Sap-feeding insect pest management in Western cotton with novel sulfoxaflor insecticide

Sulfoxaflor insecticide was created by Dow AgroSciences scientists and is the first insecticide from the new sulfoximine class of insect control products. Sulfoxaflor provides fast acting and extended residual activity on a wide range of sap-feeding insect pests. Multi-year field studies were conducted in California, Arizona, and Texas to evaluate efficacy of sulfoxaflor to manage important pests of western cotton such as cotton aphid, Aphis gossypii Glover, western tarnished plant bug, Lygus hesperus Knight, and sweetpotato whitefly, Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius). Sulfoxaflor provided excellent control of cotton aphids at ≥0.022 lb a.i./acre and of western tarnished plant bugs at 0.045 lb a.i./acre. In Arizona research trials, management of western tarnished plant bugs with sulfoxaflor was associated with one of the highest seed cotton yields and the lowest mite flaring impact compared to selected commercial standards. Sulfoxaflor provided good activity on sweetpotato whitefly. These studies support sulfoxaflor as an important new tool for insect pest management and as an excellent fit in IPM programs. Registration of sulfoxaflor for U.S. cotton is anticipated in 2012.