Cotton Specialists Corner
Extension Cotton Specialists and others from across the U.S. weigh in on a variety of topics that impact cotton producers, consultants, and the industry as a whole.
Cotton Specialists Corner
Cotton Jassid: What Growers Must Know
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
We trace how the cotton jassid moved from scattered detections to a widespread, fast-moving threat and share what actually stopped yield losses. We explain scouting on the top leaves, the new one-per-leaf threshold, and why missing the first spray costs you the season.
• biology, hosts and how hopperburn looks
• rapid spread patterns and storm-assisted movement
• where to scout on the plant and why leaf four matters
• thresholds shifting from five to one per leaf
• yield loss data across planting dates and regions
• first-spray urgency and recovery limits
• effective modes of action and rotation needs
• overwintering risks and alternate hosts near fields
• variety differences and early resistance prospects
• 2026 readiness: scout from day one and avoid overreacting
• finishing green to 20 percent open under late pressure
If you have questions about cotton jassid management in your area, reach out to your local Extension specialist or county agent for the latest recommendations
Welcome And Guest Introductions
SPEAKER_03But it's still the only hat that is a chew. Bill I finally made some money. It's the cotton pick and cotton grooving blue.
SPEAKER_00All right. So welcome to uh this episode of the Cotton Specialist Corner Podcast. My name is Camp Han, uh Extension Agronomist at the University of Georgia, based out of Tifton. And this episode, it's been a while since we did an episode. And this episode part may be part of the reason why, uh, because we had a lot going on uh this summer trying to figure some stuff out. And I did get some requests back in maybe July or August to do an episode on this topic, but we needed to finish the season and kind of see what we learned in 2025. We didn't want to jump into this without many answers or uh misguided information or anything like that. But uh today we're going to be discussing the cotton jazzed, uh, which was an issue in parts of the belt in 2025. Uh, some people are gonna call it the two-spotted cotton leafhopper. Hey, we're gonna call it the cotton jazzed because that was the first name that I was told. But uh we've got a good group with us today to kind of discuss all different sorts from different aspects of this. But first, uh here in Tifton with me is Dr. Philip Roberts, professor of entomology and extension specialist. Thank you, Dr. Roberts, for coming. Dr. Isaac Escavell, assistant professor, I believe, right, Isaac? Correct. At the University of Florida in Quincy. And then Dr. Sally Taylor with Cotton Incorporated. She is the entomology lead uh research director at Cotton Incorporated. Sally, thank you for joining us today. Thank you, Kim. Just real quick, this was something coming into 2025 that we were aware of, especially in Georgia and Florida, I would say, right? It was first detected in Florida last year, but we were on the lookout for it. And then a lot happened this year, and so a lot has been learned. And so I kind of want to hand it off to Isaac to give us kind of an introduction into uh the past few years with this pest for those that want a biology lesson. A little bit of a biology recap on the pest itself. So, Isaac, I'm gonna hand it off to you and I'll jump in and ask questions as as I come up with them.
What Is The Cotton Jassid
SPEAKER_02All right, sounds good. So officially the US common name is the two-spot cotton leafhopper, Amraska Bicatolla, or if we were going to call it probably throughout the podcast, is the cotton jazzed one. It's much easier to say. It's native to the Indian subcontinent, all the way east to Japan, Micronesia, and where it's a huge problem there in cotton okra eggplant systems. Um and it's sort of invading countries over the last decade or so, um, from the Ivory Coast in 2022, Cameroon 2023, uh, Puerto Rico in 2023 as well. Um, and then most recently Honduras, which was after after our Florida incident in 2025 this past uh uh summer. Now, in terms of Florida, it was first detected in 2024 through a passive uh sampling network by our Florida State Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. And it was detected in about 16 counties in the state, mainly South Florida. Um, there was one county up in the panhandle, uh Jackson County, where it was found in um traps. Um it was also found in the field in 2024, and this is late fall 2024, so probably September to November. Um they found it on okra, hollyhawk, uh cotton, hibiscus, some wire weed, black nightshade, and eggplant. Now jump forward, and they kind of stayed active in South Florida since that first detection. Um we didn't see it in cotton, and we knew where it was coming, we were looking for it. We didn't see it until uh July 3rd of 2025. I got a text with some images from a consultant who had a white fly problem talking about white flies, and there happened to be these little green nymphs on those leaves as well. So I immediately said, Send me some more pictures, went out the next day on the 4th of July, went and confirmed it that it was uh cotton jazzed. And that was Gilkirch County, Florida on July 3rd. And then within about four weeks, it had spread through Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, about 115 counties, it was found in four weeks. And then by the end of the season, it was pretty much in every cotton-growing county in the southeast and ended up being detected in Mississippi, Tennessee, North Carolina, Texas, Louisiana, and throughout the end of the season. So it ended up getting pretty far. Now, in terms of what is it, so it is a small little green leafhopper, about two millimeters in length. Um they're pale, yellowish-green wings. They look very similar to a potato leaf hopper, if anyone's seen potato leaf hopper. Um, pretty much kind of indistinguishable from potato leaf hopper, unless you look very closely. It'd say it was probably look similar to a lot of other leaf hoppers in the U.S. But one easy feature to tell it apart from other species of native um similar size is that they have two black dots on the wings and on the top of the head. Now, those spots on the top of the head are not always there, so it's not really a key key feature. But if it does have the two dots on the head and the wings, it's most likely going to be uh cotton chassis. The nymphs, on the other hand, they are pretty much indistinguishable from other nymphal species. Some nymphs, um, I say this because that might just be crazy, but you can see some black dots on the developing wing pads uh more often than not on the lar later installar nymphs, like fourth or fifth installar nymphs. Um but otherwise they would do you cannot speciate them from other species of leafhoppers. And the only way to get to confirm is either through molecular identification or dissecting uh male genitalia for species confirmation.
SPEAKER_00So uh just for reference, you know, we we talked a little bit about the the geography of Florida and kind of where it was detected in cotton and stuff like that. Really outside of the panhandle, y'all don't grow much cotton in Florida. Is that correct, Isaac? So I mean, if it was in South Florida, it was on an alternate host.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it was mainly an okra and eggplant down south.
SPEAKER_01Right. Hey, I want to touch on one thing you said, Isaac, uh talking about identification of the nymphs. You know, in cotton, I mean, I've been doing this for a few years, and and Sally, maybe you can chime in, but we just rarely see immature leafhoppers in cotton up until we saw this pest. Would you agree with that, Sally? Yes, I would. So, you know, obviously, if you have nymphs, you'll probably find adult jazz in the field. And and those are the ones that you can confirm with identification. But if you have nymphs and you see adults, we're gonna make the assumption those are immature or nymph jazz. So I think that's an important point. Oh, yeah, no, for sure. But we can see other leaf hobbers in cotton, but the only time I've ever really seen nymphs was this year when we had lots of adults. So I don't think we need to get too hung up on uh proper ID. I mean, you need to identify the adults, but these nymphs, we're gonna have to make some assumptions. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I always thought we didn't we don't really see leafhoppers until this year. I was like, oh, there's actually a lot of leafhoppers in tiny systems.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and from what I understand, it was a bad leafhopper year in general, right? Potato leaf hoppers.
Early Detections And Host Range
SPEAKER_01Well, at least at least, you know, talking with Mark Abney, our peanut entomologist here, they saw more leaf hoppers than peanuts this year. Yeah, we saw that in Florida too.
SPEAKER_00But well, and then you start hearing about some of the stuff out of Mississippi, right? You have all these plant hoppers and leafhoppers that are becoming problems in in other crops also. So, I mean, it it just seems like across the board, maybe not just in the southeast, that it was an issue that was elevated this year.
SPEAKER_01I think we may see the injury on the plant before we see the jazz. So, Ivory, I mean, Isaac, tell us a little bit about how these things damage cotton and what it looks like.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so they feed on plant, they're piercing sucking insects, they feed on fat plant tissue. And in the process of that feeding, they release uh slight salvary enzymes to help with digestion and uptake of those plant uh nutrients. And they inject, and this enzyme they inject or protein, we don't really know exactly what they inject. It's just something in the saliva that they inject causes hopper burn. Now it can range depending on what host plant it's on. Um you can see some light, some it starts off with some very light yellowing, some discoloration kind of looks like phosphate phosphorus deficiency, which is what we thought it was early on, because we didn't really haven't seen this pest before. It's brand new. We didn't know what exactly we're going to see. Um, but we learned very quickly that was the initial symptoms of uh hopper burn. So it slowly progresses from that initial yellowing. You can see some deeper yellowing in the leaf margins. E the leaves will have this upward curling effect. Um, and then the leaves start turning red. So it goes from yellow to red. Eventually the whole entire leaf can turn red, eventually desiccates defoliation.
SPEAKER_01I remember Isaac, you the first pictures you sent, I'm like, you were asking, is this jazzid damage? I'm like, that's potash deficiency. I know that's what I said.
SPEAKER_00Uh-huh. And then it's so common down here where we are. I mean, we're growing cotton and everything else on beach sand down in Georgia and Florida. You know, so potash deficiency is not uncommon for us. And so to see yellowing on a plant at the time that these jazzids came in, it I mean, it lined up with potash deficiency.
SPEAKER_01The other thing I'll say about that early symptom is uh, you know, in the southeast where people grow peanuts, they're very accustomed to seeing hoppaburn on peanuts. You have a pretty distinct yellowing on the margins of the leaf. Uh, this initial jasid damage on cotton, it it kind of diffuses towards the center of the leaf. It's not a real distinct, it and and I still don't have a better term, but it almost bleeds. The yellowing bleeds. But it does, it's like it fades from the edge. From the edge back to the real subtle thing, but um it's incredible once you see it, how you can train your eye. Yeah. And I think all of our county agents and growers and scouts, I mean, this insect was a real good teacher. I mean, it showed them. And uh, you know, one of our observations was some of these initial detections in fields and early infestations, they were on edges. And and that held up pretty much season long. Yeah. So there's opportunity there. So Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And, you know, it it's funny how how you kind of get your eye trained. I remember I got called out by somebody um here on the experiment station. They said, Hey, we think we might have them. We're not real sure. And at this point, we were kind of in the heat of it here here in Georgia. And um, I walked out into the field and spotted a leaf as soon as I got out of the truck, went and flipped it over, and boom, there they were. You know, I mean, it's a once you get used to looking for it, but that's the key for a lot of people listening that have never seen the pest or seen the damage, is that you got to know what you're looking for, and there's there's a lot of really good resources out there with respect to that now.
SPEAKER_01I think uh one other important point on the biology is these things have a very short life cycle. They can re reproduce really fast, they can go from egg to adult, the heat of the summer, in less than two weeks. Now, as temperatures cool down, that time lengthens, but yeah, they have uh really high reproductive potential. Yeah. And we'll probably talk about that a little later. Yeah. But I think while we're on the biology, we need to make that go ahead and make that point. And we'll we'll bring it back up because it's going to be important in terms of management.
Identification And Hopperburn Symptoms
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So um, real quick, uh, let's kind of talk about, you know, Isaac, you talked about the first detection, right, in the panhandle uh in 2024. So let's let's kind of start there and then move into 2025 and kind of the thought process from everybody going into 2025 and and then what happened and kind of the the reaction to 2025. So Isaac, I'll kind of start with you and then we'll discuss Dr. Roberts will discuss the the Georgia perspective and and and I mean Sally was here whenever we kind of were getting started on all this. So so you guys just kind of start with the first detect in Florida and then we'll kind of go to where we are today.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Yeah, so 2024, we didn't see you know any plant injury or anything. That was the initial detection was on those passive traps, uh, Panhandle, Jackson County. Um, I didn't really find out about it until late December of that year when our State Department put out that pest alert. Um, and we're like, oh, okay, we found it. Um so going into 2025 for our Southeastern Row Crop Enomologist Working Group, we decided, well, we need to be on the lookout for cotton chassis. And we were sampling. I mean, we were sampling uh right after emergence weekly, every other week initially, just to see if it was going to show up. Didn't see anything all season until that first week of July when we found it in Gilcrist County. We didn't even detect it yet in Quincy. So Gilcrest County, for those that don't know Florida, is I wouldn't say central Florida. It's going towards, it's just outside of Gainesville, basically. So it's not central, it's not south. It's kind of like in the middle between North Florida and Central Florida.
SPEAKER_00Um, that would be y'all's southernmost cotton.
SPEAKER_02Yes, that is the southernmost cotton in Florida around this part of the coast. And then the week after, is after we did I found that on a Friday, came back, looked in our plots on Monday, and found a couple of adults there. And then we we looked in some commercial fields in Jackson County a couple days after that, and also started finding adults in cotton there. So from that point out, I emailed all the whole group southeast. I'm like, hey, we're finding it in cotton um in Florida, we should be on the lookout or look a little harder in your states. And then sure enough, it's not not soon after that. Everyone's oh, we found it in founding in Georgia, found it in in Alabama. And Philip, I let Philip talk about it, but he wasn't finding them. I was like, Well, you have any okra, because I had a lot of people calling about okra problems, even just in their backyard. And sure enough, somebody went and looked, found them in Georgia on Okra.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so in Georgia, we found them on July 9th. It was on Okra, but first I would thank uh Sally and Cotton Incorporated to help our Southeastern working group. But we do a lot of cooperative efforts and uh just really um proud of what we do on a lot of different fronts, but uh a real good informal working group in the best kind. But we found we were actually looking more so in the southwest corner of our state. And the reason we were doing that is Isaac mentioned the capture of an adult in Jackson County. Well, Jackson County, Florida borders Georgia and Alabama. So it made sense for us to look in that area. But we found one, uh Justin mowed him, our county agent Seminole County, found him in his dad's garden on some okra plants. He mowed it down that day.
SPEAKER_00He mowed it down. So, hey, that's cultural management. I asked Justin about that the other day, and he said I didn't hit my dad didn't want all these cotton growers mad at us. That's right. He mowed all his okra.
SPEAKER_01He mowed his okra down. There was more okra in there, yeah. Guess what? But uh really with just it within just a few days, we found it in I don't know, within a it was four counties at first for us. Yeah, right. But but it happened pretty quick.
SPEAKER_02And uh Yeah, because he found it on the ninth, and we had just what we found it on the seventh. We found it in the field. So right, right just like way too fast.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And uh, you know, by September, I believe there were jazzids in every county we produce cotton in the state of Georgia. I would I mean it's it's it's it's just pretty amazing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so the thing that kind of caught my attention, and if you're okay with this, Dr. Roberts, I'd like to talk about how how they moved, right? The thing that got my attention was your efforts were directed to closer to Quincy, where Isaac is, right? Originally. Originally, and they were found there, right? Found one in Tifton, found one in Grady County, which again is down there close to Florida. Makes sense. The other one was over two hours to our east, yes, okay, in Baxley. That's right. Right. Great county agent Will Brown found it over there. He's a he's a product of the Department of Entomology here at UGA, I believe. And so he uh he found one, but then it wasn't a couple weeks later, the first commercial field in Georgia at least, I I can't speak to Florida, but it was sprayed in Applen County. That's right. Which again is two hours east of us in Tifton. So if you wouldn't mind, kind of the thing, the thing that kind of piques my interest is whenever you came up with this theory of how it moved, and and I I believe it to be true, but um, let's kind of talk about how it moved, especially across Florida, Georgia, and into the Carolinas as quickly as it did.
SPEAKER_01You know, that's one thing uh Isaac, we probably talked multiple times a week during July and August. Pretty much daily. Pretty much daily. And Sally, Sally came down, visited Florida, visited Georgia right on the front end, helped us went to Appling County and helped make a decision on that first field.
SPEAKER_00I don't it had not been sprayed yet.
SPEAKER_01I think we were making a respray decision. I can't remember. Maybe it was respray. It was a respray. Um well, anyway, it was uh interesting to me that the initial fields that were treated were two hours east, a little bit north of Tifton. And you asked me every day why Appling County.
Rapid Spread Across The Southeast
SPEAKER_00I'd never forget it. I was in, I was at a meeting with some of my colleagues, and he you called and you said Appling County is getting sprayed. And I said, why? Why it doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_01You know, and you know, the the truth of the matter is we really will never know how it got there. Right. But and Isaac, I believe Isaac believes in this, and Sally and myself and and others I'm a believer. But I believe that's even our
SPEAKER_02Kind of believes it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I believe the insect was moved moved on hurricane. Could have been Hurricane Helene. I believe it was Debbie before it was Helene. It was Debbie.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Debbie was in the first part of August. And then it was uh at the end of September last year was Helene. And that's the one that did all the damage. Yes.
SPEAKER_04We had Chantel, which was a a depression, come up and start the top of Georgia and come into North Carolina. And I wonder if that didn't just swap the wind currents. And we've got some good data out of Florida. One of um Isaac's counterparts and Jay was able to capture on fall armyworm. But when these tropical storms come in, it really takes the air of Florida and disperses it across the southeast.
SPEAKER_02I think she was finding more fall army worm captures in years with hurricanes or something. I forget what her data was. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But but it's interesting, and it would be important if we actually knew because that may help us understand future years. But but I very remember Hurricane Helene very well because I was sitting at my house with my wife, and you know, the eye of Hurricane Helene, the bull's eye, was Tifton, Georgia. But I was gonna go outside and take a picture if the eye of the hurricane came over Tifton. Well, anyway, as we went through the year, um our highest populations were south and east of the track of Hurricane Helene. And it's pretty compelling. Um but I think a lot had to do with some insects being pulled up last year in September 2024. We wouldn't have been looking for the insect after the hurricane because it was a lot of other things that people were dealing with. Yeah. And I just wonder, you know, if those few insects survived and some completed some generations. Yeah. Also, the insect moved up the eastern seaboard a lot faster than it moved west. So I think there's probably a combination of a lot of things.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I wish you could see what I'm looking at. So you will be able to see this when it gets published on Crop Protection Network. But if you look at maps from, say, August 8th to the 28th to the end of the season, you can almost see they kind of fit this pattern that goes along, kind of similar to that track of Hurricane Helene. And as Philip mentioned, they didn't spread in Alabama early on as fast as they did elsewhere. It was just it wasn't till the end of the season where it kind of took over going west into Mississippi. So just really interesting to look at the progression.
SPEAKER_01But at the end of the day, we're not gonna know. Yeah. But yeah, if we knew for sure it would give us, you know, some information on survivability of this insect over the winter.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's still possible they just all came up this spring from South Florida. We don't know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. And you know, the the reason that I bring that up is because it's interesting to look back over 2025 and how it did progress. And I mean, the way it was in East Georgia, so that fields were getting sprayed, but then over closer to us, and even in far southwest Georgia, like Seminole County, where the first detect was, it was not as severe as it was four counties over where the hurricane did skirt. Well, I can those county.
SPEAKER_01I can tell you just a little story, and and Sarah can back me up. When we had the initial detection in Seminole County, we like to do these survey loops where we just go on a route and stop by seven or eight fields, ten fields, whatever it is, and make counts. We began doing loops between Tifton and Seminole County, which is in the southwest corner. And our crew, I mean, spent a day a week literally looking for Jassins and quantifying Jassids. Because we wanted to see how fast we didn't know anything. Right. We wanted to see how fast these things would build. And we just couldn't find anything. We couldn't find anything. It was on Okra. And then East Georgia quickly made us quit doing those loops and quit doing a lot of other things because we became just focused on Jasset trying to learn. But uh, you know, there's there's some other thoughts um is that in in some of those areas, maybe there were a few more plant bug applications, but we don't spray every acre for plant bugs in Georgia. So it's it's more than just that. Right.
Storm-Assisted Movement Hypothesis
SPEAKER_00But uh it's interesting. So another, you know, looking looking back, it's kind of uh interesting. Bring up the pest alert out of Florida, and I and Dr. Roberts shared that with growers back in January at a meeting here in Tifton. But then uh it had kind of gotten to this middle of July time point, and we were fixing to have a big meeting over in East Georgia, and Dr. Roberts pulled me into his office and he said, I don't know if this is even worth talking about. You remember that, Dr. Robert? That was probably about a week before that meeting. It was a week before that meeting. I don't even know if this is worth talking about. And and I said, Well, I said, I feel like you gotta say something. Just say, hey, we found it. You know, and that's all that's all you have to say. Well, Dr. Roberts got up and in front of God and everybody, he said, I don't think this insect's gonna be a problem in 2025. And I won't ever forget it because it was about two weeks later we held a field day in the same part of the state, and he stood up in front of those growers and he said, I stood up in front of God and everybody and said this wasn't gonna be a problem in 2025, and I'm eating crow, is what he said. That's true. So, kind of from the first detect in the first part of July, where did things go from there?
SPEAKER_04Oh, can I can I say something though, real quick, Ham? Sure. I mean, Dr. Roberts is a very smart man. He is, and it's and and we're and I mean, not to brag, we're all pretty smart people, right? That's right. This is unprecedented in how we're we're we've been trained to observe invasive species invading a new habitat. So they'll come in and and they'll be in this suburban urban interface for years, right? I mean, we had Cudsley Bug for years, brown marmorated, spotted lantern fly, and homeowner reports. And we just, you know, okay, it let's see what happens. This is faster than anything we've ever seen. Yeah. And so it was really experience that taught us it shouldn't have been a problem. We could never have expected could have never predicted to be in what in year one. Right. Like it was.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah. And it I mean, it did. It went from nothing to it was everything that was being done. I mean, it was it like every time that I come, me and Dr. Roberts normally start our day off in the same place, and every time I'd get there, he was already gone. And so I mean, he was off working and doing and counting and spraying and whatever else, but it's uh it really was. It went from it there weren't any to they were everywhere, it felt like. And and so kind of well, that's kind of what Isaac described too.
SPEAKER_01Is that true, Isaac? You saw him there in Yel Chris.
SPEAKER_02I was in a similar situation as Philip. So we found him that first week, July 7th, in Quincy. We had a field day the next Monday, and I kind of said the same thing, like we just found it, don't know what it's gonna do, don't know if it's gonna be a problem yet or not. And the week after that, we're like, okay, yeah, it is a big problem. But again, it just happened so quick. It did from we initially found them to them being everywhere and in high populations. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So kind of to your first detect and moving through the rest of July and then even into for us at least, and I mean I I can't speak for Isaac, but in the end of July and in the first part of August is really where it felt like it started ramping up. And I mean, on the experiment station, it probably probably was the middle of August to the first of September, whenever it started ramping up here. It was later in Tifton. That's right. Much later. Right. And so kind of talking through, you know, working with agents and and distribution in your states, right? And then kind of the steps that were taken from the first detect until where where we are now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think let's go back and just the talk about the hopper burn first. It's like we said, we didn't really know what we were going to expect and finding those initial symptoms. But I think the important part is the how fast you can you can see that initial yellowing to where it just goes downhill quickly to be really quick. Remember, we uh I we go and look at our plots on every Friday. I like to get out of the office and go Friday afternoon and look at all the plots on the station. So from Friday to Monday, Sallyhead came down that week to go see the cotton in Gilchrist County where we initially found it on. Um, we went on Monday morning, drove around the station to look at our cotton. I drove by the trial, it wasn't my trial, and was just like, let's get out and look at this cotton. And while we stopped is because on Friday it was still green. Come back on Monday, you'd see a lot of hopperburn. That's just that that fast rate from being maybe symptoms were there to being obvious symptoms was pretty, pretty fast. Um, but yeah, so after detecting it, didn't we didn't really realize it was gonna be a problem until say end of July. We're like, okay, now when do we do we need a control? Do we need to spray anything? When do we need to spray anything? How many insects, or how what is our threshold for? Um, because we didn't really know. There's a lot of very variability in the literature. Um, thresholds go from one to five different studies in literature. So we won't we weren't really sure kind of what to do. We started shooting for initial threshold of five jazz per plant. And uh luckily I had uh we had a different trial set up with different planting dates um to look at stink bug injury. And they moved in what's the first week of July? So our early planet was already peak bloom. Uh we had a so it was April planning, first week of May planning, last week of May planting. They hadn't gotten to our last latest planting yet. So we decided, well, well, let's grab the stink bug work and turn this into initial threshold study. And the goal was to aim for threshold of five jazzes per leaf. We were barely getting to we weren't even at two. We were just maybe about 1.7 average, if we wanted to get real like precise. And I was already seeing leaves starting to turn yellow. So we were just like, well, let's lower it to two per leaf now. So I went ahead and sprayed that trial just because I think that's where we're gonna seeing earlier Planet Cotton go downhill within three days at that initial symptoms. Like, okay, let's go ahead and spray. And Philip can kind of agree there. Actually, call it Philip to decide she'll be spraying. He's like, Yeah, go ahead and spray.
Scouting Leaves And Canopy Zones
SPEAKER_01Well, actually, we were on five, and when Sally that same time she was visiting you, by the time me and Sally got back to Tifton from going to East Georgia, we were at three. So, really, the first number we put out to our growers was three. And then very soon after Isaac had the trial and we went to two. We're pretty much sitting on one now, just to fast forward.
SPEAKER_02One it was one with injury, and now it's like one or visible injury. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Now, if you looked at Scott's slides that he made it out of Auburn, it took one month for us to go from five to one.
SPEAKER_00Well, it was amazing to me, and kind of again being just kind of seeing it on the outside, because of course I'm not an entomologist, right? But whenever Sally came and you know, talking about white flies, right? The number five works for that, you know, and so that was kind of leaf number five. Leaf number, well, leaf number five, yeah, that's right. And so you you start looking at some stuff like that. Yeah, the number five, yeah, that's right. So you start looking at that, and it's like, okay, well, maybe this is gonna be similar. Five is a good number. The the literature says this one to five number. And I mean, I I remember whenever y'all got back from Baxley and and Phil was like, we're at three. And then it was like, okay, well, we're at two. And then it was about that time that stuff started picking up on the experiment station for us. But yeah, the the one to two number, I totally agree with. I mean, as I like the one number myself, but it it was incredible, even just within a day, right? To back it from five to three and then to two in the same time, Isaac, just based on you know, those observations that are being made because we had never seen it before. And so walking through some of that now, now, Isaac, I do want to ask a little more directed question towards where were you finding them in the plant canopy? Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02So just going, we the problem, even going back to just starting to look for them, everyone's like, well, sweet nets don't work, sticky traps don't work. I was only finding them sweet netting, I couldn't find them in the plant. So I would sweep maybe 10 to 20 sweeps, find a couple. And if I went to go look for them in the plants, I wasn't finding them. Um, but I think as the population's built, they were a little easier to find. And we kind of observed they were maybe in the top five nodes of the plant from the terminal. Um, because we did some whole plant counts just a couple times. And they did about, I would say about 70% of the adults and nymphs we found were on, say, the middle portion of the canopy and up. And I think Philip has some better observations on that as well. Well, clearly about from the fifth node and up. Yeah. From the terminal.
Thresholds Evolve From Five To One
SPEAKER_01One of the things we did, and and Isaac was based on our conversations. You know, you said you were fine on them in the top of the plant, but we standardized with all our county agents and you know, in the state of Georgia to look at a certain leaf. And it's like Isaac said, we we actually counted jazzs on the top five main stem leaves. And I mentioned leaf five earlier, that's the one we sample for white flies. It'd be nice to sample the same leaf. And we probably can. We got to learn a little more, but the most jazz we found in the top of the plant were on leaf number four. The second most on leaf number three, the third most on leaf number five. So it just makes sense to focus on that part of the plant. And for sure, you know, we could detect populations if injury was occurring. So we, you know, we're probably close to a good way to scout for them. But I thought it was very important and uh that we get everybody on the same page. You know, if you get a phone call and say, man, I got a lot of jazzids out here, what do I need to do? Well, I don't know. What's a lot? Yeah. A lot to me and a lot to you are two different things. But if we're looking at the same leaf, you know, we have some commonality in trying to communicate and make a recommendation. So that's where we settled. And that may not be right, but you know, it got us through the year. And uh same thing with the symptoms of injury, I think it's very important. Isaac put together a nice little rating scale showing different uh symptomology from the early hopperburn and yellowing to the reddening. But you know, it's important that when someone is describing injury to you, they understand what or how hopperburn is defined. It may look like potash deficiency, but if there's jazz on it, it's probably jazzed injury. The reddening. Is it phosphorus or is it jazzed? I think it's probably jazzed, you know. So I think it's important as we get to these other parts of the country who are going to deal with this for the first time, perhaps, is that people need to be on a similar page so you can communicate. Again, I thought it helped us in Georgia. Whether everything was perfectly optimal, who knows? Yeah, but but it allowed us to survive, so to speak. Right. And make better decisions. I mean, it's better to be talking the same lingo than not being able to communicate at all.
SPEAKER_00Right. Right. So kind of moving from, you know, we we saw it in 2025. It did cover a broad range of geography, especially in the southeast, but it did move uh across the belt. Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, up to the North Carolina, Virginia line, and also Tennessee are the states that have had uh detection of the cotton jazz it. And so really, I think one of the most important things from this episode is what did we learn this year in the Southeast? And I think we've already talked about a lot of that. I think a threshold has been refined, one per leaf, right? Does it matter if it's adults or nymphs?
SPEAKER_02I would say nymphs are gonna be more important, but I would think that's including adults and nymphs.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So one per leaf, adults or nymphs. We've learned a lot about the reproductive capabilities of this pest. We learned where to look for it in the top of the plant. Probably the fourth leaf might be the best place to do it. You know, you learn in with it when there's an invasive pest, you look the first thing you learn is can you kill it? The second thing you learn is does it matter? And the third thing is when does it matter? And so would you all like to discuss, did we learn those things in 2025?
SPEAKER_01I'll just start with number one, how to kill it, how to control it. We can control this insect, we can kill it. You know, a lot of times we is as I reflected back, Sarah. I mean, the first day we went to make collections of jazzids, we spent hours, hours trying to get enough to do a bioassay in the lab. Hours. Then we had to go do it again because we had so many spiders. We were using sweep nets and we it was just spiders, it was a mess. But but we spent hours between myself, Isaac, and Scott Graham at Auburn. You know, we probably did a dozen trials, field trials, just looking at efficacy. And we identified products with activity. Uh we have what I would call some products that are kind of top-tier products, then we have some that are mid-range products, still have utility. You know, it's important that we understand kind of the entire spectrum of some insecticides that we may use for aphids or plant bugs or whatever, you know, what's it do to a jazz? Because this is going to be a pest. That's gonna be in our mind every time we make a decision. I mean it's gonna have to be. And uh that was probably the easiest question to answer. Yeah. And the second question was does it matter? And that Question is easy to it does. Yeah. I mean, we've got trial data here in Georgia. Isaac's got some real good data in Florida. It does matter.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Agreed, Isaac? Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02You don't want to see the picture this late.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I saw that picture on the internet and I wasn't a real big fan of that. But what we're talking about, does it matter? Does it reduce yield? Yes. And that's the that's the more important question, right? And we know it can reduce yield.
SPEAKER_01That's right. And that's the important question. So we know it's a pest we have to manage. Now, threshold, you know, that's going to take a little while to tease that out. But again, we have to have something. And we are where we are. We probably started out, you know, not wanting to treat, and then we just got more and more aggressive. Have we gotten too aggressive? I don't know. You know, it would just take more than a year's worth of data to really dial that in and refine it where it needs to be. Right. Isaac Isaac had a trial this year, though, and and I'm real excited about the data you got, Isaac.
SPEAKER_00I mean, the pictures, that the pictures were crazy. Like, I mean, it was. It was unreal. I mean, he clearly showed you have to manage this best.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I think like my data, I think it's an extreme case, or at least the pressure I had was it rather extreme. 90%? Yeah, pretty much 90% yield loss in our untreated controls.
SPEAKER_00The other question, and I think this may go into the threshold conversation potentially, is when does it come in? And how aggressive do you need to be? Right. So I mean, if it comes in before the cotton's blooming, right? What are we going to do? If it comes in and we're going over the field for plant bugs or stink bugs or something else, right? What do we do then? Versus we're nearing the end of the season. Do we need to make another trip? Kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. When it comes in, it's going to be so important. So Isaac, you had severe loss on your late May planted cotton. But you really your your losses weren't as great in your uh April planted or early May planted cotton. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_02Correct. Yeah. So we talk about the planting date study. So we got yield from all three dates. Now they moved in right at peak bloom of that early planting. Didn't really seem like jazzes had an effect in terms of yield there.
SPEAKER_00Did you treat for stink bugs or jazzes in the early thing?
Does It Reduce Yield And How Much
SPEAKER_02We treated for stink bugs in the early planting. Okay. We didn't treat for jazzes in the early planting. And we only did one treatment was for pyrethroid spray and stink bug. So we only really had one plot that was treated in that trial. And separating out between, say, untreated control treated in the early planning, there was no difference at all. Now there's a difference from the early planning as a whole to the middle planning by about uh a thousand pounds difference in yield as a whole. And now if you broke that up by untreated and treated, again, there was a slighter significance from the untreated in the middle planning date compared to the treated, but it wasn't as big as that 90% in the late planning planted cotton. Now, in terms of the late and middle planted cotton, yield as a whole, maybe a hundred-pound difference between the two planting dates. But the 90% in that untreated control compared to the treated in that late planting date was the biggest difference. So it isn't gonna be like when do they come in?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and you know, we talk a lot about later planted cotton around here just because it it's the nature of of where we are, we have the length of the season, some of it gets planted at the end of May or the first part of June, right? But that's where you can't spare it, you can't miss on something. No hiccup. No hiccup. No mistakes. I mean, and that that would be a mistake, right? Because you don't have time to make up for it. On an early May plant, if you have a hiccup in the middle of the season, you still have time to make up for some of that.
SPEAKER_01Or some mistakes, and I'm still not sure we can make up for a mistake on this insect.
SPEAKER_00Why don't you talk about that? You can't miss your first spray with them.
SPEAKER_01I mean, yeah, it's been it's it's been interesting. Um, so in Georgia, I think we have about eight data points now. Our average yield loss was 19%. And we've ranged from as little as a 1% loss up to a 46% loss. So there's a big range there. But interestingly, uh, we did a lot of work on farm. And I don't necessarily have a lot of true untreated. You know, these farmers were gracious enough to let us work on their place. And they understood the importance of the data. But like James Clark, I mean, he's sitting on go. Like when we get out of the field, here comes the sprayer. They're overspraying everything we had left untreated. Yeah. Which was good to know. But we didn't recover from that mistake of missing that spray. Missing the first. Missing the first one. Yeah. I mean, if the field is red, I'm not sure we get that second chance. I don't care when it's planted. Yeah. And uh, you know, cotton can be forgiving, especially in the south where we can compensate.
SPEAKER_00It's odd to say cotton is plastic. Yeah, but it is. Yeah. Right. It's it it's got give.
SPEAKER_01It's got give, but you know, we're gonna have to be on top of this. Yeah. And uh you know, I I just don't know how quick we can recover. You know, I'm sure cotton can recover, but you can't lose a month in maturity if it it and I don't know that that it would recover in a month, but if that were the case, you can't that's too big a penalty.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and you know, we're talking about these colors and and it changing colors, and and what I'll do is I'll include links in the in the podcast with some of the documents that have been passed around by everybody. But one thing that kind of got my attention was our our cotton physiologist here at Georgia got interested in this, and he took some measurements on photosynthetic rates of these leaves that were showing symptoms and kind of the the ability of them of those leaves to conduct photosynthesis, basically. And so your green leaves are running 100% wide open, and then the stuff that's starting to show hopper burn is 80%, and then as it progresses to more yellow, it's 50%, and then as that stuff turns red, it's at 20% of what it should be doing in terms of photosynthetic rates. And so what does that mean is that it's probably if it can recover, which I'm not sure it can, it's gonna take a long time because those those leaves are extremely inefficient. I don't think the leaf, individual leaf's gonna recover.
SPEAKER_01Right. Any recovery would be new growth. New growth, right? Or growth wasn't hadn't that hasn't started turning that yellow and red. I don't think you've stopped that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's a plant the plan is reacting to a toxin, and we don't understand that completely.
SPEAKER_00Right. Okay, so what are some of the concerns for 2026? We've talked a lot about this pest, what we've seen, what we've learned in 2025. So, what what are you guys concerned about here? Um, what are we concerned about in other parts of the belt? And even Sally, um, I know you've been doing a lot of international uh work with some of these folks that have been dealing with it for a long time, and some of the folks that um are starting to deal with it a little bit, but what are we uh what are we doing in 2026? What are we concerned about and and what do people need to be looking for?
SPEAKER_02Before we get into too details, I think we need to hope that we see it come in the same time this year because everything we learned this season has been under the assumption that it came in that first week of July. So what how will it come in next year is gonna be a completely different story.
Timing, Planting Date, And Losses
SPEAKER_04And you know, we haven't mentioned this yet. Um, our colleague Jeremy Green at Clemson did a good amount of work as well. And they had probably the least amount of pressure and the latest arrival, and they still had about a 15% yield hit spray in one time in August. So we we think it will matter, even in those kind of best case scenarios, is this this will be a late season pest that we have to scout and manage. It's unlikely not to matter. So even in our best case scenario, I I think everyone needs to look for it next year.
SPEAKER_00So I think everybody here in the in the room and on the on Zoom are of agreement that it's here. I mean, it's not going away. And if you found it in your county in last year, right, in 2025, uh you need to be on alert for this thing. You need to be looking and scouting, and I think that that's one of the biggest things that we learned was that you have got to be looking. And so there's if you're used to having it, uh what do you say, Dr. Roberts? If you're used to being on Easy Street with insects, which we have been for a long time, you're gonna have to look.
SPEAKER_01Well, I believe anyone from Texas East should be looking for this insect from day one. Now I'll say that.
SPEAKER_04According to the USDA, it should establish everywhere cotton is grown in the U.S.
SPEAKER_01So there you go. Yep. Actually anywhere in the U.S., but we know it's at least to the eastern side of Texas and South Texas. So I think you look for it from day one. And I don't, you know, and again, it's this insect's gonna show you when it gets there. Because you're gonna see the entry. The injury's gonna be on the edge. Well, that's how it was in 25. We'll see what it looks like in 26. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody needs to look, period. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I mean, that's you know, we we listed off a bunch of states there, but I mean, Texas, the mid-south, and the southeast, and the Carolinas and Virginia, like those are the people that really need to be looking for this thing. And I mean, of course, we're definitely concerned about it moving further west, but it hadn't been detected there yet. You know, kind of talking through um other concerns for 2026. Of course, we talked about, you know, when it comes in, right? Some of the other things that we're working on or trying to learn, right, is how it survives the winter. Okay, what it survives the winter on. And I'm sure that you guys have great intentions on answering those questions, right?
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, that's the plan. That's the question. Like every kind of county that it's in now, is it gonna stay there? Is it gonna survive the winter? And if so, what is it gonna survive on?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, because they are pretty polyphigous. Um, they kind of feed on over 25 different plant species across 15 different plant families. Now, they do have preferences for things like cotton okra eggplant, um, but they can also be on a lot of wild weeds. We've seen them on a bunch of different wild hype wild hibiscus, even ornamental hibiscus that's in the southeast in our landscape. So it's just gonna be a question of are they gonna survive the winter or not?
SPEAKER_00I saw them in sunflowers this past year.
SPEAKER_04Took uh economic test of sunflower.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they're in my backyard on some need of uh hibiscus as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So there was a grower we were visiting with this week, told us he had hibiscus planted around his house. He burned them all. He did. He started seeing it and he said nope. He said, We ain't having this. He kept two. He kept two in the pot. And he said wanted them by the pool. Yes. But he said they're getting eat up. He burned them. So it uh I mean, this thing is for real. And and I mean, I'll tell you from my experience, I'd spent a lot of time. Really, me and Dr. Roberts grow a lot of cotton together here on the experiment station. So this summer was tough on both of us for a few reasons. But number one, uh, or number one sprayer man took another job, and then this pest took off. And so uh Dr. Roberts was on the road doing all of his stuff, and then I was here on the home front trying to keep things going, and then they came into our plots, and so it was I mean, you'll know, like they're on your sprayer, they're everywhere. I've got pictures of them crawling all over an old 6700, and when you cut the key off, they come off the grates and it's like a cloud surrounding you. I mean, it's if they're bad, you know, on a red sprayer, they may show up a little bit better. So um, you know, that those are the kind of things that we saw. And I mean, I sprayed every farm in Tifton for for this pest at least once, and some of them got it twice. And so it uh it is something to be concerned about, I think. But Sally, you were on the program for the international cotton meeting back in October. Is that right? Yes. And so what was what was the discussion with that panel like and and kind of what the what the international cotton community is gonna be doing?
SPEAKER_04Unfortunately, elections in Tanzania and civil unrest caused us to postpone that meeting. Okay. We've been working closely with um the International Cotton Advisory Council, their lead scientist, and his wife are from India, enormously experienced, intelligent, just very, very smart, capable people, and they've been a great resource to us. Um and I and I think a lot of our colleagues in in India and Pakistan are are more than willing to help, are excited to help. And that's the great thing about the scientific community. Africa, West Africa, um, they're a couple years ahead of us in some countries where they they had this explosion in 2022 and 2023, and it's been catastrophic. It's been just economically devastating to some of their cotton industries. So we can learn and we can help each other. Um Cotton Incorporated does not support global efforts. This is one of those situations where I think everything that that each country can do can do it with the knowledge of each other and and get these learnings, you know, and experience from each other. So I'm I'm grateful that we have those colleagues.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um, but the but the effort itself hasn't gotten off the ground.
Missing The First Spray Costs You
SPEAKER_00So, and you know, one of the things that I know y'all have done is met with some of those folks in in India and Pakistan. And it's just like uh knowing how they deal with it, right? Knowing what they have to do. And so, you know, one thing that I do want to point out is that cotton production varies globally, right? And so what some people do, how they manage it in Indian Pakistan, it may not be a hundred percent relevant to how we're gonna have to deal with it, but at the end of the day, we can still learn from how they handle things, right? And so it's uh it's gonna look different here than it is there or anywhere else.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and I think one of the reasons, Camp, that we underestimated this, or at least I did, is I had a poor understanding of the host plant resistance that they rely on in these countries where this pest is native. So every seed they put in the ground has resistance to chacid feeding or overposition or preference, just a variety of different mechanisms to protect it from the time that plant is growing.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_04And then everything else they do management-wise is after that. And and so to me, that masked how important this pest was because we weren't seeing that first line of defense. Right.
SPEAKER_00Real quick, can we talk about ver varieties and and kind of how they do overcome that? Does somebody want to address that real quick?
SPEAKER_04Well, I will say, just to plug our our breeding program at Cotton Incorporated and and the people that my counterpart Don Jones funds is how enormously helpful they were when your research stations were overtaken in South Carolina, in Georgia, and in Alabama, how many breeders were like, we're not going to spray. And I think what's deterred companies from looking towards resistance for this is they assume it's it's gonna all be based on a leaf hairiness. So the hairier the leaf, the less the insect likes it, and that's counter what a white fly would prefer. So, you know, you're favoring one pest over the other, maybe you're trading off. But what we saw at Clemson is is there was a real difference in smooth versus semi-smooth commercial cultivars. So that gives me hope that you know, there are decisions that we can make in the winter that may ease the pressure off, you know, insecticide sprays and these these costly interventions in season if we can just plant a different seed, and this is a high-yielding seed that we would have maybe chosen anyway. Right, we're not talking about the hairy cotton, we're talking smooth versus semi-smooth, right? It's like a simple decision. So I I think there's hope, and and these breeders have all kicked off projects going into next year, so we're we're gonna find out more and more as we go. And I'm excited for that. And I think just the response from our researchers has been tremendous, and I'm I'm really grateful for everyone that Cotton Eat works with.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and um so the the the hairier the cotton, the less likely that jasids will be there. But whenever we're talking about hairy cottons in other parts of the world, we're talking about hairy. We're not talking about a smooth versus a semi-smooth with a few hairs, right? We're talking about extremely hairy. And so not just from the white fly perspective, but then you run into issues defoliation, leaf grades, things like that start to change. And that's something that we really don't need to get into. But you're right in that the semi-smooth decision, especially in places where white flies are not an issue, and if you've got a variety that's doing really good, hey, that'd be something I'd look at. You know, if I was a grower somewhere else, right? And that's not to say that just because you plant a semi smooth variety that you're not gonna have to spray them. Either, you know. Right.
SPEAKER_04And so it's uh And right now we're talking about preference. So it the animal had to move four rows over or sixteen feet to get a a cotton it maybe liked better. And we just don't know what the whole field response will be.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But I I think there's reason to be opp optimistic.
Insecticides, Rotation, And Costs
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think one of the biggest take homes from this, and something that Sally brought up just a second ago, is it does seem like once we got into the heat of this battle, especially in in the places this year where we really dealt with it, I think people started walking away from projects. And it was like, hey, we see how serious this issue is, and we're gonna dedicate resources to this thing. Right. And so there's a lot of uh people that I know at the University of Georgia, I mean, there are people on the cotton team here that understand the seriousness of this pest and know that, hey, we got to get this issue rectified for the industry. You know, and you started talking about some of the impacts on the entire industry in countries that were infested with it three years ago, right, in Africa. And I mean, that's that's somewhere that we don't want to be. You know, we we want to be on the front end of this and and figuring out, hey, what do we need to do to kind of make sure? And and I think that a lot of the extension folks and researchers across the belt understand that and have that sentiment of, hey, we're gonna we're gonna dedicate our time and resources to this thing because we know that it is serious. And that's not to try to scare people or anything like that, but really at the end of the day, if you hadn't fought this pest, then you just need to be aware of it. I mean, really, is all it comes down to and knowing where it is right now is a good start, and then moving forward into 2026, we can be a little better prepared because of what happened in this part of the world in uh 2025.
SPEAKER_01One thing I'd like to add, uh Kemp is for people who've really not dealt with this, I mean, we kind of touched on it in several points, but it happened so fast. And I think we really need to emphasize that to folks. I mean, once we would see these things in a field, I mean, I personally witnessed cotton that was green and in two weeks it was red. It happened so fast. I mean, it's important to to detect this thing, but it's gonna be important to react. I mean, I really believe you you do not want to miss this, but it can happen so fast. Jacob Kalina down in Brooks County, one of our agents, he uh I remember him calling me on a Monday, and he told me he had kind of like Isaac last to ride around and just look at cotton, but Jacob had been riding around looking at cotton on a Friday. And he called me Monday and he's like, Oh my gosh. You know, the fields in the county just started turning red. But it can happen so fast. And, you know, if you see these things, they flip a generation in two weeks. All right. It doesn't take, you know, they're re I mean, they can go from not much to something serious really quick. And one of the things, just talking about how quick they flip a generation. I'm sure all the entomologists across the U.S. are going to be sending out updates on this pest if you have them. But we really need to be aware of rotating insecticides if at all possible. You know, you have a life cycle of two weeks. We need to be putting different AIs out every two weeks. You know, we didn't talk a lot about that in 2025 in the state of Georgia. We were in survival mode. We had products that were effective, and we used a certain product a lot. We can't use that every time. So don't underestimate how quick this piss can can impact a cotton crop.
SPEAKER_04Um about the insecticide rotation, we're we're too gonna have to coordinate across industries. So if we've got nurseries spraying for this, if we've got vegetable producers spraying for this, especially where somewhere like Isaac is. Yeah, sort of. And we've all we're all using the same AIs, maybe different formulations. Um, but we're gonna have to think about this from uh, you know, cotton with other groups acting irresponsibly.
SPEAKER_01You know, that that's a thing. You know, we identified several active ingredients that are effective. Now for a cotton farmer, a lot of those products are white fly products. People in Georgia know what I'm talking about. But what that means is we're talking some fairly dollars and cents. Dollars, dollars, more dollars than cents. Yeah. So we we've gotta be smart and we gotta try to be proactive and think about this, not only as a cotton industry, but as Sally said, you know, across all the cultural community, the whole community. So how quick it can happen. Um I mean, we advise growers in the state of Georgia to spray until cotton was 20% open. Why'd we do that, Kent? We talked about it a lot about it because we knew the field could turn red in two weeks. And if we had a green field at 20% open, we thought we'd mature that crack. We could get it too. Maybe we were too aggressive. I mean, there's so many questions that have to be answered. And and we've got one year under our belt. We're we're gonna figure out that we did some things wrong, I'm sure. Oh yeah. And we'll probably figure out we did some things right, but but we've got to sort through that. But the main thing here is make sure you're in touch, you know, with your university, your county agent, and just be up to date because this thing can change very, very rapidly.
SPEAKER_00And that was one thing that was kind of drilled in in my head and our county agents and and stuff like that. I mean, I would still consider the situation with cotton jazz it across the cotton belt fluid.
SPEAKER_01Yes. I know every time we did a podcast, we do our little talking cotton every other week. We never really got specific on recommendations because as Sally and Isaac, if you've heard them both say, our recommendations were changing weekly, and that may continue to happen. So make sure you're you know getting your local information because what's happening in Texas is gonna be drastically different than what's happening in Georgia or Florida or Virginia.
Overwintering And Alternate Hosts
SPEAKER_02Well, that we can't assume that it is just gonna be a late season test that just happened to be when they showed up this year. They might show up a couple weeks after planting next year, pre-square. Um, so we just don't know when they'll come in and we'll learn as they view. But in order to get ahead this year and try to answer some of those questions, what happens if it does come in at seedling cotton? I think we all planted cotton in September, mid, early, late September.
SPEAKER_01Why not plant in cotton? We planted some the end of August. August 28th. August 28th.
SPEAKER_02And my seedlings died in about four weeks, but I had no treatment. It was just going to be straight black seed versus insecticide treatment.
SPEAKER_00Um, and to keep to keep that in let's keep them. Yeah, just as a reference, we planted that cotton, and I mean, it was in the heat of it. The heat of it. I mean, it was. And so we were all just kind of trying to figure out which way was up, I think, at the end of August and the first part of September. And it was just like, okay, we just need to put something out here. And so, just in an attempt to try to be a little proactive because those kind of questions might come. Well, I think what we did learn, again, there were a lot of jasids in the environment. It was the highest population that there was. Yes. When that cotton came up, they wasn't getting no higher.
SPEAKER_01We learned that they can infest seedling cotton. We learned if they do, and they're at high populations, you need to intervene with an insecticide. Or we intervening with insecticide, even on the seedling cotton out here, we can protect the cotton. All right. And uh, I was very aggressive in protecting the cotton, but it wasn't perfect, but it was green and growing. Yep. And uh so we like to learn uh of when it comes in. And it's it's amazing. I had a lot of questions about this, and one of the things I try to preface is that hey, we were dealing with unusually high populations. And I I drew the correlation with the chairman of the cotton commission. And uh I said, you know, the Jasses got on the seedling cotton, but the white flies did too. And he's like, Well, I've never seen white flies on seedling cotton. Well, that's because their population is not very high in the spring. So I like to use that analogy, and I think there's a lot of similarities between this insect and white flies. They're both gonna, I think, survive the winter in a similar manner. They just kind of sustain populations wherever. I do believe know that they're both sensitive to cold temperatures. At least they slow their reproduction capacity and development times are slowed way down. It is December. We can still find live chassis. I'm not surprised. But uh we'll just have to take it one at one day at the time. But you need to be looking for these things from day one, period. Nothing's changed.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That's the biggest thing with this this pest, and I mean, it's just looking your eyes on it.
SPEAKER_01Well, the symptoms on the plants looked a little different. We didn't initially turn yellow on these little seedlings. We had a little necrosis on the outer margins of the leaf. So bottom line, if you see some seedlings looking not quite right, yeah, I mean, you just need to look for jazz it's yeah. Easy peasy.
SPEAKER_00And you know, one thing go ahead, Sally.
SPEAKER_04Oh, sorry, Camp. I was gonna say, and and we're gonna need to look at cotton during a time where we're accustomed to not having to. You know, like we make it through thrips, right? And and we put on like, okay, we got six leaves, we're not gonna worry about thrips, and we might not really scout for an insect again in until we have fruit. Right? And until you have those flower buds and to protect. But now I I think that that that month of June you need to be walking your fields if you're not.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And especially in low I mean, what what concerns me the most about Texas is I don't want people to overreact, but I want them to look at it.
SPEAKER_00And that's the that's what I was getting at, Sally, was there are places in the belt where this insect is now that people are not used to dealing with insects. I mean, let's just call it what it is, right?
SPEAKER_04And that's great. I mean, that's what that's a win. I mean, I think that's what's so heartbreaking to the older people like me and Philip. Yes, I called me and Philip old. But like I think doesn't remember seeing all these planes in the air in a time where we used a lot of insecticides and we've gotten away from that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And and then that's really to me was so heartbreaking is is is taking away our victory, like the victory of our lifetime, right? Right. Is to get to these low spray environments. So I don't want to ruin that. I don't want to just like toss it out. Right. But just be vigilant.
Variety Traits And Resistance Hopes
SPEAKER_00And the the biggest thing to me, and one thing that I tried to stress to our guys, and and I know Dr. Roberts did too, was just because cotton's yellow doesn't mean that it's infested with acids. It doesn't mean you need to go spray an insecticide just because the cotton's turning yellow. It may need potash, it may have nematodes. It could, I mean, it could be running out of nitrogen or sulfur, Isaac. I mean, on beach sand, there's no telling, right? But the biggest thing with this pest is don't overreact, which is what Sally's talking about. And what I'm saying is that just because cotton's turning yellow does not mean we need to go spray something. Right? We got to get out there and look, confirm that they're there, and then we'll make a decision. Okay. So that's that's kind of the the big thing for me, kind of looking west.
SPEAKER_01Well, I want to kind of finish this up a little bit too on this topic. I mean, we're talking about, hey, this kind of bad, bad, bad. Well, our growers in the state of Georgia handled it. I mean, we have a really good cotton crop this year. Yeah. And it came in late. Um if it comes in late again next year, we can handle it. We didn't necessarily add trips. We changed up what we sprayed a little bit. Uh we had a, you know, a portion of our acres with three applications, a significant number with two. But we handled it with with you know minimal yield loss. Yeah. I mean, we had some yield loss, yeah. But you just gotta do it right. You can't miss it. You better be looking because it can be devastating. Just be on top of it. Yeah. Cotton responds to management. I learned that from a cotton agronomist when I first started working a few years ago camp. His name was Paula Shelby. Cotton responds to management. And that's true in so many different ways. This instead, you don't manage cotton, you got a problem. But we handled it.
SPEAKER_00We handled it, and there's uh certainly more to learn. As I mentioned, there was a lot learned in 2025, and credit goes to the entomologists in the southeast, especially. They were the ones that kind of dealt with it from Virginia down to the Carolinas and over into Alabama and Florida. You know, I mean, a lot of credit goes to those guys for doing as much work as they did. And and of course, credit to Cotton Incorporated for kind of diverting some funds that direction, right? And kind of making sure it's a priority. And I think the biggest goal of this podcast, number one, is to talk about, hey, these are grower dollars that are being invested into this. Let's talk about it. But then two, kind of letting people west of us know that, hey, you you're you may have to deal with this in 2026. And here's kind of some of the things that we saw. Um, of course, information, state lines and all that don't exist with information, right? So, I mean, everybody's sharing information, everybody knows um what we learned this year in the southeast in 2025. And so if you have questions about this, reach out to your local uh extension specialist, extension agent uh in the state that you live in, because if they don't have the information, they can get it. Uh, and I know where they can get it, they can get it from uh some of the folks that are here in this room. But if there's not anything else, um I certainly do want to thank uh Dr. Philip Roberts, Dr. Isaac Escavelle, and Dr. Sally Taylor for joining us. And uh thank you to Cotton Incorporated for the sponsorship of this effort, and we will see y'all next time.
2026 Concerns And Scouting From Day One
SPEAKER_03Well, you take all my money, you take all my pride, you take up all my time, and then you take people a ride again, I'm digging out big and blue and blue like a live but it's still the only life that is a shoe. Well the funny made the money is the cotton pig and cotton grooving looted.