A young cotton entomologist catches the "bug".

Because cotton is a perennial plant by nature, fruit are being formed over a long period of time compared to annual crops. The constant supply of new fruit makes cotton very attractive to many insect species over a relatively long time period. Cotton is a model crop for integrated pest management as entomologists have been at the forefront developing scouting techniques and thresholds that balance the use of tools such as insecticides, transgenic insect resistance varieties, beneficial insects and insect pathogens to help producers produce an economically viable cotton crop.

Cotton Insect information courtesy of Mississippi State University