Abstract
BackgroundStink bugs (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) comprise a critically important insect pest complex affecting 12 major crops worldwide including cotton. In the US, stink bug damage to developing cotton bolls causes boll abscission, lint staining, reduced fiber quality, and reduced yields with estimated losses ranging from 10 to 60 million dollars annually. Unfortunately, scouting for stink bug damage in the field is laborious and excessively time consuming. To improve scouting accuracy and efficiency, we investigated fluorescence changes in cotton boll tissues as a result of stink bug feeding.ResultsFluorescent imaging under long-wave ultraviolet light showed that stink bug-damaged lint, the inner carpal wall, and the outside of the boll emitted strong blue-green fluorescence in a circular region near the puncture wound, whereas undamaged tissue emissions occurred at different wavelengths; the much weaker emission of undamaged tissue was dominated by chlorophyll fluorescence. We further characterized the optimum emission and excitation spectra to distinguish between stink bug damaged bolls from undamaged bolls.ConclusionsThe observed characteristic fluorescence peaks associated with stink bug damage give rise to a fluorescence-based method to rapidly distinguish between undamaged and stink bug damaged cotton bolls. Based on the fluorescent fingerprint, we envision a fluorescence reflectance imaging or a fluorescence ratiometric device to assist pest management professionals with rapidly determining the extent of stink bug damage in a cotton field.
Highlights
Stink bugs (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) comprise a critically important insect pest complex affecting 12 major crops worldwide including cotton
We report here the observation of an unusual and strong fluorescent emission in cotton boll tissue that has been damaged by stink bug feeding
Visual examination In the damaged cotton boll, the symptoms of stink bug feeding on the interior boll wall included yellowish white swollen protuberances and yellowish staining on the lint (Figure 1A and 1B)
Summary
Stink bugs (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) comprise a critically important insect pest complex affecting 12 major crops worldwide including cotton. Phytophagous stink bugs (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) comprise a critically important insect pest complex affecting worldwide food and fiber production. This group of closely related genera has a wide host range that includes fruit, vegetable, nut, fiber, and cereals in addition to numerous wild hosts [1]. In southeastern US cotton production, feeding by stink bugs causes boll abscission, lint staining, reduced lint quality, and reduced yields [4,5,6,7,8]. More recent work has shown that the southern green stink
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