Mizzou Crop Protection

04/23/2026

04/08/2026

Check out Dr. Floyd talking about his research and extension program on the Crop Science Podcast!

Use the link below or available on all podcast streaming platforms!

Learn how smarter pest management in cotton and rice addresses resistance, protects yield, and improves pesticide targeting while reducing off target movement.

04/03/2026

I’m a little jealous, our team began planting this week and I missed it! Very proud to have a team that is willing to get our wagon rolling for
Our 1st planting dates for rice studies went in at Missouri Rice Research farm! This year we will look at fungicide application timings, insecticide seed treatments, and simulated defoliation responses! As always, looking forward to serving our MO rice stakeholders!

Mizzou College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources you got some hard working graduate students in SEMO!

04/08/2025

Enjoyed showing so many kids about my love of entomology!

01/10/2025

Frosty said he wants to hit some sweeps! We told him it may be a little too cold to scout some plant bugs!

Hope everyone who was out in the snow is warming back up! It was a great day!

11/05/2024

Excited to join this group and speak on rice billbugs with our Missouri data!

06/27/2024

New episode is live! Syngenta

Go have a listen and keep those pests under control! Link below!

https://www.syngenta-us.com/pest-patrol/missouri

06/25/2024

Diamide seed treatments provide increased control of billbug pressure in furrow-irrigated rice. But what if you did not treat the seed and you notice billbug populations mid-season?

06/20/2024

Had a proud PI moment today! Ellie Cravens is a sophomore at MSU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences from New Madrid, MO and has worked with Crop Protection the past two summers.

Our senior technician Cory Cross gave her lessons on how to operate a high boy sprayer today and she dominated! She is fearless! The only thing she didn’t like is me trying to land the drone on the sprayer roof!

The Crop Protection program takes great pride in the land-grant mission and we want all of our students to give back with their best in the Missouri Ag community.

We hope Ellie may be interested in a graduate degree with Mizzou College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources in a few short years!

06/20/2024

Crop protection crew had a full slate today. This morning we started with our rice stinkbug bioassays. This is our field method where we take a wild population and infest them into Petri dishes applied with multiple rates of lambda cyhalothtin. We are monitoring resistance to this ai to find better application alternatives for our Missouri rice producers.

This afternoon we started our PGR regime in our cotton plots, as we begin to set fruit we know are pest populations will begin to build and we will be very busy the rest of the summer.

05/23/2024

https://extension.missouri.edu/news/recommendations-for-thrips-management-in-the-missouri-bootheel

2024 has not been an ideal year for thrips management due to the consistent overcast during the daytime hours. This restricts thrips movement, and in hand can increase injury. Hot and sunny conditions are ideal not because thrips are more active, but because cotton and growth development occur more....