Hey Art,

They are actually making some progress with beating back the weevil 100 years after it beat back the farmers. An eradication program in the early 90's has effectively eliminated it from Arizona, California, and northern Sonora cotton fields. A push to eliminate from the southeastern US began in North Carolina some years ago and is now centered in Texas. After several rounds of new insecticides followed by resistance, it turns out that a huge dent can be put in the population by simply cleaning up the fields and ditches of cotton stubble and stray cotton plants at the end of the season. Leaves the little buggers looking for a home but with no place to hide for the winter. The correct spelling of the species name is Anthonomus grandis (this should actually be in italics, but I don't do html italics).

rich r