Funds were utilized to conduct field and laboratory studies against bean leaf beetles and other pest affecting soybeans. Replicated plots were conducted on the REC experimental fields at Princeton. The insecticides used included in this test were Leverage® or Hero® (double mode-of-action insecticides) and Baytrhoid XL, Warrior II with Zeon technology, and MustangMaxx (pyrethroids). Tallies shown that the numbers of bean leaf beetles were reduced rapidly on tallies conducted 5 and 10 days after the spray. However, the numbers of BLB were smaller compared to 2018 and 2019 and further tallies did not show any differences on BLB numbers on all replicates. Funds were utilized to check efficacy of several insecticides on bean leaf beetles in the laboratory. At the manufacturer recommendation rates MustangMaxx, Hero, and Lorsban caused 90% or higher populations. Whereas Warrior, MustangMaxx, Hero, Leverage and Lorsban deter complete bean leaf beetles feeding of soybean leaves for 48 hours.
In addition, studies were conducted to evaluate the geographical dispersion of the brown marmorated stink bug. In 2020 our monitoring for stink bugs showed that the brown marmorated was present in most soybeans of western Kentucky for first time, previous findings were of hitchhiking specimens; although the brown stink bug is the most prevalent species the BMSB resulted on 13% of all species found in western Kentucky. Among other insects evaluated in these studies were the grape colaspis, the threecornered alfalfa leafhopper and Japanese beetles. All these results will be presented in field days and grower’s meetings.