Our early season insect issues are all but over. I have not seen any fields that have a bad thrips situation this week but am a little bit concerned about the areas where standing water or saturated fields have damaged plants that may hold up the cotton growth enough for the thrips to add to the trouble.
- If you are spraying over some of these fields it makes sense to add some Orthene but otherwise, I think we are pretty much winding down on thrips. I found one field at a threshold level of cutworms. They cut the stems like deer, but leave the plant right on the ground. Threshold would be several cut plants per 10 foot. I doubt we have very many fields in the whole state that would be a concern, but a quick look is justified. It takes a pyrethroid to clean ’em up.
- While the insect issues are low, we are in the middle of the weed battle. Because of Mid-90 temperature on Saturday and particularly Sunday, we will have a higher risk of leaf scorch injury on cotton from two situations. One is Liberty on Phytogen varieties and the other is Dual/Warrant tank mixes. If you need to spray a scorching combination, wait until late morning to start spraying so the cotton can harden up a little bit. Other ideas to reduce scorch are to spray the dual/warrant separate as they rarely scorch when sprayed alone. It is the surfactants in the Roundup and the Liberty that make the Dual or Warrant hot. Some other folks have reported less concern of leaf scorch by splitting the rate of Dual/Warrant over two trips. Ultimately the leaf scorch issue is more cosmetic, recovers quickly and is only extremely negative when doubling up scorching products like overlaps with sprayers or spraying Liberty and Dual at the same time on Phytogen.
