March of the weevils: how a Mexican beetle launched a hundred-year attack on United States cotton

Natural History, Feb, 2006 by Robert W. Jones

An Invasion Unfolds

1843 Swedish entomologist Carl H. Boheman scientifically describes the boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis) from Mexican specimens.

1862 Farmers in northern Mexico first report boll weevil destroying cotton crops.

1892 Boll weevil enters the United States.

1894 U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) receives the first report of the boll weevil on U.S. soil

1919 Compounds of arsenic first sprayed on cotton fields to combat boll weevil.

1922 Range of boll weevil reaches its maximum extent in the U.S.

1924 Airplanes first dust cotton with arsenic compounds to control boll weevil on a large scale.

1939 DDT's utility as an insecticide discovered, launching the development of an arsenal of synthetic insecticides.

1950s Boll weevil and other insect pests grow increasingly resistant to certain insecticides.

1962 Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring, sparking public concern over insecticide use.

1969 USDA investigators isolate boll weevil sex pheromone and use it to design the first effective weevil trap.

1971 First pilot eradication programs begins in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

1978 Nationwide eradication program begins, pheromone traps detect infested fields, and the insecticide malathion treats them.

1984 Virginia becomes the first state declared weevil-free.

2006 Ten states have declared the boll weevil eradicated, and the pest is declining in the seven remaining cotton-producing states.

2009 USDA projects boll weevil will be eradicated from the U.S.