 Good morning everyone. This is the final presentation. Just give you a quick update on vegetable insects. We already had a very good discussion on insect issues with Dr. Cashheimer's talk on hemp insects. And it's really incredible to see so much progress on the hemp front, both on the organic and conventional side. So here again, I'm going to try to summarize some of our insect monitoring issues, things we are seeing and getting to know off from farmers and crop consultants. So again, if you have any feedback, just text me. You have my cell phone on the screen. Just text me. It really informs me if you're seeing something unusual. We also have the team newsletter. And hopefully you're subscribed to our commercial horticulture extension Facebook page where you can watch many other webinars. And remember to download the Farming Basics phone app. Now just a quick non-discrimination statement. We provide our services to everybody without any discrimination. Alabama Extension and Auburn University are equal opportunity provider. Just a quick look at the drought map. I always start with the weather. And right now, this is a little, maybe 10 days old, but I don't think much has changed. We don't have, we have extremely dry spots in certain parts of the States, but overall, it's just hot and dry, but may not be in a drought. But keep a watch on the USDA drought monitor. And this is actually on the University of Nebraska website. So just check out and make sure you're aware of the weather around you. Insect-wise, now these are based on the scouting and the insect monitoring that is done by my staff and as well as several of the regional extension agents around the state. And what you're looking at are the total number of insects. For example, beet armyworms from last week. I will send out another update later this week. And then you're looking at the average numbers of those moths or traps. So these are moths. Remember with the monitoring stations we have, these are sticky wing traps. We will trap adults, not the larvae. And I put those larvae in there so that you can recognize that insect, not that we are trapping them. And then if you look at the map, these are the heat maps. And you can see the dots, they're the blue dots on the screen. So for beet armyworms, the larger the dot, the more pressure, more intense pressure is up there. Now some locations may not be even on this map. We have about 20 locations, but 21. But you can't see all of them because the other locations just don't have much pressure. And it's almost invisible right now. But we are monitoring across multiple locations. And as you can see, I've compared beet armyworms with fall armyworms here. Beet armyworms are way ahead of the fall armyworm this year, which is kind of the normal pattern, especially on the vegetable commercial farms that we're monitoring as well as research stations. Remember last year was very unusual. We had fall armyworms way past almost seven times more fall armyworm activity. And that's why so many outbreaks were reported for fall armyworms last year. This year, the beet armyworms are back. So it seems like this is one of those normal years, maybe with this dry heat and drought like conditions almost, but you can those numbers tell the story and the maps kind of show you where they are. Again, the beet armyworms are very active in the south compared and they're smaller and lower numbers as you go to North Alabama. So these are really informative to do these. Oops, I didn't want to do that. Go to the next slide. Oops, I don't know where. I need to advance. Okay, so here's the numbers for the southern armyworm and yellow striped armyworm. Again, these are these multiple species. You'll see these to the southern armyworm and yellow striped armyworm have these patterns on their bodies. And the southern has the yellow head or the red head on the caterpillar. So again, southern armyworm by far is actually the highest numbers. So if you had to compare all the armyworms, you have the southern armyworm really bad in this in this deep south. Then you got the beet armyworms. Then you have the fall and the yellow striped armyworms. So almost in that order. So these armyworms are very active. So make sure you're scouting your crops wherever you are. It's insects are not sleeping. They are active. You just have to go look for them. And these armyworms they really like the hay and pasture fields. First, and they start to move to the crops from row crops to horticultural crops. And they feed on multiple weed species as well as crops. So keep looking for these caterpillars and take good pictures. If you are confused, I try my best to identify them. Sometimes they're very confusing. Don't take just one picture. Try to take pictures from different angles. When you're sending these pictures for identification, it really helps us. Here's a tomato fruit worm, which is again a very common insect pest also called corn earworm. It feeds on multiple crops. I think including hemp that we just heard from. But again, tomato fruit worm is way ahead of tobacco birdworms, it seems. Now we're not monitoring all the row crops. Tobacco birdworm could be very high in certain areas where you have more of the row crops like peanuts and soybeans and other crops. So this data could be a little biased towards the tomato fruit worm or the corn earworm. But again, you can see the pressures. Interesting thing is tobacco birdworms are far less, but the pressure is almost similar across the state. So that is really interesting. And remember many of these insects will ride the storms and the hurricanes when they come. So make sure you're scouting the crops after every crop event, every weather event, excuse me. Cabbage loopers actually have skyrocketed. I just compiled, looked at hundreds of traps over this weekend, and the numbers will certainly change. The cabbage looper pressure has gone up. But you can see it's one of those pests that's not just in rural parts of Alabama. It's also an urban pest. It flies really well. These loopers are large moths, and they will spread easily with storms. And you may start seeing them on crops. And the one, the soybean looper will actually increase in a month or two. So it goes on and of course likes to feed on soybean and other crops, and those numbers will change. But certainly cabbage looper is very active right now, and the numbers have had jump. So it will feed, it almost is like a secondary pest on tomatoes and other crops. You don't see them much, but they might be there mixed up with these other caterpillars. So keep an eye out for these loopers. And then finally, here are some drought indicators. And as I showed you on the map, I mean, it's really hot and dry across the state. And lesser cornstalk borer, it's a pest in peanuts and soybeans. It's not really a vegetable pest, not so much a vegetable pest. But I include that in our traps because it's an excellent way to tell if the ground is thirsty, if the soil is thirsty, you'll see a lot more of these lessers and these adults flying. So and those numbers are incredibly high, as you can see from all the rest of the insects you saw, which tells us that there's an impending drought. So there's drought-like conditions. So watch out if you're a rocrop producer, definitely watch out. But if you're a vegetable producer, and we're monitoring these so you can see the hot spots, it's all over the state. Compared to squash wine borer, again, an insect that loves the try. And if you have plants infested, they're going to succumb to wine borers much earlier than a wet year because the plants are stressed, the borers will will stop the vascular system and the plants die sooner. So watch out for these insects, extremely high pressure everywhere we are seeing. And you can again see with squash wine borer, those bubbles are almost similar size. So it's not, doesn't matter where you are, it seems like they're everywhere. Besides the caterpillars, it seems like I'm overemphasizing on caterpillars. But remember, there are a number of these small insect pests like aphids. And as this slide tells you, there are different colors to an aphid. And it gets really confusing sometimes, just like caterpillars when they're small to identify them. But as they become mature, they're easier to identify with some of the coloring. But there are different species. The one that we see on the bottom of the screen, cowpea aphid, it's on the bottom middle, that's one of the largest species of aphids I've seen on on vegetable crops. But that's a really distinct black aphid. And you'll see them on peas. But what I wanted to point out is watch out for these aphid mummies. You'll see these puffed up yellow bodies of aphids. Those are dead aphids that have been infested with beneficial wasp. And if you have that, that's a good sign. Don't be scared. It's that's a good thing to have those parasitized aphids. But if you have an outbreak, like I have on the picture on top right, if you have aphids just on the terminal leaves and completely curling up those leaves, that's a bit too late to control aphids. You may have already done some, they may have already done some, that's some economic loss in that case. So don't wait for outbreak, especially if you're an organic producer. Aphids, I have done years of research, they're still difficult past to manage with organic control. You can do wonderful with conventional chemicals. They're highly selective conventional chemicals like full fill that aphids just jump off the plants when they see the bottle. Very effective products, but we don't have that kind of products in organics that do not wait for an outbreak. So control scout and control early for these aphids. I did not put a slide of the thrips. If you have thrips issues, they probably are showing up already. It's a bit too late. Thrips migrate in mass earlier in the season. And they infest crops like tomatoes and transmit the virus. So I did not put on the thrips slide because you probably already have it. And hopefully you did not have a loss or were able to monitor and control it. But also remember these larger insect pests, these are the sucking insect pests. They have the similar mouth parts like aphids, but these are much bigger than aphids. And I have included the picture of the adults and the immature. So you can see the immatures look different from the adults. Not only in their coloration, but also their wings. The younger, the immature ones don't have the wings. So again, the point I'm trying to make is when you, if you see these nymphs, that's a great time to control them. Of course, you can control them with some of the pyrithroid quick acting insecticides for the adults. But with organics, oftentimes you have to target the immatures because you're basically trapping the immatures and they're much more vulnerable to organic insecticides and diaphragm. So we use this system with organic insecticides and trap crops to get a good kill of sting bugs and leaf-footed bugs. And again, you have the picture of what they do to tomatoes. Again, I'm biased towards tomatoes because everybody loves tomatoes from garden to commercial. And they are everywhere. So watch out for these insects. The harlequin bug is more of a cool season past on the cold crops, the brassicas. You're now looking at some of the squash pasts or cucumber pasts. And I wanted to show you this one. This is actually a picture of an Indian cucumber. It's a variety from India that I'm growing in my backyard. And surprise, surprise, if I don't plant timely, these pickle worms will eat up those fruits. I mean, they're really, really, they're very good at finding my plants, I think. So, but if again, if you're planting late, expect some of these pickle worms and melon worms to show up on your plant, on your plants. And be ready to spray if you see them before they do too much damage. And they completely live out their life inside the fruit. So really hard to detect early in the season. So just make sure you're checking your crop regularly for the moths. You can actually see these moths, they're fairly big moths here. And because it's got hot, and if you are using any synthetic pariethroth or even organic pariethrin, you can induce spider mites very easily. And I did years of research on spider mites and chemicals for on spider mites on peanuts. And so I have that picture of the two spot of spider mites on peanut there. But that's incredible. You can see how bad they can get. And that's induced by pesticide. So the way you can tell it, if you, if you see spider mites all over your field, after about seven to 10 days of a pariethroth spray, you probably induce the mites with your pesticide application. If you have weather based, you see more of a uneven distribution of the spider mites. You will see some hot spots. And there are, again, multiple species of spider mites. The two spotted is the most common one, but there are russet mites and others that you can also see they're pretty bad on the southeast part of the state. But again, if you mess up on controlling caterpillars with pariethroids, you get spider mites. So be aware and be very, be very careful choosing insecticide for application. On the peas and beans, again, there is a very nice bulletin online on aces.edu. Just type in insect pests of peas, beans. You should be able to download that flyer, the publication with pictures, but multiple insects will feed on these little bean plants, if you have them. For example, the thrips and leaf hoppers will cause distortion on the leaves. And then you have small holes from flea beetles. And if you have grasshoppers, you have irregular feeding. So just to show you that one plant can have multiple insects attacking it, even though you may not see the insect. It's difficult to scout sometimes. So when you're scouting, try to scout in the early in the morning hours when the insects are a little bit calm and they're on the plants feeding. As the day goes by and it's too hot, they jump off the plants and they hide really well. So keep an eye out. Remember for just a quick pointers for if you're scouting, make sure you are correctly identifying insects. Don't misjudge the beneficials. The beneficials may look ugly, but they are there for a good reason. Don't kill them. We need to protect and conserve these beneficial insects. Use insect monitoring tools that you have heard before from me and Dr. Keshama mentioned them as well. And I think Jacob Kelly also mentioned the pheromone trap. So that's what we use. They're fairly cost effective if you are a farmer to use them on your farm. And after a few years of these insect trapping, and if you keep good records, you will learn very quickly what to do with these insects and when they're bad. But be consistent. Whatever you do, be consistent and keep records. And develop your IPM plan. Keep a record of your plan, whether you're organic or conventional. I'm sure you keep a site application records, but have additional records. In fact, on the Farming Basics phone app, we actually have a record keeping tool that's going to be available for small stuff. So you can use apps as well for record keeping. And but there is no replacement to direct scouting. So you have to scout directly. You can use monitoring tools, but you got to look in the crop and make sure you are controlling them, especially if you are a high tunnel producer, because these insects will spread like wildfire throughout the crop when you have them planted so close. So just keep a keep a good watch on those hotspots. And you can just treat the hotspots. When I talk about control recommendations, again, you have heard me before check out the the other YouTube videos I've done. There's one YouTube video with the last year funded by SAIR program that has all the three levels of pest management mentioned. So again, I always tell people that not everything is for everyone. The IPM recommendations do change between your cropping system the way you have. But again, I try to always emphasize prevention tactics, as well as therapeutic tactics, which is the insecticide. And you can use bio insecticides and even in conventional systems. With bio insecticides, the only issue is the persistence can be much shorter than some of these synthetic products or chemical conventional chemicals. So you apply more of the bio insecticides. And I wanted to emphasize when I talk about conventional chemicals, don't just think about seven or these some of the other party throats. There are multiple options. Now we actually have more of the of very good products. And they're all listed in the 2022 vegetable handbook. Make sure you have the new ones because these products do change. But I wanted to mention with the the new ones that I marked on the screen, for example, the feeding suppressants, which basically stop the feeding. And they have translaminar action. And that includes full fill. You can see it on your screen there. PQZ, Saphina. And then those are good for sucking insect pests and then collagen is for caterpillars. So really good products. Check them out. If you haven't tried them, you'll not go back to your old sprays. If you if you're a farmer, they're worth trying. And then insect growth regulators. There are so many out there like Rhymon, Intrepid, Intrepid Edge. Really good products. Korea and NAC are for white flies, which I didn't have a picture for. But if you have white fly issues, those are great products. But again, remember, these are insect growth regulators. They don't act against adults. You have to apply these insecticides on on immatures. So you have to be scouring. But they are safer to natural enemies, compared to some of the other harsher, older organochlorines or organophosphates. And most of them are going away. And some of the pithroids and the pithroids are great. But just watch for the weather. You don't want spider mites to eat you up. So just be be very careful. And again, there are many ways you can tank mix or rotate insecticides, especially the organic one. If you have caterpillar issues, BT products really work well. They still work well. Just they're challenged by the environment by the weather conditions. So remember that not that the BTs don't work. They're actually very effective. And you saw some of these registered on products on crops like hemp, for obvious reason, they're the good products. But remember to use these BTs first, if you have caterpillars, and then go to a different product, like Neem or Pygonic, get, give this BT a chance to act. They won't flare up the mites for you. So again, same thing with tank mix and rotations, we do a lot of research on on these tank mixes and rotations to make it more cost effective. So that's what you will notice that we need almost a weekly application, a minimum of one weekly application. Sometimes if you're too hot and and depending on your location or press pressure, you may have to do twice a week. So it's a lot more with organic and you have to give BT time to act. This is just a slide on spider mites. There are these are all conventional products, by the way, the last one that I have worked on is portal. But there are other products like the older products like acromite and agri-mech, really popular products. These are great for quick control. Portal is very good if you have multiple generations or multiple crops, and you want to protect your future crop. Portal has a very wide action and has a good residual. But again, label restrictions are there. So make sure you read the label and follow the label. Don't follow these slides. Check the label to make sure that you're doing the right thing. And then this is something for home gardeners or urban farms that I work with. People ask me what are some of the best organic insecticides? I am biased towards these because I do a lot of research with the companies that make them over the years. So I'm kind of biased. But again, BT, Dipel or Thuricizer on the top, Zentari is for armyworms, Pyganic, spinosid-based products, which can be expensive, but sometimes they are the last thing you want to use. Neem, insect cell soap, these struggle with high pest pressure. So like I said, try not to use these organics against a very high pest population. You have to start using them early and regularly. And under this heat, hot weather, check about leaf burn. Make sure you treat a small number of plants before you treat the whole farm with some of these products. Make sure that your crops don't burn. Some of these heavy oil products can burn the leaves under heat. And even in high tunnels, when there's 130 degrees in a high tunnel, be very careful using some of these products. We spray typically in the evening hours when it comes down and it's cooler just to avoid plant burn. And this is just a reminder about IPM, just there's no substitute to scouting. Pest prevention is better than cure. Managing insects when they are small or low in numbers always protect natural enemies because it's hard to add them. It's expensive if you wanted to buy some of these natural enemies. And then integrate, integrate, integrate this. You have to look at multiple ways. And think about the plant health. I think somebody else mentioned about plant health. Make sure you have good plant health, plants are healthy, stress free. They'll help your insect, your IPM. And finally, I'll just stop after this one. Check out the Alma-Bigning Farmer Program, which is the old program for all farmers. AlmaBigningFarmer.com is your website and NChemprez is the coordinator. And then we have just launched Operation Grow for Veteran Farmers. So Operation Grow is specifically for Veteran Farmers. And if you scan the code on your screen on the bottom right, it takes you to our registration page. So Operation Grow, operation-grow.com is a webpage. Lots of good information there. And once again, thank you to all the supporting agencies and the funding agencies that help with these research.