Cotton pests

Many pests can attack cotton crops in Australia.

It’s important to correctly identify pests before choosing how to manage them, as overusing insecticides causes resistance and kills many beneficial insects.

Common pests

The most common cotton pests found in the NT are:

• bicoloured boll weevil
• cluster caterpillar
• corn earworm and native budworm
• cotton aphids and cotton bunchy top
• cotton coreid
• cotton looper
• cotton stainers
• cottonseed bug
• green vegetable bug
• mirids
• pink bollworm
• pumpkin beetles
• redbanded shield bug
• rough bollworm
• solenopsis mealybug.

To learn about these pests, get the cotton pests fact sheet PDF (3.2 MB).

For the bicoloured boll weevil, you can also get the bicoloured weevils fact sheet PDF (1.1 MB).