Growers told us at our beltwide conference planning meeting in June that they wanted to hear things they could take back home with them. This session on insecticide resistance management making it work on the farm was developed around that concept.

The session is co-sponsored by Insecticide Resistance Action Committee, known as IRAC-US Cotton. You will learn more about this organization later. The idea for the session was prompted by experiences with the tobacco budworm in the 1992 cotton growing season. Another important consideration was the increasing importance of both SPWF and cotton aphids and the importance of resistance in the management of these insects.

The program is planned to provide a historical overview of resistance to cotton insecticides and a review experience in other cotton producing countries and how they are dealing with resistance. Speakers will discuss basic principles of resistance development, how to monitor its development and what options we have to manage its rate of development. Aphids and whiteflies will be dealt with in separate papers because of their unique biology and their inheritance of resistance.

After the break, the 1992 experiences part of the program will review the situation on a regional basis and will highlight what worked and didn't work. We will conclude with regional presentations on 1993 recommendations for tobacco budworm and for aphids and whiteflies.

I want to emphasize the value of our cotton insecticides to modern cotton production and to the manufacturers of these products. The latest estimate shows that on the average, 50,000 compounds must be synthesized and tested for every one that gets to market. Additionally it takes approximately 10 years to develop a product with a price tag of $50,000,000. So these are very valuable tools in our cotton production system and resistance management is one of the best means to retain the use of these products.

I think that we have done an outstanding job already. When the pyrethroids first came on the market in the late '70's the doubting Thomases estimated that resistance would appear in a few short years. We have just finished our 14th year using these products. However, 1992 saw us come pretty close to the edge of losing the usefulness of the pyrethroids and even some organophosphate and carbamate products saw reduced performance. This situation underscores the timeliness and importance of today's subject of resistance management.