BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The LSU AgCenter says the federal government has approved use of a new chemical to control stink bugs on up to 50,000 acres of rice in Louisiana, and a study will see whether it works better than the pesticides now in use.
Entomologist Natalie Hummel says that some farmers are seeing signs that the bugs are becoming resistant to pyrethroid (pie-REE-throyd) insecticides, so the Mitsui product called Tenchu is being tested.
Hummel says that stink bugs can damage yields at several stages of rice growth, but south Louisiana's crop is generally past all of those points. She says the south also reported little problems with stink bugs this year, but some north Louisiana farmers have reported severe damage.