It’s definitely a good thing that we started out with the moisture that we did, because this past June and July has been drier than ’15-’17 when we thought we were wet and had the potential for great crops. This never ending heat has not helped the situation any as well. However, this crop is still managing to hold on better than most would expect it too. Out overall fruit set at this time is 84.1% with a range from 75% to 92.8%. With most crops only able to hold on to about 65% of their fruiting positions in a given season, we are still looking fairly good. With just a little help from Mother Nature and we have the potential for a really good crop still. Blooms are getting higher everyday. A large portion of early dry land has cutout and approaching hard cutout while the irrigated is 5-6 NAWF. The later crop is anywhere from not yet blooming for dry land to 7-8 NAWF for the irrigated. Bollworms are pretty hard to find right now and for the most part our Bt technologies are keeping them at bay. We can occasionally find one that has done some feeding, but nothing that would require a treatment. Moth traps still show very low numbers for this time of year. Stink bugs can be found in fairly low numbers in fields bordering pastures. I am finding more in grain sorghum at this time. The vast majority of these are 1st and 2nd instar nymphs. These are the tiny stink bugs without wings. Some of these fields may require treatment to keep them out of cotton but be careful as SCA is showing up in Glasscock and Reagan counties. You could make a bigger mess than you are solving. Our threshold for stink bugs has been modified the past couple of years to make scouting and decision making easier. If 20% or more 1″ in diameter bolls have internal damage such as warts, calluses, or stained lint and stink bugs are present then treatment is necessary. For very good cotton with high yield potential you may want to lower this threshold a little bit. Fleahoppers are not much of an issue anymore as most everything is beyond that stage and if it is not I would not be spending the money on the crop. So far no aphids have been found, but a few little pockets like we have had in the past would actually help to build up our beneficial numbers some more. Benny’s are continuing to increase and hopefully they will help to hold off the stink bugs as they begin to enter the fields.