Solutions for the Future of Thrips IPM: A Predictive Model to Inform Cotton Planting and Timing Foliar Sprays

The amount of thrips injury to cotton varies greatly among years, locations and planting dates.  Major sources of this variation include: the brief window (emergence to 4-5 true-leaf stage) of cotton vulnerability to thrips injury; variation in the timing and magnitude of dispersing tobacco thrips (Frankliniella fusca Hinds) populations that infest and damage seedling cotton; and variation in the coincidence of damaging thrips populations and vulnerable stages of cotton.  Cotton seedling growth and the timing and magnitude of dispersing thrips populations are driven primarily by temperature and rainfall such that the exposure of cotton to damaging thrips populations is predictable based on weather and planting date for a given location.  This presentation describes an on-line thrips management decision aid that predicts relative risk of thrips damage across planting dates for any specified location in the southeastern cotton production region.  Predictions are based on cotton seedling growth and thrips population dispersal models that are driven by location-specific weather data. It is anticipated that this Cotton Thrips-damage Incidence Predictor will be available on-line for use prior to cotton planting in 2017.