Linking Cotton Fleahopper Spring Emergence to Local Environmental Factors

The cotton fleahopper (CFH), Pseudatomoscelis seriatus (Reuter), is an economically important cotton pest that feeds on developing squares and terminals. The CFH overwinters as diapausing eggs in host plants such as woolly croton, Croton spp., and emerges in the spring once eggs have been exposed to sufficient temperatures and moisture to terminate diapause. We documented diapausing egg densities and environmental conditions in three croton fields in the Brazos River Bottom, and examined the temporal emergence patterns of CFH nymphs across each site in Spring 2018. Although egg densities varied among fields, temporal patterns of nymph emergence were similar across all three sites. Importantly, the temporal patterns of emergence revealed that CFH adults emerging from overwintered eggs could directly infest cotton when it is most susceptible CFH feeding damage, rather than first undergoing reproduction on alternative hosts. The next phase of this study is to integrate the spring emergence data with local environmental conditions to develop a model to predict spring emergence patterns of CFH from diapausing eggs in croton. Data collection will continue for at least two additional years to expand the current data set and validate the accuracy of the model.