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Should You Stop Treating Cotton for Insects?

By Dr. Dominic Reisig

Should I treat this cotton for bollworm eggs, plant bugs or stink bugs? This is not a one-size fits all answer, but here are a few scenarios to consider.

1) Delayed cotton with low yield potential

The good news is that this cotton is likely insect-safe. We consider bolls to be safe from plant bug and stink bug feeding once they hit 5 nodes above white flower (NAWF) + 250 cotton growing degree days (GDD) and bolls to be safe from bollworms once they hit 5 NAWF + 350 GDD. Jeff Gore at MS State recently shared some data that 5 NAWF + 250 GDD was equal to about 2-3 NAWF in their environment. That means a lot of this cotton that’s blooming out the top isn’t susceptible to these pests.

2) Delayed cotton with high yield potential

It’s important to check out the boll load in this situation. Keep in mind that August 25th was the last effective bloom date. That means on average there is a 50% chance that lint from today’s bloom will make it into the picker. I wouldn’t worry about losing squares from plant bugs at this point. If there are bolls smaller than the diameter of your thumb, then it will be important to protect these from plant bugs and stink bugs. Plant bugs prefer smaller bolls in this category and stink bugs prefer larger bolls in this category. Both can cause injury to the boll through seed feeding and by transmitting pathogens causing boll rot.

3) Cotton with bollworm eggs

We are now entering the fourth generation of bollworms produced right here in North Carolina. With every generation, there are usually more and more in the system. So that means that some folks are noticing really heavy flights and some significant egg lay in cotton. Fortunately, while these eggs may hatch, the larvae rarely get past the first or second instar stage. It’s always good to keep an eye on your cotton if it’s still bollworm-susceptible for those once in a blue moon scenarios. However, I don’t think we need to roll out with more egg threshold sprays at this point in the season.

Source : ncsu.edu

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Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”