Insect pests caused an estimated 3.33 percent yield loss statewide. Alabama growers made 3.96 insecticide applications per acre, with an average cost of $8.03 per application. According to the USDA Cotton Varieties Planted 2020 Crop report, 100 percent of the cotton acres planted in Alabama had two or three Bt technologies. Bollgard 2 (= 55 percent) made up most of the acres planted followed by Bollgard 3 (= 30 percent), Widestrike 3 (= 10 percent), and TwinLink Plus (= 5 percent). The vast majority (= 97 percent) of cotton in the state is scouted by private crop consultants, industry agrifield representatives, or Extension-trained scouts and growers, with an average scouting fee cost per acre of $8.23 (table 1). A total of 85 percent of the acres treated were sprayed with a ground rig and the remaining 15 percent sprayed by plane. The total input of the economic results of cotton pest management are available in table 1.

In terms of the percentage of acres treated, the tarnished plant bug (= 83.6 percent) was the top pest across the state followed by thrips (= 80 percent) and stink bugs (= 64.6 percent) (table 2). However, stink bugs (= 1.60) required the most insecticide applications per acre followed by tarnished plant bugs (= 1.41) and thrips (= 0.88) (table 2). Stink bugs caused the highest percent loss to insects (= 1.50 percent) and highest total loss plus cost per acre (= $8.5 million) followed by tarnished plant bugs (= 0.39 percent; $6.8 million) and thrips (= 1.00 percent; $5.8 million) (table 3).