Timely Scouting And Defoliation Keep Pests From Snowballing

A rain map can lie to you. One farm gets 2.7 inches with standing water, another a mile away stays dry, and suddenly your irrigation plan, insect pressure, and spray plans all change. We’re coming to you from a busy stretch of the Georgia cotton season with a fresh look at fields around the Plains Experiment Station and an honest check on where the crop sits statewide. 

We walk through the latest crop progress numbers, what we’re seeing in fruit retention, and why an “average” crop can still jump to above average fast if the right rains land in the right places. Then we dig into irrigation scheduling reality: sensors that trigger day after day, shallow refills that never rebuild deep moisture, and why supplemental pivots can struggle when the profile is already drained. We also unpack drought monitor questions and water balance, because a dry spring can haunt you even after a wetter July. 

From pest management to late-season decisions, the message stays the same: scout and stay timely. Plant bugs have been lighter, stink bugs stay a regular part of producing cotton in Georgia, and whiteflies are building where we expect them and showing up in fringe areas too. We share how to think about chemistry choices so you do not make whiteflies worse, plus a clear update on cotton jassids in 2026, what hopperburn and leaf puckering look like, and how quickly populations can grow in hot, dry weather. We also explain why timely defoliation matters not just for cotton, but for reducing pest carryover and protecting nearby vegetables. 

You’ll also meet our new research entomologist, Dr. Alana Jacobson, and hear what questions she’s excited to tackle with emerging pests and extension-driven research. If this helped, subscribe on your favorite podcast app, share it with a grower or consultant, and leave a quick review so more people can find practical cotton production and scouting guidance.

Transcript

Welcome And Season Timing

SPEAKER_02 0:08

Bringing you all things cotton production and pest management. This is the Talking Cotton Podcast with the University of Georgia cotton team. Let's get into the whys of putting on, throwing off, and cutting out. So today is August the 5th, 2026. We're recording this afternoon. Normally record in the mornings, but we had a field day over there at the Plains Experiment Station. And uh man, the cotton looked good over there. Hey, the cotton looked great. So we uh good looking over in that part of the state, man. It's uh it's a really, really good crop over there. We're excited about that. It's it's you know, we'll get into all that. We need to pick it, but yeah, yeah, we got a long way to go. So hey, we got a good crowd this afternoon. Sarah, so hey Sarah.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Hey Camp, how are you?

SPEAKER_02 0:59

I'm good. How about you? I'm great, great, Wes? Doing good, doing good. Good. Hey, we have a new guest with us, first time on the podcast. But hey, she's here for a long time. That's right. Dr. Alana, Dr. Alana Jacobson, how are you doing? I'm doing well, good to be here. Good, good. She's uh gonna be our new research entomologist. So so maybe Dr. Roberts will get to deer hunt a little bit this fall. Let's hope so. How about that? That's right. Dr. Robert, you good? I'm great. Great, great.

Crop Progress And Early Opening

SPEAKER_02 1:29

Uh just a little update on the crop progress report. Uh it's got us at 96% squaring. I think we drove by some cotton today that maybe wasn't quite there. Wasn't quite there. But uh that's at some of that 4%. Yeah, that's right. We've seen a little bit of that 4% over the last two weeks. 63% set in bowls this week, which is a little bit closer to on track than we were a couple weeks ago. Uh we're still 3% behind there, but I think we're catching up pretty good. And then Dodd Roberts, 1% opening. I believe it. It's game on now. Yeah. Some of that early April planted stuff started opening that we planted in April this week. And so, and then of course the stuff you planted in March, what 15 days. 15 days. What I said. So I sent Dodd Roberts. I was ready to pull the trigger on some cotton this week. And and Dodd Roberts told me I was too early, so I went out and checked it. And I was, I was too early. It said 17.1 days when I did my math. And so I sent him a calendar invite for 2 a.m. on August the 20th to defoliate some cotton. We'll see if that happens. 2 a.m. be a tenth of a day. So we're gonna we're gonna defoliate some cotton on August the 20th. I won't be here. So, Dr.

Plains Field Day Crop Takeaways

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Robert, you have a big time at 2 o'clock in the morning. Yes. So um, all right, so we were in plains today, man. The crop over there looked really good. I think I think there's a few reasons for that. You know, not number one, that soil holds water a little bit better west than probably some of our other fields, but man, Dr. Roberts, one thing we saw last year that we didn't see this year at the field day was that um they were missing some fruit in the bottom a year ago. And this year they're not. Looks really good.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

And uh plant bugs were an issue for them last year. And uh they've handled it this year. Population's lower, but but it's a great looking crop.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Right. So a lot of a lot of good cotton over there. Of course, you know, I spoke at the field day and it was pointed out to me afterwards that I I gave an overall state preview of the crop, but in that part of the state where we were today, it looks really good. Right. Overall, statewide, probably an average crop, I'd say. It's pretty dry still in pockets over in East Georgia. You know, fortunately we have gotten some rain across the state over the weekend and uh even the first part of this week, and it's still spotty in places. So um getting some much needed rain, but uh we still need it in some places.

Irrigation Limits And Deep Moisture

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Wes, what are what are you getting calls about?

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Let's see, probably with exactly what you just said. I was trying to think of where to start. We're um you know, we're in the season, so I've not gotten any machinery calls in a while, which is a good thing, right? Hopefully it's a good thing. We're not having any problems with sprayers or anything out there, anything major. On the irrigation side to your point camp, we've uh the the big thing I've saw that I want to kind of bring up front, and it's hopefully been rectified across most of the state, but where we're at, we were so dry with irrigation, and this has happened at multiple sites. I'm gonna talk about a couple different things that I've watched happen. If we go back to East Georgia, where we've stayed mostly dry up there until this past weekend, irrigation events were helping, but we were continually losing deep moisture, if that makes sense. So it would it was bringing up the point where we'd hit the trigger point on the sensor, irrigate, and then it would call for irrigation again the next day. So what's happening there is we were not refilling, and I've talked about that probably a lot on in the past and on our newsletters and everywhere, but we're not refilling anything deeper than about eight inches, and we're continually uh extracting it. So it's kind of like a panic point on where you're at, right? It's like how do we how do we approach this? And I think at Midville, at least we caught I I haven't looked and totaled it fully, we're over three inches of rain between Saturday up until now, and it's fully refilled. We're sitting borderline at saturated conditions at Midville right now, from what we were seeing a couple days ago. But talking to other guys in the eastern part of the state, a lot of that rain was still missed. And so we're still sitting in those scenarios where we're utilizing deep moisture, replenishing moisture down to about eight to ten inches, but we're not replenishing any deeper than that with irrigation. And so that one event that you may apply, or those two events per week, in my opinion, are really not meeting our demand right now because we're still hot. We're cooler, luckily, we're cooler than what we were last week and the week before, right? You know, you talked about when we were in Midville last week, it was hot, it was very dry up there. It was that fine dust when we were driving around on the research station, and you could just feel the heat. Um, it's causing a lot of convective thunderstorms around here, but again, they're sporadic, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Um and if you watch on the radar, I mean it'll go across the state and it'll hit Midville, but then somewhere between Midville and Stage Bar, it just kind of fizzles out. And so over there in parts of Jenkins and and Bullock, it's still dry, I think. I mean, in places, and and there were there were pivots last week. I was over there for three days, you know, and we I drove I just drove around with Bill and we were looking at cotton, and there were pivots that were running on cotton that I mean it it would it was just really dry. Yeah, you know, and I mean it it was the picture of that point that you're talking about where they had lost deep moisture, and I don't know that you could get to a point where you could refill it with a pivot, which is built for supplementing.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Yeah, that's right. We're it's built for supplementing where what we're what our pumping capacities are, what our application rates are and all that, we're really supplementing in our most of the region of the U.S. where we grow cotton is supplemental. You know, you could argue one way or another. We do flood irrigation in the mid-south that'll refill the profile, but we're you know, we're not doing that here.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

And so hey, does furrow diking help them refill their profile? It's or else it just run off.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Yeah, we even did a study, not to get off topic too much, but um I wouldn't mind trying it here sometime. But we did a furrow diking study in South Carolina at Blackville when I was up there, and it's because the field we were working in had some slope to it and just enough, and we have slope in our fields, but when you do that, what it would do instead of starting to run out of the field, you could apply a little bit higher rate in those little furrow dykes which are about every six foot. Slow it down. Yeah, slow it down and let it sit and infiltrate a little more. That's been that's been 16 or so years ago when I worked on that a little bit further. So I don't I'd like to, and that'd be something to look in again, either way. What I want to be over in plains. Yeah, maybe it'd be a cool place to see it.

SPEAKER_03 7:53

They used to have one at the uh peanut lab. Well, this was commercial, it was on potatoes. Yeah, okay. And they had furrow diking on potatoes. You furrodike your potatoes?

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Uh no. So let's move across the state a little bit. On the opposite side of that, um, can't believe this or not. We irrigated uh, and she was so excited about it. We irrigated her cotton at um uh uh down at Stripling for the first time yesterday. First time this year? This year. Wow, that's can you believe that? We would get we that's some later planted cotton, too. It is. We planted that in June. Yeah. Um we planted that in the job.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

So it's just starting to bloom. It is starting to get into peak water use.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

It is back June cotton. That's it. You know, so that's where it is. You looked at my newsletter, that's where we're moving into the June cotton. And then down at uh Atapulgas, y'all were down there last week. I didn't make that one. My students didn't down there and talked about the trial they're running it. And we've only irrigated that one once. But that would have been planted in May. Well, we got two. So we got a May 15th planting date, and we got a June 1st planting date, and we've split those, and so that the way that field's set up, it's a left and a right half, east and west half, whatever how you want to look at it. And so we're irrigating those separately by planting date. That was the purpose of that study, looking at an irrigation termination study. And what keeps happening, which is good, that's the reason I want to talk about that. For most of the southwestern portion of the state, and y'all talked about it at Plains too. We're getting just enough combative thunderstorms to come through and rain on top of them, rain on top of them, where we've been able to maintain that full soil profile. And it really surprised me we triggered yesterday because it had been raining that way, but obviously it missed Mitchell County or parts of Mitchell County enough that we hit and we triggered again today different treatments.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Well, it could have missed that field on that farm.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Could have, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:29

I mean, these rain showers, it rained what day was it, Phillip, that it rained here but it didn't rain at the gin. Was that Monday? Or rained at the gin and didn't rain on campus? I think that was I think it was Monday.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Philip, it hammered at our house last night and didn't rain in town. I don't know if it was as bad at your house.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

It was it rained a half inch here at the gin and it rained two inches. 2.7 at my house.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

I didn't have a gauge, but I believe that. We were standing water in the front and a backyard. Incredible.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

No wind, no thunder. Just bucket. It just came out of nowhere.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Yeah, and just sat on us. Yep. And like you said, it didn't rain at all. I checked the bowling farm because it was close to us, right? Within what a mile? Yeah. Like straight line distances.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

Nothing over there?

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Quarter a little bit. Quarter inch when I looked. Jeez. Yeah.

Spotty Rains And Water Balance

SPEAKER_01 10:15

So that's the that's the story right there, though, is the management from the water perspective. Even if you got it on one farm or one field too, be vigilant on your other ones because it is a tough situation. The one benefit we have from the spring, if we go back to that, the dry spring we had based on your planting date, except for that two weeks of saturation in early June, late May, I feel like we developed a more thorough deeper rooting system this year across most of the state because we did not sit saturated for a long time. We planted and it was dry. If y'all remember, if we rewind back to May, we were having to irrigate to get the crop up and irrigate, irrigate. So it was really putting out some energy for root growth and development, which we talked about back then was gonna help us now. And that's now where I see it helping us that we can access the deeper moisture. But, and this is what I was talking to Lisa Baxter a few minutes ago, she was talking about like on our hay crop. But we've are still overall, we're not in a drought anymore, but we're behind on moisture if you look at it as a year basis. Yeah. And so we've just kind of sit in that pattern. We're gonna need significant rainfall, hopefully more sporadic.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

How do they develop? I I was wondering about this while I was putting together my slides for that mid-year meeting. What's the drought monitor based on?

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Yeah, that's a good question. I think it's based on what I would assume is the local conditions, local rainfall, average rainfall, what we're getting, and then what we're losing per day per day on it. Yeah, so what the intake and that you know we talked about that a little bit here, and that's never come up much in the past, but there's that water balance they look at too. Yeah. And so where water balance gets scary is generally we break even or receive more rainfall than what we evaporate off, right? Or we'd be a desert, right? I mean, let's just go, if we want to go extreme, we'd be a desert if we lost more. Now, I haven't ran the calculator to write to date. We are in at least through July, we're in excessive rain on our than more than average in July, which is a good thing. It doesn't mean that it didn't come in heavy events like we're talking about, and it's not as effective and it hadn't missed places. But when we look back to May, we were in a very significant negative water balance, means that we evaporated more water than we took in from rainfall over that time frame. And so we lost all our subsoil moisture from that. Yeah. So not quite drought. I did pull up, I was gonna put it in some of the newsletters, but we're we're in a D2 or less across most of the state right now. Yeah. From the drought.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

That's the last I looked was D2 or less.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

And it's still confined in the southern and eastern region, the the worst parts, the D the two, which is I mean, it's good that we've reached a D2 from a D4, right? Hopefully we can maintain that. My understanding is it's gonna stay a little drier through October, though, and then get wet. Yeah, we need well, we gotta get be timely. We'll talk about that in a few don't fall behind.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Yeah, don't fall behind on on anything really, but man, a dry October, I'll take it all day long.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Take

Scout Mindset For Late Season

SPEAKER_02 13:06

it all day long. Daughter Roberts, what's the word, man? The word is scalp.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

Scout. Scout, you got it. I got a dog. Scout it. No, where we are today, uh, from an insect standpoint, and and again, we're so happy to have Dr. Alana Jacobson. Yeah, we are. That helps us build capacity. Hey, we'll be able to do more and better things. That's right. Looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

I'm glad to have a like a real entomologist with us. Because Dr. Roberts, Dr. Jacobson, he likes to give me a hard time. I was training weed science, and he likes to give me a hard time about weed science and how oh, all you do is spray and count and rate, and then you pick it. And so then I started walking plots with him, and he said, Well, pick out the treatments. I said, Okay. So I go and I pick out his threat's treatments or whatever. Yeah. And I said, This is weed science. So I'm glad we have a real entomology. There's certain things that are a little more complicated. Okay. That's why we hired Dr.

SPEAKER_03 14:08

Jacobs to do those kind of things. 100%. Absolutely. But kind of where we are with insects, uh, just looking from 30,000 feet, um, hey, you know, insect activity has been much less this year than previous years. Yeah. You know, where we were in plains today, that's plant bug country. And uh you know. Fruit retention was good. Fruit retention is good. It still requires management. Right. You know. Um and they did a good job.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

They did a really good job. They talked about their program today. It was really good.

SPEAKER_03 14:41

But you know, so that's good. And uh I have talked with a couple folks this week where they got a big flush of plant bugs from somewhere. No idea. But two different people. But hey, you just need to keep looking at this cotton. I got a text today from my crew, they scout scouted all our farms for stink bugs. Hey, we look good there. Now we've we've addressed them. Preemptively. Well, you know, sometimes we have to do things on the station. But yeah, yeah, yeah. But even with talking with agents and consultants, you know, our stink bug numbers are just a normal thing, and and that's just almost part of producing cotton in Georgia now.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

But uh But it's still important to scout for them.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

Oh, absolutely. You know, absolutely. Well, you know, like where we are now, you know,

Whiteflies Rising In Fringe Areas

SPEAKER_03 15:30

the one thing that's a little concerning is is we are seeing white flies uh really build. Yeah. And there are some treatments that have been made. Uh so far, all of those treatments are in areas where we routinely deal with white flies. You know, if we go back 10 years, it was like white flies was a every three-year problem. Yeah. Or 20 years. Right. But it's almost become an annual problem since you've been in your position.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

I mean, we we deal with them about every year. Yeah, and I mean it's just where we are, yeah. And being in TIFT and we're gonna deal with them.

SPEAKER_03 16:06

Yeah, and but you know, the good news there is is we're having to address them in this area, but we're seeing some white flies in what I would call fringe areas, you know, if you go towards East Georgia. I looked in plains today and saw just a few. Adults? Yep. And uh but you talk about scouting stink bugs, you know. You have a few white flies out there. Hey, let's not spray a stink bug just because it's the third week of bloom or fifth week of bloom.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

If we're gonna spray something, let's spray something that's soft. How about that?

SPEAKER_03 16:36

Yes, not a harsh chemistry. Let's try to and you know that makes it tough when we're trying to kill a stink bug, but we still can do it. But uh we're in pretty good shape there, so yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

You gonna make me pull it out of you? What's that? All

Cotton Jassid Update And Symptoms

SPEAKER_02 16:55

right. I mean, you want me to say I'll jass it.

SPEAKER_03 16:59

Everybody wants to know. Everybody wants to know. Where we are today versus where we are in 2025, we're in a better place today. Yes. You know, I would like just to thank all our agents and consultants. They've been so good about letting us know when they find jazzets. And uh we've really been trying to track jazz its closely by county. And I think today we're up to 17 counties. Yeah. This time last year, we were more than double that. Yeah. And also I would say, even in these counties where we've detected jazzets, the numbers are much lower.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Yeah. Because a year ago, whenever you put the word out to the agents, uh, it was August 6th and 7th, I think it was. And uh I mean they went out there, they'd go look at a cotton field, and I mean it was easy. Boom. Yeah, it was easy. You know, so we're we're in a good spot there. The people that are finding them are really hunting for them.

SPEAKER_03 17:59

Well, it seems like. But you know, that's what we need to know. Yeah, we still have a lot to learn about this insect, Dr. Jacobson.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Um we do.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

Uh but I really think the cold temperatures we had really, really reduced their populations. I wouldn't go as far to say they eliminated Jasses from the state of Georgia, but but it hurt them pretty bad. Yeah, it knocked them back. And so one of the reasons, you know, we're looking for these things is you know, from the time you see one camp, how how long do we have a problem? Or when did they get here? Yeah. Uh you know, if we go back, the first jazz I think we detected this year, kale cloud down in Grady County, I think it was June 16th.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

Yeah, it wasn't long after you first found them. That's six weeks ago.

SPEAKER_03 18:47

Yeah. And you know, NFL hadn't been traded. No. Yeah. Now jazzeds are getting easier to find. Yeah. Kelsey Hancock over in Early County has been texting me this afternoon. She has a little jazzed project, and uh you know, she's been hunting them with sweep nets. And uh, that's a good way to find out if you get if they're there. Yeah, so she she was catching, you know, uh 10 to 12 jazz in a hundred sweeps in a field. Yeah. So they're coming. Yeah. But we're in a much better place, and uh I really think they were killed out way down into Florida too. Yeah. You know, Florida experienced one of the hardest freezes they've experienced in a long, long time back in February. Yeah. And uh, you know, I think we killed Jass, significantly reduced Jass's population to deep in the South Florida. Yeah. And what we're seeing is just this trickle migration back into Georgia.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:43

And once they're established, they're gonna start reproducing. Right. And we know they can complete a generation in as short as two weeks, and we saw stuff happen fast last year. But but it's been interesting, you know, tracking these things this year, about every week they're doubling. So you know, that's not hard and stone, but that's kind of a general rule. They double, especially if it doesn't rain. It appears to me that that this insect doesn't like rain.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

It seems like they're similar to a white fly.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

There's so many similarities to a white fly. And uh just the way they survive the winter, they don't go into diapause or anything, they just try to survive feeding on something. But hot and dry, they really like that. So um I've kind of painted a real nice picture here, but we also had a field treated this week. Yeah. Uh treated on Tuesday over in Southeast Georgia. I would say this year as it was, Sarah, back in 2025, numbers are higher in Southeast Georgia. Yeah. And this probably has something to do with just a migration pattern. But uh you know, we're still in good shape. We're gonna have to deal with Jassets. You know, just keep looking. I mean, if I want to come up with a positive about Jasset, what which one are you gonna say? Oh, no. Eradicating ballwell? No. I'm gonna say uh we're looking at cotton. We're looking at cotton so much more. I mean, there are people who hired scouts for the first time in a long time this year. Yeah. And uh multiple people. Uh so that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

But even the people that didn't hire scouts, it seems like they're looking really hard.

SPEAKER_03 21:29

And just as a reminder for our listeners, you know, you're gonna see these things on edges, you're gonna see the hopper burn, you're gonna see that puckering on leaves, and hey, when you see that, you need to get out there and get serious about making counts. Um we sent some information out to our agents, so they're gonna have agents to help guide you on what you need to do just based on some scenarios. But uh I I'm optimistic. We're gonna have to deal with them. Yeah, especially on our later planted cotton. You know, we just we can't miss this thing. But just because we detect them in a county, that don't mean you need to go crazy and do something stupid.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:06

Just make good decisions, be patient. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

I found some on our lake cotton. When was that? Was it Monday? Yeah. So I mean, that's just something we're going to have to keep an eye on.

SPEAKER_03 22:16

But I feel real good about where we are. Yeah. And uh hey, you know, especially for folks in this white fly area, or even if you're in a fringe area and got a few white flies, you need to be careful there. And bigger concern right now? Yes. White flies? Yes. Yeah. You got anything to add, Dr. Jacobson?

SPEAKER_00 22:36

I think you covered it pretty well.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

Well. Hey, I've been in a fight

Whitefly Sources And Timely Defoliation

SPEAKER_02 22:40

with some white flies. Oh yeah. Called you out today. Yeah, you did. But I was you called me out on a couple years ago. Good story. It is a good story, but this year, man, it is. Yeah, no, we've been in a fight this year. And so it's I mean, it was the first part of July. The first time that was an outlier. Yeah, but it happened. I mean, there was a tomato field cross-cut over that I think got killed.

SPEAKER_03 23:06

There was a major source. I I think it was tomatoes. Because, you know, when we think of white flies, uh, if you if you look at, you know, how we manage white flies, uh IGR like knack, I mean, that's kind of the. When you use it, it works really good. You gotta use it appropriately. Yeah. And uh, you know, the situation Camp's referring to, uh, we miss that opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Uh yeah, because it's April planted cotton, and you're not supposed to have white flies in April planted cotton. It was it was pretty rough. It's across the across the cut over from a tomato field, and it's hairy cotton, and the deer have been working on it pretty good. So it's just perfect.

SPEAKER_03 23:45

It cost us a little more money there. Uh yeah. And and you know, we put Savanto on that field. Hey, and it did a good job. And then and then what?

SPEAKER_02 23:54

And then we did some more. Then we to-toed it.

SPEAKER_03 23:57

Yeah. But but anyway, you know, when we think of white flies, uh you know, there's these sources. Yeah. And uh And if you're close to a source, you gotta be a little more timely. If you're in control of that source, let's terminate that source as early.

SPEAKER_02 24:17

We drove by some terminated watermelon fells today. We sure do. And you said something about it. You said, hey, at least they killed it.

SPEAKER_03 24:22

Yep. And you know, that's the same thing. You know, you know, we think of vegetables as a source for us, but guess what? We're also a source for vegetables. We're gonna be a huge source for vegetables. And uh, you know, I think we owe it to ourselves and ag, let's defoliate cotton on time if you got white flies. Man, I just wrote about that.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

About defoliating on time for white flies and for jazz. We don't know how big of a deal jazzets are gonna turn into this particular year. Well, right? And I'm not gonna speculate at all. Well, but if we defoliate on time, would there's less time that they're reproducing on that cotton as we put out there in the fall that can survive the winter. That's right. Or go hurt our friends in the vegetable business.

SPEAKER_03 25:11

I tell you right now, I think based on what we're seeing in that cold temperature. Don't you speculate in nothing? I think we're in a we're in a better spot.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

We're in a better spot. We're in a better spot. Maybe as good as we could have hoped for. Dr. Jacobson last year he stood up at a meeting and said jazz its weren't going to be a problem. And then it was a week later. We were just trying to commercial field games. We were keeping everybody calm. It worked out. It worked out. It worked out great. Second best crop ever. Yep. Second best crop

New Entomologist And End-Season Checklist

SPEAKER_02 25:38

ever. So hey, Dr. Jacobson, why don't you tell everybody a little bit about your background and what you intend to work on here?

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Yeah, so I'm a research entomologist. I've got a research extension appointment here at the UGA Tifton campus. Um I have a background working on basically insect pest management and field crops. And the majority of my responsibilities have been on invasive or emerging pest problems, including insect transmitted viruses and mostly in cotton. So that's what I hope to bring here. Help Dr. Roberts out with some of these research questions, especially with emerging pests like the JASID. We still have a lot to learn with that one. Yeah. And also just really interested in hearing from extension agent stakeholders setting up a program that has kind of a two-way channel of information. Yeah. That way I can make sure that my research program stays relevant in addressing real-world problems, and I can get that information to you as quickly as possible. So I'm happy to be here. I'm excited to work with the whole cotton team here.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

And uh just ready to rock and roll after we get all this new higher paperwork out of the way.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

Yeah, we gotta we gotta get in the field sometime and gotta look at something. We'll gotta look at that field that we've sprayed for white flies a couple times. That's a weird one. But certainly a lot of stuff uh going on out there, still getting a few questions about uh PGRs, end-season weed control, stuff like that. So, you know, overall the questions on PGR hadn't been too intense just because fruit retention has been so high, and we've been holding really, really well uh for the most part. And so, you know, we're we're still doing some of that. One thing I would point out to folks is that there's a lot of uh 2333 out there, and that variety is not quite as aggressive as some other ones that we're used to growing, like Dynagro 3799 or Stonville 5091 or Delta Pine 2038. And so we don't need to treat it like those varieties. I I saw some cotton uh last week over there in uh East Georgia that man, it looked like they went out there and and hit it pretty hard with some picks, and it shortened up those nodes for quite some time, and it stacked some fruit right there in the middle of that plant, and it was it was pretty gnarly looking, but it it held really well. And so, but that variety is just not quite as aggressive as some of the other ones that we're accustomed to growing around here. That those are some of the major questions I've been getting, some wrapping up weed control, tropical spider wort, morning glories, and cotton, man. We just we got some issues with some of those weeds, and and I think a lot of that can be avoided early in the season uh just with overlaying a lot of these residual herbicides and and being timely with post-applications and stuff like that, especially with goose grass and uh tropical spider wart as well. So those are those are some of our major issues. But uh so far, I I really think the crop's in a good spot. Like I mentioned, I I think it's average statewide. If we start catching a little bit more rain over there in the east side of the state, it can go to above average fairly quickly. But just uh a couple of dates here. Let me pull my calendar up. Next week, uh August the 12th is the field day in Midville. And so we're excited to get back over there to the east side of the state and uh visit with everybody, kind of look at some plots, talk about some cotton over there in the east side of the state. And then uh September the 2nd is gonna be the Cotton and Peanut Field Day here in Tifton. And uh myself and Dr. Mumfort, we have started getting emails about that, so we got to get together and do a little bit of planning uh with respect to that, but be looking for an agenda and all that kind of good stuff associated with that field day. Anything else that I'm missing? All right. Well, hey, we appreciate everybody listening, and uh, as always, if you got questions, feel free to reach out to your county agent. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of Talking Cotton with the UGA Cotton Team. If you have any questions about anything we talked about today, or if there's anything you'd like for us to talk about in the future, please contact your local UGA County Extension agent. And as always, you can find us on all major podcast platforms. Be sure to like, share with your friends, and subscribe so you can stay up to date.