IN YOUR ORCHARD
TIME TO CONSIDER
Gone are the times where growers only needed to worry about disease during spring. After that dramatic sentence, I hope I have your attention! Spring used to be a time where growers would watch the weather forecast and determine if there was a need for fungicide applications and then put their focus on Navel orangeworm going into the month of May. Here at Blue Diamond, we have noticed a frightening trend in reject data from a particular group of pests, which likes to do its damage during this previously quiet time of the almond growing season. What are those pests ? Leaf- Footed Bug and Stink Bugs ! Some growers are quite familiar with these pests, but for those who are not, I am going to breakdown what these pests look like, how to scout for them, and what you can do to try to control them.
Figure 1 UC Davis Statewide IPM Program Figure 2 UC Davis Statewide IPM Program Figure 3 UC Davis Statewide IPM Program
Leaf-Footed Bugs and Stink Bugs come from the same family of insects, called Hemiptera, which is just the scientific way of saying they are an insect with piercing/sucking mouthparts. Both pests cause damage when they feed on maturing almonds with their needle-like mouth parts, which is called a proboscis. They insert the needle-like mouth part into the nut and that damage can lead to the nut aborting, or if feeding is done later in the season, it may not abort but will leave a lesion known as Brown Spot . How can you tell the difference between the pests ? Leaf-Footed Bug ( Figure 1 ) is fairly
easy to identify since it has a small appendage on its hind leg that looks like…you guessed it, a leaf! There are three different species of Leaf-Footed Bug, but they all look relatively similar. Stink Bugs are another story. We have quite a few native Stink Bugs in California and not all cause damage. I am only going to talk about the species that cause problems for you as growers. Green Stink Bugs are a native species to California and look just like they sound ( Figure 2 ). The second, possibly more worrisome Stink bug, is the invasive Brown Marmorated Stink Bug also known as BMSB. BMSB was first found in
California in the mid-2000s and has now been found in more than 16 different counties. BMSB looks similar to a native stinkbug but has one very noticeable marker, two white bands on their antennae ( Figure 3 ). The damage caused by BMSB and Green Stink Bug is very similar as they will feed/sting a nut multiple times. BMSB can also be a nuisance for homeowners where large populations of the pest will try to enter homes in the fall and winter months. Hopefully you are now confident in what these pests look like, but I am going to burst your bubble a bit.
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ALMOND FACTS
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