- Increased yield due to decreased plant stress. Since the plant isn’t constantly dealing with defending itself from repeat feeding insects, it can focus on making a fruit and making more of it. “Twenty years ago our biggest challenge in cotton was insect pests,” says Gaylon Morgan, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension cotton agronomist. “Bt provides a more consistent protection which helped cotton plants reach their full yield potential.”
- Decreased trips across the field with insecticides. This saves time and money from fuel and insecticide. “We’re not spraying ten times for caterpillar pests anymore,” says David Kern, associate professor of cotton and Jack Hamilton Regent’s Chair in cotton production at Louisiana State University. “They’ll spray maybe once or twice, but in many areas they rarely spray anymore.”
- More beneficial insects. The reduction in sprays means you have more insects, especially beneficial ones, in your fields. Keeping beneficial insects doesn’t just make you sound good to environmentalists; it also can help you control some of the more troublesome pests in your fields. Beneficial insects make sure there is competition for new flights of moths, which decreases the likelihood of an epidemic, for example.