Factors affecting pest abundance in the orchard
Without pest management in a pecan orchard, growers sacrifice nut yield and quality. Indeed, it would be a rare season if a pecan orchard did not need input for pest management and nut harvest in that orchard met expectations for commercial production. And this is why year after year, the same insect pest species that...
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Overwintering Pecan Pests: Where are they now?
A cold winter day in a leafless pecan orchard rarely conjures images of insects and all the damage they can do to pecans. But with the days flying by and spring almost here, the insects will be back. At least it seems that way, even though most never left. The majority of the pecan pests...
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The Nut Curculio: A Lesser Known Pecan Pest
Broad knowledge of the arthropod pests attacking pecans enhances one’s pest management in pecan orchards. When the focus is on the major pests we are familiar with, we miss detecting signs and symptoms of minor pests. Even though minor pests cause little economic injury to the tree or crop, occasionally their numbers and subsequent damage...
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Monitoring Stink Bugs, an Annual Pecan Pest
Stink bugs are serious, annual pests of pecan. Their feeding on developing nuts before shell hardening leads to “black pit” of the embryo and nut abortion. After the shell hardens, damaged nuts remain on the tree and are harvested. Stink bug feeding injury on nuts with hardened shells and mature kernels usually is indicated by...
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Hickory Shuckworm: An Almost Season-long Pest of Pecan
Despite it being a major pest of pecan, the hickory shuckworm has had less research done on it in the U.S. over the last 20 years than other major pests, including the pecan weevil, aphids, pecan nut casebearer, and stink bugs. Bill Ree, a retired Texas A&M AgriLife IPM specialist, made a similar comment five...
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Obscure Scale: A Stealthy Pest of Pecan
A handful of pest species cause most economic injury to pecan year after year. Pests attacking the developing nut include the stink bug complex, pecan weevil, hickory shuckworm, and pecan nut casebearer, while the aphid complex and mites attack the foliage. Occasionally, other pest species may cause sporadic injury, but their activity is usually limited...
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Lady Beetles, Pecan Orchards, and Ground Covers
Pecan aphids have many natural enemies. Some are rarely seen and may not be recognized for the good they do against pecan aphids. Although important, these natural enemies will be saved to write about later. Instead, this article focuses on the well-known and commonly seen lady beetles whose striking colors cannot help but attract attention....
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Pecan Aphids, Part III: A Different Approach to Managing the Black Pecan Aphid
The first and second articles in this series on pecan aphids focused on the distribution of the three aphid species (blackmargined aphid, yellow pecan aphid, and black pecan aphid) on pecan foliage and their feeding biology. An emphasis was placed on how the black pecan aphid conditions foliage at feeding sites by eliciting chlorotic zones,...
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Pecan Aphids, Part II: Feeding Biology
In the first of this three-part series on the pecan-feeding aphids (March 2019), I covered how different aphid species distribute on pecan foliage. At the end of that article, we questioned why nymphs of the blackmargined pecan aphid and yellow pecan aphid favor the underside of the pecan leaf, but a proportion of black pecan...
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Pecan Aphids, Part I: Distribution on Pecan Leaves
This article is the first of a three-part series examining the pecan-feeding aphids, especially the black pecan aphid. This first part concerns the general biology of the pecan aphids and their distribution on pecan leaves. In the second part, the emphasis will shift to the black pecan aphid with a discussion of feeding biology, and...
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