Скачать или смотреть Southern IPM Hour: Water-Deficit Cotton Production System Management and Recommendations

Original Date of Webinar: June 7, 2023
Speaker: Megha Parajulee, Texas A&M AgriLife

Full ARDP Project Title: Developing Insect-Pest Management Strategies in Water-Deficit Cotton Production Systems: Management Recommendations for Production Sustainability

"To optimize crop production with limited water, yield losses due to insect pests must be managed in effective and economical ways under changing production systems."

Summary:
Texas and Georgia are the two leading cotton producing states in the United States. Both states have cotton pest management issues, declining water availability, and cotton production profitability. Cotton insect pest management cost, including arthropod-induced yield loss, accounting for $353 million annually, significantly contributes to the overall cotton production profitability in both states. However, climatic conditions, cropping system landscape, cotton production practices, and inputs differ widely between THP and Southern Georgia. Our agriculture still operates in a compartmentalized manner such that pest management practices are done separately from crop production, and economics of integrated cropping systems are not well-defined.

A multi-disciplinary research will enable development of research-based action thresholds considering variable yield potential under different water deficit scenarios. Action thresholds provide decision support to make management decisions and are an important component of IPM. Producer decisions are complicated by uncertainty of production risks posed by the interaction of biotic (pests) and abiotic (water) factors. Because thrips and Lygus/stink bug insect pests occur in cotton sequentially, the population dynamics and damage potential of each species was systematically examined. independently or in combination.

The overall goal of this project is to maximize profitable cotton production with declining irrigation capacity, while managing major insect pests based on economic profitability models.

Project Objectives:
1. Characterize and quantify the impact of thrips and Lygus/stink bug infestations on cotton production under dryland, supplemental and full irrigation regimes.
2. Develop a dynamic optimization economic model that maximizes the net returns from the management of single versus multiple pest infestations under water-deficit crop production conditions.
3. Consolidate the dynamic optimization economic model into a website hosted at the Southern IPM Center that can be used to predict potential economic returns under different conditions when lint price is known.