ARS | Publication request: Edge effects of stink bugs in corn, cotton, peanut and soybean fields adjacent to woodland.

Submitted to: Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: May 11, 2012
Publication Date: March 15, 2012
Citation: Olson, D.M., Ruberson, J.R., Andow, D. 2012. Edge effects of stink bugs in corn, cotton, peanut and soybean fields adjacent to woodland[abstract]. Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting. March 4-7, 2012, Little Rock, Arkansas.

Technical Abstract: Producers face significant crop losses from stink bug species in the southeastern USA, but the high mobility and polyphagy of the bugs make predictions of their presence in crops difficult. While there is some evidence that they colonize crops from adjacent crops, there are no studies of their colonization from woodland, a common feature of the landscape in the region. We examined stink bug responses to crop edges of 30 fields of corn, peanut, cotton and soybean adjacent to woodland over 2 years. A 4.5 m section of the crop row was sampled 20 times in 2009 and 15 times in 2010 along two 101-m transects in each crop field running perpendicular to the woodland edge with the first sample located 1 m from the crop edge that interfaces with the wooded area. We demarcated distances into along the transects =31 m and > 31 m from the edge for statistical purposes and found most often a random distribution of stink bugs with respect to the woodland edge of all crops examined. The exception occurred mainly in corn fields; more stink bugs were found at the crop edge when flowering alternative hosts were present in the woodland edges. We show that in 49 fields of four major crops grown in this area, that the woodland edge is not a major source from which stink bugs colonize these crops. These results suggest that control measures should not be concentrated at the field edges adjacent to woodlands.