General pest update
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We continue to check our thrips traps every Friday. After an early April bump in activity, captures of tobacco thrips dropped and stayed low until last week when numbers were up again. Thrips are definitely present in our peanut fields, and the trap data indicate that adults are moving. This means we need to keep…
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We have a couple peanut thrips trials that were planted on 24 April on the UGA Bowen Farm in Tifton that are currently experiencing moderate thrips pressure. These trials have treatments that include phorate (Thimet) in-furrow, imidacloprid (Admire Pro or Velum Total) in-furrow, thiamethoxam seed treatment (CruiserMaxx Peanut) and an untreated check. Adult thrips and…
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There were very few tobacco thrips on our traps last week. So what does that mean to growers? All it means to me is that there was no large migration/dispersal of thrips last week. It does not mean that peanuts that emerged two weeks ago will not have thrips on them, and it definitely does…
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I expected to see a bump in tobacco thrips numbers last week after several days of drier weather, but it was not to be. Nevertheless, we are seeing thrips and thrips damage on volunteer and some early planted peanut. A model for forecasting thrips dispersal developed at North Carolina State University was predicting that a…
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Tobacco thrips numbers spiked on yellow sticky traps on 10 April, but numbers were down again on 17 April (last Friday). The drop in trap captures is likely related to the abundant rain that fell last week. What does this mean for growers?
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The UGA Peanut Entomology Program is monitoring thrips flight activity again in 2015. Four thrips traps were placed in each of six south Georgia counties on 13 March. Traps are collected and replaced every Friday, and catch data will be posted to this blog weekly. Traps are located in Brooks, Colquitt, Decatur, Mitchell, Tift, and…
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The weather is warming up, and soon peanut seed will be going into the ground. After two seasons of relatively heavy and late thrips pressure in Georgia, it is understandable that growers are asking questions about thrips management options for 2015. The most common questions I have gotten recently involve the use of imidacloprid (Admire…
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We made it through the first couple weeks of the 2014 peanut harvest without hearing too much about burrower bugs, and I thought hopefully our prediction of heavier burrower bug damage this year was going to be wrong. Over the last two weeks, however, the reports of seg 2 peanuts and burrower bug damage have…
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As we approach harvest time of the 2014 Georgia peanut crop, we still need to be mindful of two spotted spider mites. This pest is present in many areas around the state and under hot, dry conditions populations can explode quickly. Peanuts with two or more weeks to go before digging are still at risk…
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We are approaching mid-August, and the insects and mites are staying with us. The two that concern me most continue to be lesser cornstalk borer (LCB) and two spotted spider mite. I have seen several spots in recent days where LCB populations are high enough to kill peanut plants. The pattern has been the same…