Gus: They asked me to talk about soybean and rice insects today. I want to go in. I’m going to hit a few things, but I want to concentrate on one pest that’s really been giving you guys in this particular area a little more problem than anything else. How can we avoid the bollworms in 2012? Plant your crop as early as possible, as much as crop as you can. Late March, early April in South East, Arkansas. You all are right here in the middle, so you’re somewhere in this either one of these by early or mid April in Northeast Arkansas.
Another thing is narrowing that row width. If you’re planting on 30s or 38s and you’re having trouble achieving canopy closure by balloon1, you need to do something different. The key in all this, and the reason you plan early is so that you can achieve canopy closure prior to bloom.
When we do that, we keep those bollworm numbers down to a minimum. I’m not going to tell you, you won’t get the treatment level in them, but the difference between beans that are not lapped and are lapped is significant. Getting that canopy closure is the key to maintaining global worm numbers, keeping them in a manageable level.
Those are the things that you need to shoot for, and then avoid those unnecessary applications of pyrethroids. Just because your going across the field and you decided you want throw some knockoff karate or whatever in the tank because it’s cheap. That’s not a very good idea and it’s causing you more problems than it’s worth