Be on the Lookout for Early Season Insect Pests BY HOLLY DAVIS
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s planting gets underway for sor ghum, cotton and sesame, remember to keep an eye out for seed and seedling insect pests, including wireworms and cutworms. They can be tricky to recognize as they have a secretive lifestyle. The damaging immature stages remain on or under the soil surface thus it’s often the losses resulting from their feeding that alerts
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growers to their presence. Wireworms are not typically a major pest in the Lower Rio Grande Valley but may be an occasional problem when land taken out of fallow, there is significant crop residue, or where there was heavy weed pressure in previous years. These cylindrical, shiny, hard-bodied, yellowish to brown “worms” are the immature stages of click bee-
