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Field and Forage Crops |
With weather on the cool side, we expect little in the way of thrips pressure just yet. However, cotton planted in April is typically subjected to the highest potential for thrips damage due to its slow seedling grow-off and the expectation of high thrips levels when this cotton is approximately three weeks old. At this point, it is still hard to predict what thrips may have in store for us in the coming three to four weeks.
Often, our highest thrips levels appear during years of prolonged very hot, dry May weather. In addition to high levels of migrating thrips, chemical uptake by the seedlings is typically less in dry weather, leading to greater plant vulnerability to thrips damage. Fortunately, the present 10-day forecast on April 29 for much of the state calls for about average temperatures and rainfall.
If early to mid May temperatures are moderate to high and moisture levels good, expect seed treatments to last approximately three weeks after planting. However, because the activity of Gaucho and Cruiser is so predictably low at three weeks, even with good moisture levels a foliar application for thrips is almost always a good investment, particularly if tank mixed with glyphosate or glyphosinate on first true leaf, herbicide-tolerant cotton.
Hopefully, warmer weather and better rainfall patterns over the next week will see more cotton planted and off to a good start.
Cutworms may also make their presence known during the period of stand emergence through the three or four leaf stage. Their damage is typically limited to reduced tillage cotton, and an at-planting or post-planting pyrethroid insecticide treatment in fields with a history of cutworm problems may be the most cost effective means of eliminating these stand reducing pests. Usually, the closer the burndown herbicide application is to cotton planting, the higher the probability of cutworm damage. Even with no-till or strip till cotton fields, however, economic cutworm damage is more the exception than the rule.
Employment and program opportunities are offered to all people regardless of race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability. North Carolina State University, North Carolina A&T State University, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and local governments cooperating.
Last modified on May 2, 2005 by Stephen J. Toth, Jr.