The Benefits of Insecticide Use: Sunflowers

• Growers of sunflower seeds who do not spray insecticides have insect damage over 10 % which renders the crop unfit for human consumption. • Lygus bugs were not a problem in sunflowers until 1998. • Lygus bugs damage sunflowers with digestive enzymes resulting in a spot (kernel brown spot) on the seed. • Banded sunflower moth can damage up to 40 % of the sunflower seeds in a field