplane some oil will help it get down better than the no oil.

[15:35] Ben Thrash

Yeah. And last week I sprayed out, you know, a couple trials and I got like 45 minutes. I sprayed a bunch of trials out, but a couple of them, you know, I got like 45 minutes on before they got all washed off. And that was experimental compounds, you can't get no more of that chemical, so that's real good. But anyways, Nick you got anything else?

[16:01] Nick Bateman

That's, that's it. Look, just like the past couple years, soon as we know something with this Endigo deal, I’ll do a pest patrol, send text messages, that kind of stuff. But at this point I'm telling you everything I know about. If I knew more, trust me, we would talk about it.

[16:19] Ben Thrash

If we get call somebody and get it done we would. Well alright, if you need us call us, my number is 501-517-3853.

[16:32] Nick Bateman

Mine's 870-456-8486.

[16:36] Ben Thrash

Alright. Thank you very much.

[16:40] Intro/Outro

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