The California Department of Food and Agriculture has awarded $500,000 to researcher Mark Hoddle for a three-year project to develop cotton seed bug management strategies for Bt and non-Bt cotton. Announced Nov. 3, the award targets a pest that CDFA says is expanding from urban areas toward key cotton-producing regions.
The project aims to build California’s first comprehensive integrated pest management, or IPM, strategy for cotton seed bug, according to CDFA. Its intended outcome is a foundation of management tools that cotton growers can use to respond proactively as the pest’s range expands.
Research moves toward field-scale evaluations
Hoddle’s earlier laboratory and field work examined cotton seed bug biology and ecology. The newly funded effort will move that research toward applied, field-scale evaluations, shifting the emphasis from understanding the pest to developing management strategies for California cotton production.
Both Bt and non-Bt cotton fall within the project’s scope. CDFA describes the work as development of future IPM components, rather than the release of a completed management program. The award therefore marks a research investment, not an announcement of validated grower recommendations.
Funding targets invasive pest management
The funding comes through CDFA’s Adaptive IPM for Invasive Agricultural Pests grant program. The program supports management approaches that can be put into use rapidly when invasive pests become established in California, or when recently arrived pests expand their range, reach additional host species or resurge.
The program also supports improvements to existing IPM strategies and research into additional controls for established invasive pests that remain uncontrolled despite extensive pesticide use because of pesticide resistance. CDFA says the program receives an ongoing state general fund appropriation and makes one award each year.
