If you planted cotton into heavy residue in the spring, your fields are probably looking better headed into July than if you had scant residue on the field.

Southern Kansas Cotton Growers Cooperative crop consultant Rex Friesen says young cotton plants were better able to survive the strong winds of late May and June in fields that had a lot of residue.

Fields with scant residue, however, were more likely to have areas where plants were blown out of the ground, just one of the many challenges to spring-planted crops in the 2017 season. "It sure hasn't been an easy season so far," Friesen says.

He adds that weed pressure is also heavy in many fields after a wet start to the growing season, but cautions growers to be very careful to follow the label instructions when using dicamba products such as XtendiMax, Eugenia or 2,4-D Enlist. Arkansas has already banned dicamba products because of drift injury issues.

"Protect yourself and your neighbors by being diligent," Friesen says. "Or avoid the problem altogether by using glyphosate and Liberty instead."

Foliage has reached enough maturity that thrips should no longer be much of a threat, but the first week of July is a good time to scout for fleahoppers. These pests are about one-eighth inch long and dirty mint green in color.

PINHEAD SQUARE: The arrow on this photo points to the tiny pinhead square that is just formed on a cotton plant.

"As you are beginning to set some squares, or flower buds, it is important to watch for missing squares, which is a sign that fleahoppers are present," Friesen says. "When I was training field scouts, the most difficult skill to teach was how to recognize the tiniest squares [pinhead squares], and recognize the places on the plant where they ought to be. Most of the cotton I have looked at, if old enough to have any squares, has had them first showing up on main stem node No. 6, which is the sixth true leaf. When the leaf is about the size of a half dollar (or a little smaller), you should be able to find the small square on the little stem near the base of that leaf. The square is slightly lighter green than the rest of the plant material, and actually looks like a triangle."

MISSING SQUARE: The arrow points to the spot where a square is missing on the plant. Missing squares generally indicate an insect problem, especially fleahoppers.

You can gauge fleahopper pressure by counting actual squares versus the total possible square sites on several plants. If you are missing one out of four squares and you see fleahoppers, you need to treat.

Friesen recommends checking fields once a week and using a sweep net to try to count fleahoppers.

"If you need some help in figuring out how to do sweeps and counts, give me a call, and I'll be happy to show you the right way to do it," he says.

The first week of July is a little early to be thinking about growth regulator, Friesen says. After the challenges of the spring, plants need a little more time to get vigorously growing.