Trapping stink bugs and sampling cotton fields is just another day in the office for Michael Toews, assistant professor of entomology at the University’s Tifton campus.

Toews has teamed up with Clemson University researchers to conduct a three-year study to gain a better understanding of the growing stink bug population in Georgia.

“Stink bugs have been around the for the better part of the last 100 years, but have become a much more acute problem in the past 15 years,” Toews said. “Stink bugs are a problem in cotton crops in the entire Southeast.”

This pungent pest is also infesting other regional crops such as peanuts, peaches, pecans, wheat, corn and other vegetables. Toews said farmers have changed the way they grow cotton by spraying the crops with pesticides only two to three times a year as opposed to 12 to 14 times, as they did in the past.

Suddenly these secondary pests that were a minor problem are now becoming major pests and threats to agriculture in the Southeast.

The research crew – made up of Toews and Clemson researchers Jeremy Greene and Francis Raey-Jones, one graduate student and two undergraduates – is sampling and studying commercial cotton fields to analyze the buildup of the stink bug population over time and space.

“Insects really are ideal model organisms to study because they have short life spans and PETA doesn’t get too bent out of shape when you kill thousands of them,” Toews said.

The researchers collect samples with baited stink bug traps and by sweeping nets through cotton fields.

Toews said that the team takes the data and runs spacial statistics and uses GPS to create contour maps to show what is contributing to the changing populations. The team is also trapping bugs over the winter to see where they colonize and what crops they move to once the cotton has defoliated.

One of the main goals of the study is to improve farmscape management and research ways to reduce the use of insecticides in farming.

“This study has broadened my perspective of agriculture and got me more into the research side of things,” said Blake Crabtree, an undergraduate from Chattooga County working with Toews. “It’s hard work, but it’s definitely interesting work.”

Toews said the researchers are finishing up their first year of the three-year project and will continue to gain a better understanding of the stink bug and the ecology of the Southeast.

“Insects continue to plague man in many ways, so I felt like it would be a great way to spend my career – focusing on something that people will always be trying to control,” Toews said.