San Angelo, Texas
October 24, 2007
The cotton industry’s No. 1 enemy,
the boll weevil, may be down but is still not out, said Texas
Cooperative Extension experts.
"The boll weevil eradication program continues to make good
progress overall, but 2007 will go down as a real learning year
for the 13- year-old program," said Dr. Chris Sansone,
Texas A&M University
Extension entomologist at San Angelo. "Boll weevil
eradication in the Southern Rolling Plains Zone, made up of
parts of nine West Texas counties was almost 100 percent
successful until this year."
Sansone said when the program began in the fall of 1994, monitor
trap catches of 3 million weevils were not uncommon. Today’s
catches of 2,000-3,000 seem insignificant in contrast, but those
familiar with the pest know constant vigilance is paramount to
keeping it in check.
"The boll weevil situation the Southern Rolling Plains Zone is
not good," said Richard Minzenmayer, Extension entomologist for
Runnels and Tom Green counties. "The Texas Boll Weevil
Eradication Foundation has sprayed a cumulative 230,000 acres
(most fields needed no treatments, however, others required
multiple treatments) of the zone’s almost 210,000 acres.
"Basically, the whole southern part of the zone is affected,"
Minzenmayer said. "Weevils are actually reproducing in some
areas. To complicate matters, windy conditions are preventing
aircraft from applying pesticides to affected fields."
As of Oct. 22, aerial applicators were behind in spraying by
about 10,000 acres, he said.
"It’s not a good situation, and producers are encouraged to get
cotton harvested and the remaining plant material destroyed as
soon as possible," he added.
Minzenmayer said problems started showing up in September when
it became apparent that Tropical Storm Erin and other weather
systems brought weevils along with some much-needed rain.
"These fronts pushed weevils from southern zones into our area,"
Minzenmayer said. "To add to the problem, South Texas has had
lots of problems this year. Wet weather there made weevil
numbers high, the cotton crop very late, and the fronts made it
easy for weevils to enter the Southern Rolling Plains Zone
resulting in the serious problems we’re now having."
Minzenmayer said volunteer cotton re-sprouting on its own from
last year’s crop is proving to be a major problem because it
serves as a host for boll weevil reproduction.
"Most producers in this area plant the new genetically
engineered Roundup (glyphosphate herbicide)-resistant varieties
and practice conservation tillage," he said. "These are good
practices, but cotton that comes up the following year is a
weed, and because it is Roundup-resistant, it is hard to kill
with herbicides.
"Tillage is the best way to control volunteer cotton, but
producers practicing conservation tillage want to leave the crop
residue on top of the soil to conserve moisture. As a result, we
have lots of acres of fallow ground growing volunteer cotton.
It’s a major problem."
Despite the problems, Sansone said the weevil eradication
program is working well for the majority of the state. Even in
the Southern Rolling Plains, pesticide applications are expected
to be less than one application per acre for the season. That’s
far less than the multiple pesticide applications once necessary
to procure a crop in pre-eradication days.
"Dr. Charles Allen, Program Director for the Texas Boll Weevil
Eradication Foundation, reports that the St. Lawrence area had
only caught 54 weevils in their monitoring traps through mid
September compared with 667 weevils caught during the same
period last year," Sansone said. "The Permian Basin Zone is also
well below last year’s levels. The only other captures in West
Texas have been a single weevil south of Morton in the Southern
High Plains/Caprock Zone and two weevils in the southwestern
part of the Rolling Plains Central Zone."
Six West Texas zones - El Paso/Trans Pecos, Northern High
plains, Northern Rolling Plains, Northwest Plains, Panhandle and
Western High Plains - with more than 2 million cotton acres,
have not caught a single boll weevil this year, he said. Nearly
all of the fields in the West Texas region have been trapped all
season without catching a boll weevil, Sansone said.
The five South and East Texas boll weevil eradication program
zones are another story.
"They’ve had many obstacles to overcome during the extremely wet
2007 growing season," Sansone said. "Trapping muddy turn-rows
and getting fields treated as the rains continued week after
week were challenges. The rainy weather also made control
treatments less effective. In spite of these difficulties,
populations were reduced by over 70 percent in the five zones.
Compared with last year, the Northern Blacklands and Upper
Coastal Bend zones had population reductions of over 90 percent.
The Southern Blacklands and the Lower Rio Grande Valley dropped
75 and 68 percent respectively from 2006."
The South Texas/Winter Garden area saw no reduction in weevil
numbers.
"The continued harvest with producers effectively removing the
weevils’ food source will help the Boll Weevil Eradication
Foundation control the weevil outbreaks," Sansone said. "The
open weather will also allow aircraft to spray and producers to
destroy stalks that have been serving as hosts for the boll
weevil.
"Though this season has been troubling, it has served as a
reminder that vigilance is the key to keeping the boll weevil in
check. We just can never let our guard down." |
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