title: Utilization of early soybeans for food and reproduction by the tarnished plant bug (Hemiptera: Miridae) in the delta of Mississippi.
abstract: Commercially produced maturity group (MG) IV soybeans, Glycine max L., were sampled during bloom for tarnished plant bugs, Lygus lineolaris (Palisot de Beauvois), during May and June 1999 (3 fields) and 2001 (18 fields). The adults and nymphs were found primarily in single  population peaks in both years, indicating a single new generation was produced during each year. The peak mean numbers of nymphs were 0.61 and 0.84 per drop cloth sample in 1999 and 2001, respectively. Adults peaked at 3.96 (1999) and 3.76 (2001) per sweep net sample (25 sweeps). Tests using  laboratory-reared and field-collected tarnished plant bugs resulted in very poor survival of nymphs on 16 different soybean varieties (MG III, one; IV, four; V, nine; VI, two). A large cage (0.06 ha) field test found that the number of nymphs produced on eight soybean varieties after mated  adults were released into the cages was lower than could be expected on a suitable host. These results indicated that soybean was a marginal host for tarnished plant bugs. However, the numbers of adults and nymphs found in the commercially produced fields sampled in the study may have been  high enough to cause feeding damage to the flowering soybeans. The nature of the damage and its possible economic importance were not determined. Reproduction of tarnished plant bugs in the commercially produced early soybean fields showed that the early soybeans provided tarnished plant bugs  with a very abundant host at a time when only wild hosts were previously available.
authors: USDA-ARS Southern Insect Management Unit, PO Box 346, Stoneville, MS 38776, USA. gordon.snodgrass@ars.usda.gov
authors: G L
authors: GL
authors: Snodgrass
authors: R E
authors: RE
authors: Jackson
authors: C A
authors: CA
authors: Abel
authors: O P
authors: OP
authors: Perera
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D020062:Heteroptera / Q000502:physiology*; D006790:Host-Parasite Interactions; D008297:Male; D008922:Mississippi; D009758:Nymph / Q000254:growth & development; D010058:Oviposition; D013025:Glycine max / Q000469:parasitology*