Isolating and Identifying the Microbes Associated with Green Mirid Feeding Injury to Cotton Bolls

Yield loss caused by feeding injury from plant bugs to cotton bolls is generally considered a two layered process in that decreased lint quantity and quantity is caused by both the enzymatic action of digestion to boll tissues, followed by the progression in the decrease of lint quality by boll rotting organisms that are introduce by the process of feeding.  In this study, we isolated the microbes (bacteria and fungi) from both the gut of field collected Creontiades signatus (Stahl) and from cotton boll tissue after allowing the bugs to feed for a few days. The guts of field collected C. signatus were positive for up to 10⁸ colony forming units (cfu’s) of bacteria per insect and 10² cfu’s of filamentous fungi per insect, indicating that they are capable of transmitting these organisms to cotton bolls through the process of feeding. Eighty eight percent of cotton bolls that C. signatus were allowed to feed upon had up to10⁴ cfu’s of bacteria and 10² cfu’s of fungi per g of tissue. This is the first study to examine the microbial fauna and respective microorganism concentrations in. The data presented clearly demonstrated that microorganisms are transmitted during C. signatus feeding/probing. The fact that evidence of C. signatus feeding did not always result in disease suggests that harboring and vectoring of opportunistic cotton pathogen(s) could account for differences associated with boll damage.