- Author: Ben Faber
A note from Kern County Entomology Advisor David Haviland, We are forewarned. The hills are drying up and after this rain, there could be a tide of False Chinch Bugs coming out of the hills. I remember in 2005(?) after the rains they were crawling everywhere and young avocado trees were getting hit pretty badly, requiring sprays certainly along orchard perimieters,
We get FCB every year in the south Valley and there are definitely two weather-related correlations. First, more rain equals more weeds equals more false chinch bugs. But also, weather effects drydown that affects the longevity of the migration event. In cool springs like we are having, vegetation tends to dry slowly and the migrations out of pastures and other weedy areas can last over a month. In years where we get blasted with 100 degrees in May, things dry down quickly, we get a massive wave of bugs, but then they go away quickly. The most fun is when somebody decides to disk up a heavily infested area, all the weeds dry at once, and the migration is a massive pulse. I'm not sure what will happen this year. We had over 10 inches of rain (more than twice the normal) in the south Valley and there is lots of vegetation out there, but then earlier this week we got about 0.25 inches of rain from the freak low-pressure system that lit up our skies with lightning on Monday and Tuesday. A lot of the vegetation out there is going to be able to hang on a little longer. I'm thinking that the false chinch bug call Siavash received will be the first of many that we get up and down the state this year.
As a side-note, in production ag, our biggest issues are when migrations get into young almond or pistachio orchards. They definitely kill young trees due to the toxin they inject. I've seen them also do some pretty good damage to cotton, beans, and tomatoes, but it is usually only a few rows on the edge. For homeowners is mainly just a nuisance, but it is hard to tell a homeowner not to worry about the thousands of bugs crawling all over their house.
https://ipm.ucanr.edu/agriculture/avocado/false-chinch-bug/
https://ipm.ucanr.edu/agriculture/avocado/false-chinch-bug/
https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=43865
- Author: Monique J. Rivera
- Author: Ben Faber
The false chinch bug (FCB), Nysius raphanus (Hemiptera: Lygaeidae), is a pest of many plants. FCB is a generalist and has been found to be a problem in many cropping systems such as soybeans, quinoa, tobacco, cotton, broccoli and other Brassicaceae plants. FCB adults (above) is mostly light to dark gray, elongate, and about 0.12 inch (3 mm) long. Females lay eggs on host plants or in cracks in soil. The mostly pale gray nymphs have inconspicuous reddish to brown abdominal markings. FCB has 4-7 generations per year with all stages being potentially present throughout the year. All stages can be present throughout the year. They also can be found invading homes in the southwest. Their populations generally start in unmanaged fields with lots of weeds and are an issue for crops when they build up large numbers and move into the crops from the unmanaged, weedy fields.
Photos: Surrendra Dara
This year it's host of choice is young avocado plantings in Ventura County. False chinch bug occasionally causes severe injury on young trees by sucking sap from shoots and young stems. Infested shoots wither and die suddenly after attack, which typically occurs in May and June. Economic damage normally occurs in groves away from the coast only on young trees in border rows adjacent to uncultivated areas or grasslands. Otherwise healthy mature trees tolerate bug feeding.
Here are photos of damage to young avocado provided by Tom Roberts, Integrated Consulting Entomology.
To best manage FCB, a grower will need to catch it before it establishes and the populations explode. This is difficult because the pest will not reoccur every year on regular basis. From what has been seen in the field this year, FCB appears to prefer young avocado plantings and thus, a targeted approach is to monitor only in new plantings right as summer temperatures are rising. In paper in the journal, Phytoparasitica from 2006, the authors investigated what color sticky trap was best for monitoring and found that yellow worked best. Thus, passive monitoring with yellow sticky cards that are placed throughout the field and monitored weekly is a potential option. However, this approach can be expensive with the labor hours needed to properly process the sticky cards. A more practical approach is to sweep net weedy areas on the outside of avocado groves and adjacent unmanaged areas nearby weekly in search for the first signs of FCB.
In conventional avocado production, there is only one insecticide recommended for use against FCB. Malathion 8 at 16 oz/acre.
- Author: Ben Faber
The rains are gone and the hills are drying. The weeds in the orchards that aren't being hit by the irrigation water are drying up, as well. During winter and early spring, false chinch bug primarily feeds on foliage, stems, and seeds of wild grasses and cruciferous weeds. When vegetation dries or is cut, or weeds are treated with a herbicide, bugs move in large numbers to feed on virtually any nearby green plants, including irrigated avocados and citrus. These feeding aggregations can be very large. And the calls come in. Why they are called "false" is hard to say, because they can sure seem real.
The false chinch bug (family Lygaeidae) adult (above) is mostly light to dark gray, elongate, and about 0.12 inch (3 mm) long. Females lay eggs on host plants or in cracks in soil. The mostly pale gray nymphs
have inconspicuous reddish to brown abdominal markings. There are from four to seven generations per year. All stages can be present throughout the year.
False chinch bug occasionally causes severe injury on young trees by sucking sap from shoots and young stems. Infested shoots wither and die suddenly after attack, which typically occurs in May and June. Economic damage normally occurs in groves away from the coast only on young trees in border rows adjacent to uncultivated areas or grasslands. Otherwise healthy mature trees tolerate bug feeding.
So what to do? Monitor during late winter and early spring if young avocado/citrus trees are growing inland near unmanaged areas most susceptible to false chinch bug migrations. Before winter weeds dry or are cut, look for bugs on fences and weedy areas adjacent to young trees.
If false chinch bugs are common, consider treating weedy borders to kill bugs before they migrate. Only border trees may need treatment.
There are other insects that can cause these feeding symptoms, such as stinkbugs, and leaf blight can look very similar to the feeding damage that these insects do. So make sure, it is false chinch bug that is causing the problem and not an irrigation issue.
See IPM Guidelines: https://www2.ipm.ucanr.edu/agriculture/avocado/False-chinch-bug/
This is a lousy close up of a nymph
Good photos of adults by Surendra Dara
The tree damage images below were provided by Tom Roberts, Integrated Consulting Entomology