Stink Bugs in Cotton

We have seen an increase in stink bugs in cotton over the past few weeks. When scouting fields, pull 20 1-inch bolls from 5 locations and inspect them for internal feeding by popping them open. The 1-inch boll size is important to ensure you are finding recent boll damage. A 1-inch boll is roughly 10 days after white bloom.

We continue to sample plants with the vacuums to see if we can find Cotton Jassid. So far, we have not found any cotton jassds in Calhoun, Refugio, or Victoria Counties. In 2026, they have only been found in plant nurseries in the Rio Grande Valley, but not north of there.

One insect we are capturing in most samples is the verde plant bug. The feeding of verdes can be similar to that of stink bugs and may explain the higher amount of feeding injury we are finding in cotton bolls.

Internal feeding can look like lint staining or other non-white looking seed, but it is typically associated with wart formation on the interior boll wall. Look for bolls with external feeding spots; the spots don't always correlate with internal feeding, but nearly all bolls with internal feeding have external spots.

The warts on the inside boll wall will be caused by stink bugs, but Verde plant bugs can also cause warts and be just as damaging. Use the table below for treatment decisions. 

The most damaging time for stink bugs is the third through fifth weeks of bloom. As the bolls mature after the fifth week, there is less damage caused by stink bugs. The end of concern for stink bugs comes after 450 Heat Units after 5 nodes above white flower, or cutout. Since we normally accumulate 22-23 heat units per day during July and August, the crop should be protected for 20 days after cutout.