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Wireworms are a common pests of seedling cotton across the High Plains and Rolling Plains regions of Texas. Increased wireworm abundance over the last decade or so is partly due to reduced use of broad- spectrum insecticides such as aldicarb (currently available under the trade name AgLogic) and to some extent due to the increased adoption of cover crops and conservation tillage practices in the agricultural landscape. All wireworm species, including true (larvae of click beetle) and false (larvae of darkling beetle) wireworms, inflict damage as worms or immature stages that live exclusively underground. One genus of darkling beetles i. e. Blapstinus, however, can also cause damage as an adult. Often, during drier years, these beetles (~1/4 inch long) migrate from nearby grasslands, and fallow fields to cotton and cause damage by chewing on stems of young and tender seedlings at or slightly below the soil surface.
