While apparently established in the San Joaquin Valley, economic infestations have not occurred in this area. When their wings are folded, they have an elongated slender appearance. The wing tips are conspicuously fringed.
Eggs are very small, slightly elongated, and laid under the calyx of green bolls.
Larvae burrow into bolls, through the lint, to feed on seeds. With high humidity, it only takes one or two larvae to destroy an entire boll because damaged bolls are vulnerable to infection by boll rot fungi. The use of Bt cotton. Eliminate the food supply for pink bollworm by cutting off irrigation early enough to stop production of green bolls by early September. Regardless of when the crop is terminated, immediately shred the cotton plants following harvest.