To date, we have sampled several tobacco thrips populations across the Midsouth and Southeast. Every population tested has come back highly resistant to orthene (30 to 40% mortality). Bidrin performed marginally better but assayed populations resulted in mortality levels below 55%. One population from the Missouri Bootheel exhibited 80% mortality to Bidrin. Spinetoram, the thrips active ingredient in Radiant/Intrepid Edge, is performing well with 100% mortality exhibited in all populations tested. Intrepid Edge + surfactant is also performing the best in our foliar tests across the Midsouth. Organophosphate insecticides (Orthene, Bidrin, Dimethoate) are performing poorly in my tests in West Tennessee, which is no surprise. Increased Orthene rates didn’t improve control and may exacerbate other pests such as spider mites and cotton aphids. Overall, I haven’t received the number of calls/complaints that we had last year on Orthene/Bidrin but we had better growing conditions this year vs last and some fields outran thrips. We are continuing to assay populations from the Midsouth and Southeast and I’ll update the blog as we obtain more results.