A treated glass vial monitoring technique was used to test for resistance to pyrethroid insecticides in the tobacco budworm, Heliothis virescens (F.), in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas in 1987. Tests with more than 34,000 tobacco budworm adult males confirmed the presence of region-wide resistance to pyrethroids and its successful management in areas where pyrethroid use was restricted to the critical midseason period. Similar tests with the bollworm, Heliothis zea (Boddie), indicated increased tolerance in 1987. The data indicate continued needs for limiting pyrethroid use to the midseason period and for resistance monitoring.