This will be the last Scouting Report of the season as both of our scouts are finishing up the summer with us and heading back to school and to two-a-days. We appreciate all of the hard work Shay and Logan have done this year. Thank you for being a part of the program we wish them good luck on everything they will accomplish this year. I will post additional updates if anything changes between now and harvest.
I have seen some fields with a lighter load of squares and bolls than I would like at this point in time. Much of this is due to the extreme heat and the handful of fleahoppers. Generally if we have a few fleahoppers we can still set more squares than they can feed on, but this year it appears the heat has been getting much of what is left in some instances. Fortunately, as cotton begins to bloom they will generally shift to feeding on pollen. Stinkbugs remain few and far between at this time, but the one stinkbug per field that I am finding seems to be in more and more fields. I have also noticed a little damage in a handful of bolls the last couple of days. It is definitely time to start checking fields on a regular basis for stinkbugs and boll feeding. Moth trap counts have been basically zero up to this point in the season, even in our traps next to corn. Quite a few of our corn fields appear to have less bollworm larva and damage compared to previous years. This being said, we have picked up a little damage in a non-Bt plot near Garden City. Although we have not had much of a problem here with bollworm resistance I would still be aware and keep an eye out.