Insect Update — April 30, 2026

Extension entomologists Nick Bateman and Ben Thrash give an update on insect issues in soybean, rice, cotton, and corn

Transcript

[00:01] Intro/Outro 

Arkansas Row Crops Radio, providing up to date information and timely recommendations on row crop production in Arkansas. 

[00:11] Ben Thrash 

Hey everybody, today is April 30th and there's a there's a few more pests than we're kind of used to this time of year. It seems like right now. What do you think, Nick? 

[00:23] Nick Bateman 

Yeah. You know, it's pretty dang quiet on the rice front of you know, I've had 1 or 2 random calls about seeing a cutworm here or there in there, but it's been it's been extremely quiet. There is some rice thatlooks like it's big enough to potentially go to flood sometime over the next 7 to 10 days. And we have no answers to this on on the sea treatment side. 

You know, I've had a few people ask me with how dry it's been, if we would expect higher efficacy with those neonics seed treatments, even though they've set out there the same amount of time as a normal spring. And and, you know, they are water soluble as neonics, cruiser nips it, etc. they are water soluble. So you'd like to think they would still hang around a little bit better than like a spring late last year where it rained so much. 

But frankly, we really don't have great data on it. I still think that if you're past that 35 day mark, I just wouldn't assume excellent control. It could still be good. We've seen that, but I wouldn't I wouldn't assume it's going to be excellent. And I've had a few phone calls wondering about running Lambda Pre. And I know we show a lot of that data. 

And generally in our plots it doesn't look bad. But the misleading part with our data is that in our plot we can get to flood and, you know, six, eight, ten hours. It takes no time. That Lambda is going to sit out there. If it takes you 5 to 10 days to get the water across it, that sunlight is going to break it down. 

I wouldn't expect as good a control there. But I mean, really on the rice outside of going to flood and weevils probably going to start popping up pretty quick already seeing some scarring after this rain. It's pretty quiet. 

[02:16] Ben Thrash 

Yeah, but we got some things popping up in in beans. I know both me and you have been getting a lot of calls on salt marsh caterpillars in soybeans. 

[02:28] Nick Bateman 

Yeah, quite, quite a few. And you know, it it seems like a lot of that is related to burning down weedy hosts around it. Not necessarily what's going on in the field itself. Generally they're clean, but seeing them almost like Army worms march across turn rows out of fields that got burned down next door, or ditches that got mowed, those sort of things. 

Removing that host. And most of the pictures I've gotten have been big salt marsh, and they're in beans in a hurry. 

[02:57] Ben Thrash 

Yeah, a lot of them. They're just moving out of turn rows. Those caterpillars are already pretty large. And so they can, those those big old caterpillars can eat quite a bit pretty darn fast. And most of the time, you can do a perimeter treatment around the edge of your field and take care of those, take care of those salt marsh. And I'll tell you. We've had some studies on them the past couple years because it seems like they became more of an issue, and we've just seen them a lot more than, than in previous years. But I, I wouldn't recommend going after them with just like a Lambda application with just a pyrethroid. I would go with probably like four ounces, Intrepid or Intrepid Edge, or you could even go with like besiege if you're just trimming the edge of the field, or another chlorine pro product like Banneker or something like that. 

But what the pyrethroid. In our trials, we only got about 30% control. Lambda plus acephate looked pretty good. But, you know, go with something more than just just a pyrethroid alone after those things. We also been getting some calls on cut worms.  

[04:23] Nick Bateman 

There's been several. 

There's been several calls. What would you say over the past about 7 or 8 days. It's like it's really popped up on cut worms. And Chase is dealing with quite a few up in up in the Missouri too. And it kind of seems like most of the calls I'm getting on cut worms or North of 40, and a lot of it seems related to cover crop. 

Not all of it. Some of it's just ryegrass clumps and stuff out in the field. Some of them have been fairly clean fields, but it seems like a pretty good flight, a cut worms out there. 

[04:59] Ben Thrash 

And yeah, and we were at that field the other day and it seemed like a mix of and it was a, it was cereal rye, and it was a mix of cut worms and true army worms out there. So, you know, pyrethroid does generally does pretty good on, on those. And I think in some of those situations, we, we've had some people talk about not getting real good control with the pyrethroid on those. 

But we kind of talk a lot of that up to not getting good coverage. And some of these, these cover crop situations that have a really thick mat and are kind of protecting those, any of those caterpillars that are underneath that mat from really getting good insecticide down to them. 

[05:47] Nick Bateman 

I think to being in some of those situations, just based on the pictures I've got, and you got multiple sizes of worms and they're anyway anywhere from basically full grown to quarter grown, and spraying them with something like Lambda. I mean, if you got 90% on that first egg lay that that was out there, you know, those worms that hatch five, seven days later, that lambda is not going to do anything for the residuals gone. 

So, yeah, I mean, hate to spend intrepid etc. type money there, but it kind of seems like the way that flight stretched out, may be worth considering. 

[06:23] Ben Thrash 

Yeah, yeah, it definitely might be worth considering. You know, I guess on on cotton earlier this year, just the thrips predictor model, I think I wrote in, in a letter to the, to the crop consultant association, that the the thrips predictor from NC state it wasn't up and running. But I actually just ran the model today. 

They got that thing back up and running. And it seems like actually now this year, with how the weather's been so dry that a little bit of the earlier planted cotton seems like in that predicted model that they may take the brunt of our thrips injury. And then it seems like this later planted cotton, it's supposed to die down. It's not supposed to have as much thrips pressure. 

So, you know, just kind of keep that in mind when you're out there looking for what it's worth. You know, just something to kind of think about. What else? Nick? How about stink bugs and corn? I know both of us got a few calls on that. 

[07:38] Nick Bateman 

Yeah, and it seems like it's been pretty sporadic. I will say, I feel like this year they match the traditional what you consider pattern with stink bugs and corn, and that they're, like, extremely related to tree lines and stuff. And it seems like that damage is really isolated there. I feel like last year is one of those years where we saw stink bug injury and clean fields, but nothing around it. 

We saw it in fields that had tree lines on a bunch of sides. It was just a lot of stink bug activity. It seems like this year it fits a lot more of the traditional, sort of stink bug pattern. But, you know, it's what Ben and I talk about quite a bit. We don't like the whole see a bug, spray the bug thing, but I got to be honest with you, if I've seen a few stink bugs out there, then things are pretty dang difficult to scout for in corn. 

They hide too good, and they disappear during the day a lot of times and come back at night. So it's hard to get a good judge of of the actual population out there. You know, if I can find stink bugs pretty easy, I may consider spraying some bifenthrin out there. 

[08:42] Ben Thrash 

Yeah, yeah, I agree. 

[08:47] Nick Bateman 

Well, we're all the topic of of stink bugs. I guess we can talk about what we found last week in the ditch bank surveys. 

[08:54] Ben Thrash 

Oh, yeah, we hit on that. We found a, you know, we went out and swept some of those Crimson Clover down to South Arkansas. And we were finding a few red banded stink bugs in it. Nothing. Nothing crazy. But, you know, talking to some of the guys down in Louisiana and matter of fact, just within ten miles of the border, I mean, they were finding pretty heavy levels of, of red banded stink bugs and some of that crimson clover. 

And then even the the guys over in Mississippi, I know down, down south had been finding red bandeds in their clover. So, you know. 

[09:36] Nick Bateman 

Yeah, it's hard to say what that means, but there's a few more in the state than we would like at the moment. 

[09:44] Ben Thrash 

Yeah, a little bit more than what I expected. I kind of thought that with the cold weather that we had with the, with the snow might have done a little bit better than, guess what we got. I really didn't expect that we were going to find much, but, low and behold, we did. 

[10:01] Nick Bateman 

And found a pile of corn earworms down in Texarkana. Not as much around southeast Arkansas, but that spot that I was at two was an isolated block of clover with a bunch of cow pasture around it. I figure every moth in that country went to it, so I don't know if those numbers are real meaningful. 

[10:22] Ben Thrash 

Right, right. But I don't know. That's kind of all we got right now, unless you can think of something else. Nick. 

[10:30] Nick Bateman 

Not unless we just want to get the caveat that so far we ain't found jassid or delphacid yet. That's really what we were going down there to look for. 

[10:37] Ben Thrash 

Yeah. We, the cotton jassidd as far as we hadn't found any in the state. Neither has anybody really in any surrounding states outside of maybe some, some that got trucked in on in these nurseries on hibiscus. But I haven't found any in the state. And I've looked at some hibiscus at some various, you know, retailers. 

But, Nick, what do you find on the delphacid? 

[11:15] Nick Bateman 

Nothing. But I, I don't know that we would really expect to find any in the spring. I mean, the little bit of data out there on, on like alternate host would be cereal rye and, you know, we we swept a little bit of it, but that data was all, you know, greenhouse lab generated. So don't really know how it holds up in the real world. 

With that being said, the folks down in Texas. They haven't started finding it yet. Keep in mind, it was around the 1st of June last year when they started finding it. So hopefully in the next 3 to 4 weeks, we'll kind of at least have a feel for what's going on down there. They did find some in a greenhouse down in Baton Rouge earlier this week. 

Don't don't really know what that means going forward either. But as far as in Arkansas, we haven't found any. And to my knowledge, I don't think Donnie or Dawson or any of them have found them in Louisiana or Mississippi either. So, I mean, time will tell. 

[12:20] Ben Thrash 

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's I don't know. That's about everything I know right now. Yeah, but. Well, if you need us, call us. My number is (501) 517-3853. 

[12:35] Nick Bateman 

Mine is (870) 456-8486. 

[12:40] Ben Thrash 

All right. Thank you very much. 

[12:43] Intro/Outro 

Arkansas Row Crops Radio is a production of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. For more information, please contact your local county extension agent or visit uaex.uada.edu