May 27, 2026 · 33 min · 8 segments
Tripp Walker of Syngenta joins the pod to discuss best management practices against cotton’s public enemy number one – the tarnished plant bug.
In this episode of the podcast, we are gonna hone in on the reigning, uh, king of being a pain in our rear end, uh, in the Cotton Belt, and that is the tarnished plant bug.
Let's do a quick kinda deep dive into the history of this pest.
Indulge me here.
Uh, this is a pest that is native to North America and made its survival feeding on any wild flowering host plant for, you know, eons.
Only occasionally started causing localized damage to flowering crops, mostly in vegetables or fruit trees, uh, in the early part of the 20th century.
And then in the 1950s as row crop ag began to introduce pesticides on a broader scale, uh, these plant bugs, they were easily suppressed by the product that was being, products being used, uh, 50 some odd, 60 some odd years ago.
Again, they, they were being suppressed as a byproduct of chemistries that were targeting more troublesome bugs, namely, you know, boll weevil and others.
The plant bug was really an afterthought in that time.
And then, uh, in the 1980s it became more of a problem, the plant bug did, there in the Northeast in alfalfa fields and in apple orchards, where farmers up there started resorting to, uh, a little bio control.
They imported a French wasp that preyed naturally on this plant bug.
It was a nice early use of bio controls from producers up there.
But as the boll weevil eradication program closer to home, that program began to see success, and as Bt cotton took hold in the coming decades, row crop producers naturally began to reduce their broad spectrum insecticide sprays, which served to flare in a major way the plant bug.
Later shifts across the Belt further suited, uh, the lavish pest, uh, resulting in their current reign as public enemy number one.
I, myself, am recalling doing a story back, I think it was around 2012, maybe closer to 2014, uh, where farmers in the Mid-South, as they were switching increasingly into corn, were suddenly spending north of $80 an acre on this one pest, the plant bug.
Just absurd amounts of money that this plant has caused, uh, in its history of the Cotton Belt.
So, uh, th- those growers back then, by the way, who were spending that much were kinda, uh, in my recollection, Mississippi, some Arkansas Delta, really thick of the Mid-South.
So who better to share some insight on this pest than Starkville, Mississippi-based Tripp Walker, an agronomic services rep with Syngenta.
Uh, Tripp recently took some time to shed light on best management practices for this pest with me as we head into 2026, and we are gonna bring that interview to you very shortly.
In this episode of the podcast, we are gonna hone in on the reigning, uh, king of being a pain in our rear end, uh, in the Cotton Belt, and that is the tarnished plant bug.
Let's do a quick kinda deep dive into the history of this pest.
Indulge me here.
Uh, this is a pest that is native to North America and made its survival feeding on any wild flowering host plant for, you know, eons.
Only occasionally started causing localized damage to flowering crops, mostly in vegetables or fruit trees, uh, in the early part of the 20th century.
And then in the 1950s as row crop ag began to introduce pesticides on a broader scale, uh, these plant bugs, they were easily suppressed by the product that was being, products being used, uh, 50 some odd, 60 some odd years ago.
Again, they, they were being suppressed as a byproduct of chemistries that were targeting more troublesome bugs, namely, you know, boll weevil and others.
The plant bug was really an afterthought in that time.
And then, uh, in the 1980s it became more of a problem, the plant bug did, there in the Northeast in alfalfa fields and in apple orchards, where farmers up there started resorting to, uh, a little bio control.
They imported a French wasp that preyed naturally on this plant bug.
It was a nice early use of bio controls from producers up there.
But as the boll weevil eradication program closer to home, that program began to see success, and as Bt cotton took hold in the coming decades, row crop producers naturally began to reduce their broad spectrum insecticide sprays, which served to flare in a major way the plant bug.
Later shifts across the Belt further suited, uh, the lavish pest, uh, resulting in their current reign as public enemy number one.
I, myself, am recalling doing a story back, I think it was around 2012, maybe closer to 2014, uh, where farmers in the Mid-South, as they were switching increasingly into corn, were suddenly spending north of $80 an acre on this one pest, the plant bug.
Just absurd amounts of money that this plant has caused, uh, in its history of the Cotton Belt.
So, uh, th- those growers back then, by the way, who were spending that much were kinda, uh, in my recollection, Mississippi, some Arkansas Delta, really thick of the Mid-South.
So who better to share some insight on this pest than Starkville, Mississippi-based Tripp Walker, an agronomic services rep with Syngenta.
Uh, Tripp recently took some time to shed light on best management practices for this pest with me as we head into 2026, and we are gonna bring that interview to you very shortly.
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