Common crops affected
- Cotton
- Strawberries
- Vegetables
- Legumes
What is it?
Lygus are mobile true bugs that pierce plant tissue and inject saliva, killing cells around each feeding site. They concentrate on the most valuable tissue — buds, flowers and young fruit — which makes even modest populations costly. Both adults and nymphs feed and cause damage.
How to identify it
- Adults: small (~6 mm), mottled greenish-brown bugs with a pale triangle on the back.
- Nymphs: pale green, fast-moving, aphid-like but quicker, with developing wing pads.
- Damage: aborted buds and flowers, deformed or “cat-faced” fruit, sunken corky spots, and pinprick necrotic feeding marks.
- Sweep-net sampling flushes adults and nymphs from the canopy.
Life cycle & spread
Lygus overwinter as adults in weeds and field margins, move into crops in spring, and complete several generations per season. Nymphs develop through five instars in 3-4 weeks.
Conditions that favour it
Populations build on flowering weeds and field margins, then move into crops as those hosts dry down or are mown — often right at the crop's bloom stage.
Damage and how it spreads
Feeding on reproductive tissue causes flower and fruit abortion, deformity and downgrade, directly cutting marketable yield. In strawberries it produces classic cat-faced, misshapen fruit.
Monitoring & scouting
Monitor field margins and weed hosts; sweep-net the crop to time treatments; act at threshold during bloom and early fruit set.
How to control it
- Manage broadleaf weeds and margins that harbour Lygus;
- treat at threshold in the bloom/early-fruit window with thorough coverage of feeding sites;
- conserve natural enemies.
Recommended Vegalab solution: Spider Mite Control
Spider Mite Control — all-natural acaricide/contact product (geraniol with peppermint, cottonseed and rosemary oils); foliar spray targeting Lygus on buds, flowers and young fruit, repeated per pressure.
| Role | Product | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Primary control | Spider Mite Control |
Preventing it next season
Manage broadleaf weeds and field margins, monitor early, and treat before populations move into bloom.
Claims and product availability vary by jurisdiction. Always read and follow the product label.