Patterns and predictions for visual sampling of the brown marmorated stink bug

The brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB), Halyomorpha halys (Stål) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae), is an invasive pest of great economic importance do to damage it causes annually to a wide variety of crops including peaches.  In order to monitor BMSB levels in a particular peach orchard, integrated pest management scouts commonly use timed visual counts to estimate population density.  This research focuses on the importance of standardizing the time of data collection, the variance between observers, and nymphal movement within trees over a 24 hour period.  Data was collected weekly from petal fall to harvest in 2013 and 2014 in peach orchards located in central (one orchard) and southern (one orchard) New Jersey. Results from this research should allow refinement of current sampling methods for BMSB.