MSU Graduate Student Studies Effects Of Potential Insecticide Loss

LAURA HOUGH SMITH

STONEVILLE, MISSISSIPPI

An entomology graduate student researcher and other scientists at Mississippi State’s Delta Research and Extension Center in Stoneville are testing management strategies that show the value of insecticides for plant bug management from an economic and yield standpoint.

DREC agriculture and life sciences student Hunter Lipsey is a member of an MSU research group specifically studying ThryvOn—a new cotton technology—as one tool for integrated pest management, or IPM, in controlling tarnished plant bugs, the leading arthropod pest of cotton in the U.S.

“We want to know if insecticide loss is less detrimental in a ThryvOn-dominated landscape,” said Lipsey, explaining ThryvOn is Bayer Crop Science’s newest cotton technology providing a Bt protein protection against key tarnished plant bugs. Lipsey’s study also tests the effects of insecticide loss on non-ThryvOn cotton varieties.

He said, “We are showing the value of insecticides for plant bug management and demonstrating what would happen from a yield and economic standpoint if we lost certain groups of insecticides through regulatory restrictions,” Lipsey said of the research that has already received attention from agriculture stakeholders.

Recent assessments by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which reviews and registers pesticides, suggest that some insecticides currently utilized for controlling plant bugs may potentially receive usage restrictions or a label revocation in coming years.

“In the past few years, growers have only had a few affordable and effective options when it comes to tarnished plant bug control,” he said. “You needed every tool you could get your hands on to effectively manage it.”

ThryvOn gives growers a new mode of action in addition to foliar insecticide applications commonly used for the past decade which remain an important component for tarnished plant bug management.

“What we’re asking is ‘If we lose an insecticide due to new regulations, can we still make comparable yields?’” he said.

Lipsey is planning to continue the study to gather additional data.

In January, Lipsey was awarded the T.S. Hall Memorial Award for Outstanding Presentation at the Beltwide Cotton Conference in Fort Worth, Texas. ∆

LAURA HOUGH SMITH: MSU’s Delta Research and Extension Center