Importance of Monitoring Square Retention in Young Cotton

Square retention is a critical component of early season plant bug management.  I would strongly encourage you to take square retention counts along with your sweep net counts prior to bloom.  Not only does this help in the decision making process of treating plant bugs, but it also helps you to get a better idea of how the products you are applying are working.  Numbers alone can be deceiving when adults are steady moving into the field.  When large numbers of adults are migrating into a field it is not uncommon to have as many or more plant bugs 4-5 days after a spray than you did before you sprayed and it still would not equate to a control failure. If you are maintain square retention the product you are applying is working regardless of adult numbers in the sweep net.

Square retention counts are extremely easy and fast to do.  There are numerous ways to do it but this is the method that we prefer:  Get a clicker or keep up with this in your head.  Look at first position squares starting at the terminal going down the plant.  I would not spend a lot of time in the terminal digging for tiny pinhead squares but look at the first square you can easily find (usually between pinhead and match head size).  Starting there, count down 3 first position squares and move to the next plant keeping up with how many squares you have looked at by clicking every time you look at a first position square.  Any time you see a position that is missing, blasted, or flared keep up with that number separately in your head because it will be a smaller number.  If the plants are small and only have 1 or 2 first positions only count those and move to the next plant.  If it has more than 3, that’s fine also but stop counting there and move to next plant.  Do this in several places in the field until you have looked at 100 first position fruiting sites regardless of the total number of plants it takes you to get to 100.  Example:  You have looked at 100 first position fruiting sites and have 15 missing sites you are at 85% square retention.  You will be very surprised at how fast you can do this, especially if you use a clicker. Another reason that this is important is that you if square retentions starts dropping below 80%, you may have to adjust your threshold down to start hanging more first position fruit.  For example:  Let’s say we are in the first two weeks of square set (the threshold is 8/100 sweeps) and my square retention is 70% but I am only catching 5-6/100 sweeps I would consider treating the field based on the poor square retention although numbers are not quite at threshold.  Please call if you have any questions about this.

Top 3 First Position Squares From Terminal Down