Here’s hoping those black-eyed peas you chow down this New Year’s bring you good luck. And let’s hope 2017 is also lucky for black-eyed peas. Recent decades haven’t been so great for the Southern favorite, thanks to a weevil called the cowpea curculio. “It is a very real threat in South Georgia,” said Dr. Stormy Sparks, a University of Georgia Extension entomologist in Tifton. On Jan. 5 and 6, Sparks, other entomologists and agricultural folks will gather in Savannah to discuss how to attack the weevil and keep black-eyed peas growing in the Southeast. For good luck, Sparks will be eating some black-eyed peas on New Year’s with onions, which is how they do it in Texas where he was raised.
Q: First things first. Do you like black-eyed peas?
A: Oh yeah. There are a lot of names for them — black-eyed peas, crowder peas, field peas, cowpeas, Southern peas. They are all the same thing, more or less.
Q: South Georgia used to be a big producer, correct?
A: Back in the mid-1950s, there were more of them than soybeans. I am not sure of all the factors that changed that but undoubtedly, the cowpea curculio is a contributing one.
Q: Sounds like black-eyed peas haven’t had the greatest of luck.
A: Not recently. The cowpea curculio has always been a major pest of the black-eyed pea. Historically, we have sprayed for it. The problem is that the weevil has developed resistance to various pesticides. Right now, we don't have any efficacious pesticides against it.
Q: Is there anything organic that can be used?
A: There are some organic products that might have measurable effects on the weevil but nothing that would get anywhere close to providing a commercially acceptable level of control.
Q: Other than luck, what are the upsides to the black-eyed pea?
A: It is drought tolerant so it doesn't use as much water as some of the other beans and pea types. Other than the cowpea curculio, it doesn't have many pests. It is a fairly cheap crop to produce and it is a healthy crop for consumption for people and animals. There are a lot of positives.
Q: Would you say the black-eyed pea is lucky for the weevil?
A: We found out a strange thing this year. If you have a really high level of the weevil population and don't spray at all, the pea plant doesn't produce pods. That is strange because pods are necessary for the weevil to reproduce.
Q: What does that tell you?
A: We don't know. This endangers the plant and it endangers the insect. Mother Nature doesn't usually do things like that.
Q: What are you and your colleagues hoping to accomplish?
A: We are hoping to identify multiple routes where we may be able to manage the weevil. We are still looking for new insecticides that may work. There is a genetically modified variety of the crop that is resistant to the weevil but we don't know if it will be commercially marketable. When this particular weevil leaves the pod, it drops to the ground and pupates. We are looking at possibly attacking that part of the life cycle.
Q: Do you respect this weevil?
A: I am not sure that respect is the right word. It is not the worst pest I deal with from an insecticide resistant standpoint. But it is a tough.
Q: What is the worst pest?
A: The diamondback moth. It really likes cabbage and collards and has developed resistance to any and every insecticide ever developed. I got my first real job in entomology in 1988 and one of the first problems I had to deal with was the resistance of the diamondback moth. Thirty years later, the insect is still one of the biggest problems I deal with.
Q: Sounds like that could be a problem for collards.
A: While it is difficult, we are still producing plenty of good collards.
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