Natural enemies of stink bugs

Insecticide use in Georgia cotton has declined dramatically since the late 1980s, with the successful elimination of the cotton boll weevil in the 1990s and the widespread deployment of Bt-transgenic cotton. However, in this reduced insecticide environment a complex of stink bug species has emerged as a significant pest threat to Georgia cotton, and other crops. UGA entomologists wanted to characterize the natural enemies of stink bugs in Georgia in an effort to understand how much mortality is inflicted by natural enemies on the stink bugs, and to determine if there might be opportunities to improve the efficiency of important enemies or possibly to import effective enemies from elsewhere to effect greater biological control. Reliance on natural enemies to manage stink bug populations reduces the need for grower inputs, and can help maintain the remarkable environmental and economic benefits that reduced insecticide inputs have accrued to Georgia cotton producers and the state of Georgia in recent years. Further, natural enemies work across the landscape so that greater efficacy of the natural enemy complex against stink bugs would benefit a range of crops in addition to cotton with no additional grower inputs. The role fire ants and Conocephalus grasshoppers play as predators of stink bug eggs would indicate that activities that promote these predators in cropping systems also may contribute to reduced stink bug problems. The discovery of a new parasitoid that attacks stink bug nymphs may have considerable potential to help suppress stink bug populations.