Testing the interactions of pest: predator: plant components of the TEXCIM model

By integrating the dynamics of cotton fruit production with insect pests and their natural enemies, the TEXCIM model predicted the timing and magnitude of pest and injured fruit pulses 7-14 d into the future. Biofixes from field counts of fruit, pests, and natural enemies provided a self-correcting feature for improving these predictions. Based on current economic thresholds, serious Type I and Type II errors occurred only 1.7% of the time for Heliothis species and 5.2% of the time for cotton fleahoppers. Thus, TEXCIM has considerable potential for developing dynamic decision rules for guilds of pests that feed on cotton and as decision aid in pest management