Tag Archives: Cotton Fleahopper

Cotton IPM Update 5-30-25

Posted on by

Cotton Maturity ranges from squaring to bloom.  We are still finding fleahoppers in some fields. In fact our insecticide test had mostly of adult cotton fleahoppers and some Verde Plant bugs this morning before the rain.  The treated plots had very few nymphs but the untreated cotton had adults and nymphs at a 1:1 ratio. We are seeing control with all of the products at 7 days after treatment, but the nymph counts for Bidrin was was not different from the untreated nymph counts. Once you find 1… Read More →

Cotton IPM Update 5/25/25

Posted on by

Cotton maturity ranges from early bloom to pinhead square. Squaring cotton should still be monitored for cotton fleahoppers.  Once cotton begins to bloom, we tend to consider the field safe from cotton fleahopper.  The field can be considered safe if fruit retention is sufficiently high to meet its expected yield potential.  The reason I think the field is safe is cotton fleahoppers cause fruit shed to small squares, pinhead sized or smaller and the plants should have enough fruit matchhead square or older. When the crop begins to… Read More →

Cotton IPM – Cotton Fleahopper and Aphids

Posted on by

Most of the cotton fields in the Mid-Coast are squaring and the Cotton Fleahopper is the primary insect pest of squaring cotton. Early this week, we started finding more adult fleahoppers in cotton fields.  Some of these fields had 6 to 8 adult fleahoppers in 20 plants (30-40 per 100 plants).  This is well above my treatment threshold of 10 per 100 plants. Interestingly enough, adjacent fields had much fewer cotton fleahoppers.  This difference between fields demonstrates the importance of scouting each field and making treatment decisions on… Read More →

Cotton IPM – Thrips, Aphids and Fleahoppers

Posted on by

Cotton Maturity ranges from seedlings to 12-14 node squaring cotton. In some cases, these are in the same field. My cotton on the research farm in Port Lavaca has two emergence dates with older plants having 2 leaves and newly emerging plants coming up daily. I have noticed seedling disease being fairly common in some fields. Notice two of the plants in the above picture are dying. This demonstrated the importance of seed applied fungicides and variety choice. Cotton should be scouted for thrips through the 4-5 leaf… Read More →

Persistent Cotton Fleahoppers

Posted on by

For the past few weeks many fields have been inundated with cotton fleahoppers.  We began an insecticide control trial on May 10. The field averaged 5.3 cotton fleahoppers in 20 plants, well above the economic threshold of 2 fleas per 20 plants. The graph below is data from the trial I have been conducting. The blue arrows indicate treatment timings. The red line is insect counts from untreated plots.  During this trial, no differences were found between treatments due to variability within treatments. Throughout the trial, 86% of… Read More →