One or two bollworms were observed from a scattering of eggs that were seen last week. A few salt marsh caterpillars seen in several fields and one beet armyworm was observed. Some pink blooms were observed from the highway in one field. These should be more common next week in some of our earlier planted cotton. Now is the time when good information from the field can be converted to dollars and cents.
Cotton continues to grow albeit slowly.
The rain showers which continue to come have finally covered almost all the area, so we have some relief from the near drought conditions. We have reports of high numbers of Thrips still being seen in larger cotton and there are also anthocorids, little black bugs, in heavy numbers in some fields in NE Mississippi. Their damage may be similar to early season plant bug damage. Egg deposits from Lepidoptera are fairly common in some fields and there have been some treatments initiated in a few non-Bt fields for a combination of insects. Aphid surveys through an 8 county swing on Monday, June 19 did not reveal any medium to high numbers of aphids, so hopefully most farmers will escape having to make a decision to spray for aphids this year.