Dreaded cotton pest virtually wiped out
ALBANY, Ga. (AP) — The dreaded boll weevil, a ravenous pest that dethroned cotton as the king of Southern crops, has been virtually wiped out throughout most of the region, thanks to a 20-year pest-control program that was largely funded by farmers.
Workers monitoring traps around cotton fields in Georgia, Virginia, north Florida and the Carolinas, didn’t find a single weevil last year, said Jim Wilson, program manager for the Southeastern Boll Weevil Eradication Program.
“North Carolina had done it before, but this was the first year Georgia was zero,” said Phillip Roberts, a University of Georgia entomologist who specializes in cotton. “To me, it’s a milestone.”
Before the eradication effort, the boll weevil was a major pest that reduced cotton yields, forced farmers to spend more on pesticides and exacerbated other insect problems, Roberts said.
Frequent pesticide spraying in cotton fields killed beneficial insects that provided free and natural pest control. With the boll weevil’s eradication, the beneficials have rebounded.
Dooly County cotton grower Terrell Hudson said the absence of weevils was exciting news.
Hudson, who has been growing cotton since 1967, said boll weevils took a hefty toll on the crop in his county until growers agreed to help finance the eradication program.
“If everything I’ve ever invested money in worked as well as the boll weevil program, it would be wonderful,” he said.
The lack of any weevils last year was also good news for entomologist Frank Carter, a senior scientist with the National Cotton Council in Memphis.
“It means we’re finally moving the boll weevil further and further away from the Southeast,” he said. “We’ve eliminated a key pest that required 15 to 20 pesticide applications and now we don’t require any for boll weevils.”
Boll weevils, North America’s most destructive cotton pest, jumped the border with Mexico in the 1890s and spread throughout the South, devastating cotton fields and forcing farmers to switch to other crops, such as peanuts. Residents of Enterprise, Ala., erected a monument in the center of town in 1919 to honor the pest that pushed them to seek new opportunities.
Boll weevils are reddish-brown bugs with a long dark snout. They can fly up to 60 miles a day, destroying young cotton buds and bolls along the way.
They reached South Carolina by 1921 and spread to North Carolina and Virginia.
With help from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, farmers began eradication programs in the 1980s. The pests were officially eradicated in Virginia and the Carolinas by the late 1980s. As the program spread, Georgia, Florida and southern Alabama did the same in the 1990s.
The victory over weevils has given farmers confidence to plant more cotton. Georgia’s acreage, for example, has increased from a low of 120,000 acres in 1983 to nearly 1.5 million acres last year. Georgia tied with Mississippi for second place in cotton production last year with a 2.1 million-bale crop. Texas was first with 4.3 million bales.
Monitoring for the weevils continues throughout the cotton belt.
Plastic traps containing a weevil-attracting pheromone and an insecticide strip are placed around cotton fields. Workers check them periodically for the one-quarter-inch pests.
Even after weevils were declared officially eradicated, workers usually found a few that may have hitched a ride on farm equipment or with travelers from the West. Last year was the first that all five states didn’t have any.
“We’re not going to quit monitoring, because you still have weevils in Mexico, Central America and South America,” Wilson said. “There’s always a chance they could be reintroduced and we don’t want to go back to where we were.”
Currently about 9 million acres in Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, New Mexico and most of Texas have active eradication programs. In most of those areas, the programs have not progressed to the point that weevils can be declared eradicated.
Eradication efforts are also underway in some Mexican cotton fields.
“Mexico has gotten interested in the program,” Carter said. “There is a program south of El Paso, and other border areas are starting programs or planning them. That’s going to cut off a link that might cause some re-infestations.”