Cotton Setting Bolls and Aphids Crashing

Cotton is growing and setting bolls.  Here’s Jeffery Braswell in his cottton field that is growing well, he says he is thankful for recent beneficial rains.  Thankfully aphids are crashing in most fields due to a naturally occuring disease we see about this time of year. They were as serious as I’ve seen them in a while.  The photo below shows some dead aphids with the fungal growth around them that took them out.

Caterpillars are common in cotton and peanuts this week.  Local crop advisors Howard Small, Wes Briggs and Jimmy Miller are reporting lots of caterpillars.  Populations are mixed with some Beet Armyworms and mixed Heliothis. I did some looking at teeth to differentiate Tobacco Budworms and Corn Earworms and they were about half and half.  One grower today reports a good kill in peanuts with a high rate of pyrethroid sprayed from a ground rig.  Usually we can’t kill many Budworms with a pyrethroid, and we need something else for Armyworms, but in some cases reducing the caterpillar population to maneageable levels is enough.