I am so happy to start working on Lygus hesperus this year. The mites took a bite out of me and my lab. It was a mite-y task, but we finished it with all our might and strength. They might have beaten us down, but we were not out. With Lygus starting to pick up I wanted to lay out what we plan to do now through September of this year when it comes to our catfacing calamitous curse.

Figure 1. A Strawberry Spaceman locked in a laser sword battle against the Evil Insect Lord Buzzman. Generated using DALL-E from Open AI.

We are off to the races this year with a Lygus spray rotation trial that is being conducted in collaboration with Naturipe and UC Extension in Santa Maria and Salinas. The goal of this study is to examine how Sefina and Avaunt Evo line up in rotation compared to a grower standard. Depending on pressure the trial will run between 10 and 20 weeks. We will start taking harvest data in week 3 since it takes at least 3 to 4 weeks of Lygus damage to show up in the form of damaged fruit. The most important and reliable data will be the number of nymphs and the number of catfaced fruit.

Another trial is being conducted in collaboration with TRIC robotics, Coastal Growers, and Betteravia farms. We are examining the TRIC version of the Bug Vacuum, with or without a spray program, on a conventional and organic farm with the same cultivar. These plots are several acres large, and we will sample 200 plants per treatment for Lygus adults and nymphs, beneficial insects, and fruit flies. We will sample 60 plants per treatment per week to have an estimate of yield and damaged fruit. It is a non-randomized trial, but it is still replicated, and we will run it for 10 weeks. It may not be up to the classical scientific standard of randomized and replicated, but for a grower and PCA who want to know the answers quickly, this is the best path forward. Some good quality scientific data is better than no scientific data. Like Voltaire, I try not to let “the best be the enemy of the good.”

Finally, we have our normal slate of efficacy trials. I am shrinking the size of our small plot trials from 16×20 ft to 8×20 ft so I can examine more spray combinations in the same area in a grower’s field. The data on adult Lygus is less reliable because of their frequent movement but the Lygus nymph data will remain useful. We are also going to be examining some knockdown partners for Avaunt Evo and Sefina, which we could not do before because of regulations. For products that are already registered we have a much freer hand to increase the size of our plots to get real-world data.

We are hoping to have some good answers or guides for Avaunt Evo and Sefina by Field Day, July 24th, 2025. Stay tuned!