Regional Cropping and Landscape Analysis Applied to Cotton Pest Management: Risk Assessment of A Sucking Bug

The verde plant bug (Hemiptera: Miridae) feeds on and damages cotton bolls.  This plant bug is a major boll-feeding sucking bug collected during mid-bloom in South Texas.  To evaluate regional risk, a spatially referenced Crop data layer available from USDA NASS was input into a Geographic Information System, along with verde pant bug density data from 15 commercial cotton fields.  Landscape metrics were calculated from the Crop data layer, and selected metrics were regressed on verde pant bug density.  This process allowed us to identify growing areas and characteristics of the areas that were more prone to infestation by verde plant bug.  Farmers can benefit from this type of regional pest risk assessment to focus management activities like pest monitoring in high pest risk areas.