Green stink bug

• Adults are 8mm long with a green shield-shaped body and brown wing covers.
• Nymphs are cream and yellow with prominent dark markings, changing to mossy green with dark markings on their back.
• Eggs are similar shape to those of the green vegetable bug (GVB) but are olive-green and laid in small loose rafts of only 5–15 eggs.

Their 2-tone colouring distinguishes adult GSB from other green podsucking bug species.

Widespread.

All summer legumes, sorghum, and occasionally cotton.

In pulses, GSB damages only 10% as many seeds as GVB.

• Adults typically invade summer legumes at flowering.
• Females can lay over 400 eggs.
• There are 5 nymphal stages. Nymphs usually reach a damaging size during mid to late podfill.
• Usually only 1 generation develops per summer legume crop, unless temperatures are high.

• Inspect crops twice weekly from budding until close to harvest (the main risk period is at podding).
• Beat-sheeting is the preferred sampling method for adults and nymphs.
• Sample crops in the early to mid-morning when bugs are more likely to be at the top of the crop.
• Look for the distinctive small egg rafts, which indicate a green stink bug is present.

Green stink bugs are not specifically included in the online calculator for podsucking bugs; therefore, if numbers are high, divide by 10 and include in the GVB column.

• Spiders, ants and predatory bugs are major predators of eggs and young nymphs, with mortality sometimes exceeding 90%.
• Eggs may be parasitised by the tiny wasps Trissolcus basalis, T. oenone and Telenomus cyrus.

• Green stink bugs may be incidentally controlled by products used against the green vegetable bug.
• Spring plantings are less at risk than summer-planted crops.
• Where possible avoid sequential plantings of summer legumes.
• Avoid combining cultivar and planting times that are more likely to lengthen the duration of flowering and podding.