Entomology Update 6-6-25: Thrips in Cotton, Southwestern Corn Borer, Stink Bugs in Soybeans

Arkansas cotton is seeing heavy thrips pressure and southwestern corn borer traps are starting to pick up more moths. Extension entomologists Ben Thrash and Nick Bateman discuss this and more in this week's entomology update.

Transcript

[00:00] 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 June 6th, and really, it's fairly quiet out there, except for maybe thrips in cotton, but, anyways, what's happening Nick?

[00:24] Nick Bateman

Not a whole lot. A few calls in rice related to weevils. And, you know, it's real spotty pressure. It seems like, you know, of course, next to tree line, that kind of stuff, it's a little higher, but I don't know, I really think this big slug of rice that the water’s going to right now is going to tell us over the next four, seven, ten days, really what this weevil pressure is going to be like, we flooded quite a bit here on the station. And looking at it 3 to 4 days after flood, it's it's fairly low. But that's fairly common for Stuttgart or for the station here. Really though, you know, from a control standpoint, if you're within that really around a seven day window or so after flood and you got a bunch of adults out there, you know, Lambda, we did some assays the other day, we're going to do quite a few more. But Lambda, actually looked pretty good, in those assays. But really it’s your only option besides draining the field. And I don't know anybody that's going to be willing to, especially in here like this, drying it down to cracking, to kill those larvae. So, you know, unless you got Fortenza or Dermacor at this point, your seed treatment has probably run out. So you may be keeping an eye on them adults out there pretty hard. You know, within that, week of gettng the flood established. So that's it from a rice standpoint.

[01:47] Ben Thrash

Well in our cotton, you know, thrips, I think everybody kind of knows that trips have been pretty, pretty rough this year. And, you know, we got we got cotton that was being planted, you know, a couple days ago that I know of. And, then we got stuff that’s squareing and plant bugs are starting to move in it. So that's just kind of a year that, that we're having. But the thrips pressure is really bad. You know I was looking at some data on our IST trial that we got counted, a couple days ago and, man overtreated acephate on top of our gaucho. It actually made the cotton look worse. Wasn’t significant. It didn't separate, but it was it was slightly worse. And so I'm not having any confidence, honestly, in the acetate treatment right now for thrips or Bidrin for that matter, we we pulled those and rated those yesterday. So I'll get a better idea in the next few days once we get all those counted and the data analyzed on how our foliar applications look. But it really, as far as I'm concerned, I'm really probably sticking to Intrepid Edge application, unless you're in some very far southern areas of the state, like the southwest. Arkansas, they've got some, they've they're still able to kill thrips in southwest Arkansas with, with acephate but like I said, there are some plant bugs starting to move in to this earliest planted cotton. I haven't heard any just, big numbers, but there are adults starting to move into it, so. So kind of keep an eye out there. It seems like this week we finally got some hot weather, and I'm starting to see tasseling corn now. Stuff starting to silk. And we were talking about southwestern corn borers, nIck and I know you talked, somebody a couple days ago. About what? They were catching their traps. 

[04:03] Nick Bateman

Yeah, it wasn't quite threshold, but, I mean, in in, like a 3 to 4 day period, they had caught, you know, somewhere around 20-25 and the, the first generation that threshold 50 in a week. So you know that's getting pretty close in about 2 to 3 days there. It's it's really it's that time if you ain't got traps that you need to get them out. Sounds like they're flying. Sounds like bollworm moths flying. So hearing some pretty high catch numbers there, as far as, traps go, not necessarily seeing them in the field, but don’t you kind of feel like if you got some blooming beans out there and, and that kind of stuff, a lot of them probably get sucked up by corn. But me and Ben were talking before we started recording, it seems like depending on where you're at in the state you either have tasseling corn or you're kind of like a lot of the areas I've been in where what corn’s out there is pretty small, but they got some big beans out there. So I think depending on where you're at, they're going to be more likely to get a corn or beans, but I’d keep an eye out.

[05:07] Ben Thrash

Yeah. Just, just keep a lookout. The other thing I've been hearing is, you know, stinkbugs and blooming beans. Not high numbers, but, you know, I think we mentioned that a couple weeks ago. But if you got stinkbugs in blooming beans, typically they're adults. And, you know, that's not something you really need to worry about. Typically they're just going to move on and, go somewhere else where they actually got some seed to feed on. Oh, that's about it, Nick.

[05:39] Nick Bateman

Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad to see, now that has dried up for at least a few days we’re starting to see a lot of bush hogs running. I think that may potentially help us because, well, a bunch of these rice fields are getting pretty hairy with barnyard and stuff. I think if we start trying to get that mowed back. It'll help us with stink bugs down the road. Yeah.

[06:01] Ben Thrash

All right. Sounds good. Well, if you need us, call us. My number is (501) 517-3853.

[06:08] Nick Bateman

And I'm (870) 456-8486.

[06:12] Ben Thrash

I thank you very much.

[06:15] Intro/Outro

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