180 Pecan-Growing 



GREEN STINKBUG 



{Nazera viridula) 



Turner' and Demaree,^ working independently, found 

 southern green stinkbug {Nazera viridula) to be the chief 

 cause of pecan kernel-spot. Heretofore the latter has been 

 treated as a disease, but the spot seems merely to be injuries 

 caused by insects. 



The spots on the kernels of the pecan, caused by this insect, 

 can, be detected only after the nuts are shelled. The spots 

 are circular in outline, slightly sunken, brown to black in 

 color, about one-eighth of an inch across, and about one- 

 sixteenth of an inch deep. 



The stinkbug. is rather generally distributed in the lower 

 South. It is decidedly affected by low temperatures, and its 

 numbers are very greatly reduced when the temperature falls 

 as low as 15 degrees F. The bugs attack cowpeas in prefer- 

 ence to almost any other plant and the vines furnish a favorite 

 breeding place. The eggs are laid in clusters on the under sur- 

 faces of the leaves. When cowpeas are grown as a cover-crop in 

 a pecan orchard, the vines frequently begin to dry up in Sep- 

 tember. "When the bugs find their food becoming scarce, they 

 leave the pea vines and go to the pecan trees, where they start 

 feeding by puncturing the young nuts and sucking the juices 

 without leaving any visible sign of the injury. They may 

 inject some toxic substance into the pecan which they pierce, 

 but there seems to be very little evidence that they introduce 

 any specific disease organism. 



^ Turner, W. F., Nazera viridula and Kernel spot of pecans. Science 

 N. S. Vol. 47, p. 491, 1918. 



^Demaree, J. B., Proceedings Ga.-Fla. Pecan Growers' Assoc, 

 1922. 



