Ag News
Cotton jassid: 2025 experience influenced 2026
Posted on Sep 16, 2026 at 13:54 PM
From the first detection in Georgia last summer to the rapid expansion of the cotton jassid in 2025, the tiny insects also known as spotted leaf hoppers prompted an immediate response in multiple southern states. The small, yet ravenous bugs reached every cotton-growing county in Georgia.
An impromptu response – intensive scouting, particularly at field edges, and then spraying pesticides to control the jassid – ensued, and the damage caused by their consumption of the leaves of cotton plants was largely kept in check.
With the bug being a known entity, researchers at the University of Georgia and other Southern land grant schools were able to create a program to combat the cotton jassid in 2026.
“We have a much better plan,” Dr. Phillip Roberts, UGA Extension entomologist, said during an Aug. 26 webinar that was hosted by Farm Progress and included Auburn’s Dr. Scott Graham.
Roberts and Graham recapped 2025.
“By the end of the year and just as the year progressed, we knew it was going to impact yield because the symptoms from feeding just happened so quickly,” Roberts said.
He noted that if left uncontrolled, jassids cause “hopper burn” or discoloration of the leaves. Ultimately, the leave damage results in diminished photosynthesis.
“Those leaves will eventually begin to redden on the margins. Eventually the entire leaf would redden and leaves would basically desiccate, and the plant would just die,” Roberts said.
To their credit, Roberts said, growers handled jassids well.
“It was unexpected. We had to change up our management depending on insecticide selection. We added some sprays in some areas, but at the end of the day, growers managed the insect,” he said.
The experience from 2025 proved instructive in multiple ways.
It became clear that jassids hit field edges first, so the researchers placed a premium on scouting plants within the first few feet at the edge, and they emphasized that the place to look on each plant was the fourth leaf below the terminal, though jassids on leaves above the fourth should not be ignored. If there is an average of more than one jassid found, producers should immediately treat the field with insecticides.
“Early in my career, you had consultants and scouts making counts,” Roberts said. “This is before BT cotton, but literally a grower would be waiting at his shop for a scouting report because that grower was going to react that day, not tomorrow, that day when he got his report. That's what you have to do with this insect. If you’re at threshold, you don’t put it off a week. You make a point to go get that field, whatever it takes, preferably within a day or two, but you can’t delay it. I mean, too much can happen.”
The emergence of the cotton jassid prompted growers to spend more time scouting than they might have otherwise, Roberts said, and this activity led to increased knowledge about other pests in cotton fields, as well as beneficial arthropods like spiders that feed on jassids.
“We’ve really got back to the basics of [integrated pest management] IPM and done a much better job scouting,” Roberts said.
Roberts emphasized that suspected hopper burn should always be investigated.
“If you see a weak spot in a field that you suspect to be jassid, stop the machine, get off and look. We always want to investigate hopper burn. And that could be confused with other things, but if you see plants you suspect [of having] hopper burn, we need to look and confirm the presence or absence of jassids,” he said.
For more information about the cotton jassid, including surveillance data, field diagnostics and science-based recommendations, visit https://stop2scl.org/.
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