Casebearer winding down

   Today, when we scouted the trees in our "No-Spray" plots, we discovered two things. First, most of the active casebearer larvae had moved into the third nut of the cluster (photo at left). At this point in the development of the pecan, it usually takes 3 nuts for a single larva to grow large enough to pupate.
   The second thing we learned was that our "No-Spray" plot was effectively sprayed last Monday when the neighbor's spray plane treated the Experiment Field along with the commercial groves north and south of us. The number of clusters damaged in our no-spray plots hit 6% on Monday and stayed at that level the rest of the week. Casebearer larvae inside nuts at the time the pesticide was applied were sheltered from the spray and continued to feed on the cluster.