This crop is starting off quite slow for the most part at this point in the season. Early cold, wet weather followed by extremely hot temperatures have led to slow growing, stressed plants. Weeds have been the biggest issue to this point. Insects have been very light up to now. Early season wireworms were a sporadic issue, most all in fields following sorghum and haygrazer from last season and were seed treatments where not used. They have still not been as large of an issue as I expected. Thrips have been quite lite as well. They were not heavy in wheat earlier and the rains appear to have washed most everything off that was present.

Jumbo grasshoppers are the biggest concern at this time and they are still confined the the Garden City area. Several fields have already been treated and it appears that there may be another flush coming. They are sporadic as you move a little farther west of there, but not to the point that I have gotten very concerned. As this cotton gets a little size to it they will become less of a concern. Cotton fleahoppers are extremely light in what cotton has begun squaring combined with very good square sets right now. I am however seeing more lygus bugs, basically a larger fleahopper that does more damage and has a much lower threshold, around the area than I have ever seen before. I have not seen anything close to threshold as of yet but I am still scouting hard and we are presently looking for them closely in squaring cotton.

Beneficials appear to be climbing in older cotton at a very good rate. If pesticide applications are warranted I encourage you to use the softest chemicals possible to preserve this populations when possible.

With the extreme drought and crazy weather insect populations as well as types of insects could be much different this season do to changes in food sources and the balance in other insects as well as various predators, and beneficials. We must keep a watch out for different dynamics this season.