Square Shedding in Cotton: Differentiating Between Shedding Caused by Tarnished Plant Bug Feeding and Shedding Due to Non-Insect Factors

Livy Williams, III, J.R. Phillips, and N.P. Tugwell


 
ABSTRACT

Square and boll shedding has intrigued cotton growers and researchers for many years. This interest is easily understood, since loss of fruiting structures may directly reduce a grower's yield, and thus profit. Squares shed due to feeding by certain insects do not exhibit external damage, making correct identification of the causal agent more difficult. Such is the case with pinhead squares (squares < 3 mm bud diameter) shed due to feeding by the tarnished plant bug, Lygus lineolaris (Palisot de Beauvois). Externally, these squares closely resemble those shed due to non-insect factors, that is, physiological stress. Mauney and Henneberry (1984) partitioned symptoms causing square shedding into four categories in Arizona cotton. Squares with feeding symptoms caused by Lygus hesperus Knight, thrips, and Heliothis sp. were identified and contrasted in the laboratory with squares shed due to physiological stress.

If a field technique were developed by which growers and/or scouts could readily distinguish between pinhead squares shed because of tarnished plant bug feeding, squares shed due to other insects, and squares shed due to physiological stress. Proper chemical or agronomic measures could be more accurately employed.



Reprinted from 1985 Proceedings: Beltwide Cotton Production Research Conferences pp. 162 - 164
©National Cotton Council, Memphis TN

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Document last modified Sunday, Dec 6 1998