The Tarnished Plant Bug, Lygus lineolaris (Palisot de Beauvais) in Conifer Nurseries

Lygus lineolaris (Palisot de Beauvois), the tarnished plant bug, attacks a wide variety of herbaceous plants, vegetable crops, commercial flower plants, fruit trees, and nursery stock (Kelton 1975). Less well known, but of increasing importance, is that L. lineolaris feeds on conifer seedlings. Coniferous nursery stock in British Columbia, Oregon, Florida, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Oklahoma has been damaged by L. lineolaris (Schowalter et al. 1986; Shrimpton 1985; South 1986). Approximately 50% of the loblolly pine seedlings in one southern forest nursery was damaged by L. lineolaris (South 1986). In early 1989, the risk of feeding damage by L. lineolaris prompted several Florida forest nurseries to initiate preventive insecticide applications. In one nursery, by late May 1989, non-treated plots of bare-root pine averaged 18.5 live pine seedlings/ft of which 24, exhibited feeding damage by L. lineolaris, while in insecticide-treated plots a density of 24 live pine seedlings/ft and 2% damage was observed. Pine seedlings in a nursery severely damaged by L. lineolaris usually do not survive the growing season.