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Review

Landscape-Level Integrated Pest Management Strategies for Stink Bugs in Soybean–Maize Agroecosystems of the Neotropics

by
Weidson Plauter Sutil
1,
Antônio Ricardo Panizzi
2 and
Adeney de Freitas Bueno
1,3,*
1
Departamento de Biologia, Setor de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal do Paraná, P.O. Box 19020, Curitiba 81531-980, Paraná, Brazil
2
Embrapa Trigo, P.O. Box 78, Passo Fundo 99050-970, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
3
Embrapa Soja, P.O. Box 4006, Londrina 86001-970, Paraná, Brazil
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Agronomy 2026, 16(11), 1087; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy16111087
Submission received: 8 April 2026 / Revised: 28 May 2026 / Accepted: 29 May 2026 / Published: 31 May 2026
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Strategies for Effective Integrated Pest Management in Staple Crop Production)
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Abstract

The crop system of soybean–maize succession has been adopted widely in the Neotropics. It inadvertently provides continuous food resources (green bridges) to stink bugs (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae), favoring outbreaks. Thus, stink bugs need to be managed within a broader and more holistic perspective. Not just individual fields but the whole landscape should be monitored and managed, since these pest outbreaks are deeply influenced by neighboring fields and successive crops in the same field. During the first crop season, stink bugs should be controlled only in the reproductive stage of soybean (from the R3 to R6 plant development stage), when the population is equal to or higher than the economic threshold (ET) of two stink bugs·m−1. Biological control or plant resistance strategies should be used instead of chemicals whenever possible. When the ET is reached at R7 or R8, more tolerant maize varieties (fast growing) should be sown in the second crop season with the seed treatment using recommended insecticides. Grain losses during harvest and the presence of weeds must be avoided at the end of the soybean season. Chemical insecticide sprayings on maize might still be necessary if Diceraeus spp. outbreaks equal or surpass three stink bugs·m−1 during early maize stages (until V7). This more precise and less impactful management of the agroecosystem will promote a more sustainable and resilient management of these polyphagous pests.

1. Introduction

Stink bugs (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) form one of the largest families within the heteropterans [1,2]. These polyphagous pests can feed on over 100 host plant species [3] and cause significant economic losses to several crops [4]. Damaged plants include not only commodities [5] but minor crops [6]. Consequently, stink bugs are of growing importance around the world [1]. Their nymph and adult stages cause injury by inserting their stylets into plant tissues, injecting destructive digestive enzymes, and extracting plant fluids. This feeding triggers deformation and abortion of seed and fruiting structures, as well as delaying plant maturation [3,4,5,6,7,8]. It also affects the quality and appearance of grains, fruits, and plant seedlings [9]. In addition to the pods, leaves and shoots can also be injured [3]. Moreover, stink bug feeding can transmit phytoplasmas and bacterial and fungal pathogens, which can lead to secondary infections, negatively affecting crop yield and quality [10].
In the Neotropics, continuous agricultural use of the same field is common, with successive short-lasting crops in the same year [1]. For instance, since the early 1990s in Brazil, the cultivation of soybeans in the summer (first crop season) followed by maize, wheat, or sorghum cultivated in the autumn/winter (second crop season) in the same field has been the main agricultural production system [11]. However, this intense land use offers a constant food supply to pests throughout the year, which, combined with consistently high temperatures, forms a very favorable environment for stink bug outbreaks [1]. In addition, mature seeds found on the ground, fallen during harvest, as well as the presence of weeds and/or volunteer soybean plants, serve as food for those pests to stay in the same field until maize emergence [12,13]. Moreover, the insects can find shelter, staying on the ground under first crop residues [13]. This environment allows for the continuous development and reproduction of stink bugs, leading to frequent outbreaks, triggering severe yield loss to those crops when not properly managed [1,14].
At least 54 different species of stink bugs have been reported attacking soybean in the Neotropics, especially in Brazil [15] and in Argentina [16], the first and third biggest global producers of this Leguminosae. The Neotropical brown stink bug, Euschistus heros (F.), is the most important species, due to both its higher abundance [17] and challenging management, followed by the green-bellied stink bugs, Diceraeus furcatus (F.) and Diceraeus melacanthus (Dallas) [1], which have evolved very successfully on the soybean–cereals-succession cultivation systems. The importance of Diceraeus spp. in this crop system has been increasing, going from 3.7% of the total stink bug population in the 2014/15 crop season to 26.3% in the 2024/25 crop season, which represents a greater than 700% increase in the species abundancy in only 10 years (Figure 1). The main factors believed to have influenced this change in the dynamic of stink bug populations in the Neotropics have been presented and discussed in previously published reviews for Brazil [18], the USA [19], and Argentina [20], three major adopters of the soybean–maize production system in the world. The intensification of agriculture in the past 55 years has triggered dramatic changes in cropping systems in the Neotropics [21], including the no-till system and the introduction of multiple different crops in sequence [22]. No-till farming leaves the soil undisturbed to mitigate erosion and maintains crop residue over the soil; however, this permit Diceraeus spp. to shelter from unfavorable conditions and insecticide sprays [20]. Therefore, these modified landscapes with bare soil being replaced with crop residue in between sequential crops have favored the emergence of the most adapted insect species as key pests [23]. Such changes have favored the Diceraeus spp. that partially spend their lifetime on the ground [24], helping to explain the most recent success of the green-bellied stink bugs [25]. However, the specific feeding habits and strategies of the green-bellied stink bugs that have increased their abundance, successfully achieving major pest status, need further and detailed analysis. In addition, D. melacanthus has been reported to be more tolerant than E. heros to different classes of insecticides that are commonly used in stink bug management [26].
It is important to emphasize that chemical insecticides remain the primary strategy for managing stink bug outbreaks globally [1]. However, this approach has heavily relied on a few chemicals with different modes of action [28,29]. Consequently, the emergence of resistant populations has severely compromised their efficacy, demanding more intensive chemical sprays [26]. This decline in control efficiency has driven a 12% compound annual growth rate in insecticide application over the past decade. Notably, during the 2022/23 crop season, insecticide expenditures for stink bug management in Brazilian soybean fields alone reached USD 1.2 billion [29]. Furthermore, the overuse of harmful products has negative side-effects [30] affecting pollinators and biocontrol agents [31], and posing considerable risks to the environment [32]. Therefore, reducing overdependency on traditional chemical insecticides to reach high yields in agriculture has become an increasingly global challenge [33]. In the Neotropics, where the agroecosystem is usually more complex, with higher biodiversity, warmer temperatures, and successive crops cultivated in the same field over the entire year, instead of managing stink bugs in each crop individually, integrated pest management (IPM) must be adopted at the regional landscape scale or at least at the farmscape level [34]. Stink bugs must be viewed as pests of the production system since they feed and damage different crops within the agroecosystems [29].
Therefore, this review will focus on stink bug management from the more inclusive perspective of a landscape scenario (Figure 2), rather than the more traditional crop perspective frequently adopted by farmers. In this landscape management, the importance and limitations of all the control strategies will be discussed. To obtain a comprehensive overview of the current scientific literature required to propose landscape-level IPM strategies for stink bugs on soybean–maize agroecosystems of the Neotropics, a systematic search was conducted across Web of Science, Google Scholar, and PubMed. The search strategy used a combination of keywords, including “stink bugs”, “double-crop”, “multiple-crop”, “green-bridge”, “insect feeding preference”, “soybean ipm”, and “maize ipm”, and using “AND” and “OR” to refine the results. The search was initially limited to articles published within a ten-year period (since 2016) and later performed without a date limit for important journals including “Annual Review of Entomology”, “Crop Protection”, “Pest Management Science”, and “Insect Science”. An additional search was conducted to find additional references to strongly support some important claims made in the manuscript.

2. Role and Limitations of Chemical Control for Stink Bug Management Within Soybean–Maize Systems

Chemical control remains a cornerstone for stink bug management around the world [1]. To keep pest populations under control, the importance of chemical insecticides in the short and medium term is expected to remain high [29]. However, sprayings must be restricted to when population levels reach or surpass established economic thresholds (ETs) [27]. This can reduce insecticide use against stink bugs by an average of 46.6% compared to farmers not adopting an ET [27]. From long-term monitoring carried out for ten consecutive crop seasons in Brazil, the adoption of an ET for the soybean, within an IPM context, reduced insecticide sprays against stink bug from 26.3% (2015/16) to 66.2% (2021/22) (Figure 3), illustrating the importance of spraying insecticides wisely.
Although a sound ET has been established for stink bugs attacking soybean [27] in many places, they may vary among countries due to the differences in crop systems, sampling methods, and environmental conditions [35]. For instance, in Brazil since the 1970s, the recommended ET is two insects larger than 0.5 cm (including third–fifth instar nymphs and adults) per row meter if the fields are intended for grain production or one bug if the field is used for seed production [27]. In Argentina, the ET is 0.7 stink bugs per meter for soybean cultivars of maturity groups three, four, or five, and 1.4 stink bugs if the maturity group is six or seven [36].
In the Neotropics, maize or other cereals are sown immediately after the soybean harvest. However, the ET for Diceraeus spp. is established only for isolated crops, varying from 0.27 to 0.8 insects m−2 [37,38] or 0.5 to 2 stink bugs m−1 of row depending on the maize variety susceptibility [38,39,40]. No landscape-scale ET is available, even though the pests damaging maize seedlings come from the previous soybean crop.
After the soybean harvest, Diceraeus spp. shelter under straw, feeding on weeds, seeds fallen on the ground during harvest, and volunteer plants [12] until maize emergence [41,42]. This forces additional insecticide sprays in the system [39,40,41,42]. Nevertheless, late insecticide applications during the soybean reproductive stages (R7–R8) fail to protect the subsequent maize crop [13]. The secondary season maize acreage is less than half of the summer soybean area (e.g., 17 million vs. 47–48 million hectares in Brazil) [43], prompting the surviving stink bug populations to disperse and concentrate into the remaining maize fields, maintaining high infestation levels during early maize growth [1,44,45,46].
In addition, as previously mentioned, Diceraeus spp. are more tolerant than E. heros to insecticides in laboratory trials [26]; however, the physiological reasons for their higher tolerance still require further clarification. Clearly, Diceraeus spp. stays on the soil for longer periods of time, sheltered under straw, which prevents contact with insecticides, thereby reducing their efficacy and making the pest even more difficult to be controlled in the field [47]. For instance, zeta-cypermethrin and thiamethoxam + lambda-cyhalothrin have been reported to display low efficacy in the management of Diceraeus spp. [47,48]. This highlights the challenge of selecting not only the best active ingredients but the best time to control Diceraeus spp. within the soybean–maize succession system [47]. An alternative tool for stink bug landscape management in these production systems has been to treat the maize seed with highly soluble systemic insecticides (neonicotinoids) [26,44,45,46].

3. Recommended Procedures at the Soybean Harvest

An important challenge for managing stink bugs is the presence of soybean grains left on the ground after the soybean harvest, as well as the consequent presence of volunteer soybean plants in addition to weeds. Those plants and the fallen soybean grains serve as food sources for stink bugs to remain in the same field until maize emergence, when they can damage maize seedlings [12]. An average of 4% to 6% of soybean fall on the ground (lost) during the harvest in the Neotropics [49,50]. Considering the production of ca. 170 million tons in 48 million hectares just in Brazil during the 2024/2025 crop season and that each kilogram of soybean contains 5000 to 6600 grains [51], it would potentially result from 885,000 to more than 1 million volunteer soybean plants per hectare [total production (kg) × loss (considering 5% or 0.05) ÷ cultivated area (hectares) × number of grains per kilo (considering from 5000 to 6600 grains per kilogram of seeds)]. This indicates the potential size of the problem regarding soybean loss at harvest, which helps to increase stink bug outbreaks in early maize stages that are cropped in sequence.
The factors that impact grain harvest loss include [50] the adjustment of the speed of the reel and the distance between parts in the harvest machine [52], the operation of used cutting platforms [53], the maintenance of the harvest machine [54], and the speed of the machinery. Therefore, efficient IPM programs must include not only pest control but other multiple-discipline recommendations.

4. Adoption of Resistant/Tolerant Plants for Stink Bug Management

Among the different pest control strategies, host plant resistance has been historically considered a cornerstone to sustainably manage pests [55], and a fundamental component of IPM [56]. The adoption of plant resistance is compatible with all other control strategies in IPM, and is economically, ecologically, and environmentally advantageous by avoiding or at least reducing the need for chemical control [57,58]. For sucking insects such as stink bugs, an important factor is the hardness of the plant tissues. Plants with rigid tissues are less preferred as hosts, as they limit the feeding capacity of those insects [59]. The deposition of lignin, cellulose, suberin, and other macromolecules in the cell wall of the plant gives greater hardness to the tissues, causing resistance to penetration of the stylets [60].
Although attempts have been made to develop soybean cultivars that are resistant/tolerant to stink bugs, the results were limited [61] due to their relatively low yield potential. However, more recently, tolerant plants bearing the so-called “Block” technology are less damaged by stink bugs and show seed yields comparable to those of traditional commercial cultivars [62]. The Block technology is a brand that groups soybean cultivars developed by Embrapa Soja (Brazil) to help manage stink bugs. This brand provides conventionally bred cultivars with tolerance traits selected from Embrapa’s germplasm bank through traditional genetic improvement. Those cultivars present an antixenotic effect to stink bug feeding [63]. Electropenetrography (EPG) has demonstrated that stink bugs reached and fed on the seeds of all tested soybean cultivars (block and non-block cultivars). However, the feeding duration on seeds of the Block cultivars was much shorter than on the non-Block cultivars, which likely explains the higher tolerance and less damaged seeds of the Block cultivars [64]. Genetically improved soybean plants with this tolerance to stink bugs have endured the doubling of insect infestation without increasing the overall damage to their grains. They are ideal for cultivating late soybean fields, which will suffer higher stink bug outbreaks after the harvest of neighboring fields.
Maize seedlings are more susceptible to injury by stink bugs at early plant stages, from VE (emergence: when the coleoptile breaks the soil surface) to V5 (weaning: the five leaf stage, when the plant develops crown roots and stops relying on seed reserves, becoming reliant on soil nutrients) [65]. Even when stink bug populations are high at later soybean reproductive stages (R7–R8), no insecticides should be used because they will not prevent outbreaks in the crop sown after the soybean harvest [12]. Instead, more resistant or tolerant cultivars of maize with insecticide seed treatment should be sown in succession [65,66,67].
These tolerant maize cultivars show some favorable traits, such as high initial vigor and rapid growth (plants that develop quickly in the early stages have a greater capacity to overcome the damage caused by toxin injection into the seedling collar), thicker/more rigid stems (greater stem diameter offers greater physical resistance to the insertion of the stink bug stylets), recovery capacity or regrowth vigor (the plant’s ability to produce new leaves and to resume growth even after the apical meristem is damaged, reducing the need for replanting), resistance to breakage (hybrids with greater stem rigidity suffer less from lodging or deformation—“crooked” or “goose neck” plant, when attacked), and low rate of super-sprouting (cultivars with lower super-sprouting due to the death of the apical bud). Tolerant maize cultivars, combined with systemic seed treatment (e.g., neonicotinoids), show a lower percentage of attacked seedlings and greater ear weight (up to a 29.5% increase in productivity) [68], proving an excellent management strategy for stink bugs in the soybean–maize production system.

5. Augmentative and Conservation Biological Control

Augmentative biological control is an essential strategy to build a more sustainable agriculture, especially in commodities such as soybean and maize, where the overuse of chemical insecticides is an increasing concern [30,69,70]. Among the most studied and adopted biocontrol agents against stink bugs, egg parasitoids have been gaining momentum [71]. At least 23 different species of egg parasitoids have been reported on the soybean [72], making them the most important biocontrol agents of this pest group [73,74]. The species Telenomus podisi Ashmead (Hymenoptera: Scelionidae) is the most promising alternative to manage E. heros [75]. Telenomus podisi can parasitize more than 100 eggs of E. heros, or eggs of the green-belly stink bug during its lifespan [15]. Due to its high parasitism capacity and availability in the Brazilian market as a commercial biocontrol agent, it has been released in 150,000 to 250,000 hectares of soybeans annually in the country [71].
Fed adults at densities of ca. 6000 parasitoids per hectare, released 2–3 times on a 14-day interval [71], result in >90% of eggs parasitized [76], making them efficient against E. heros, D. melacanthus [71], and some other stink bug species [62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73]. For instance, T. podisi has been recorded naturally parasitizing eggs of Oebalus poecilus (Dallas) and Tibraca limbativentris (Stål) on rice [77], indicating that this parasitoid might also be released in other crops where Pentatomidae are key pests. In Paraguay, high parasitism of O. poecilus eggs in rice fields after releases of T. podisi has been observed. More details on how to rear and release T. podisi in field crops in the Neotropics can be found in [71].
One of the benefits of adopting egg parasitoids against pests is their capacity to control the pest at early stages (egg) before any injury to the plants. However, the precise time of parasitoid release imposes some challenges. Farmers are used to monitoring and controlling the adults and nymphs of stink bugs in their fields. However, to correctly utilize egg parasitoids, farmers must become accustomed to monitoring stink bug eggs, requiring pest scouts to be trained in these new skills, which can be time-consuming and costly.
Despite the high potential of biological control using T. podisi, additional control strategies (chemical or biological) might still be needed. A detailed understanding of the potential for combining egg parasitoids with other compatible control tools against stink bugs is essential for achieving the best stink bug management [15]. Threats posed by chemical pesticides against T. podisi, as well as the possible perspectives of adopting more selective chemicals, are discussed in [78] as an alternative to conservation biological control not only of the augmentative released T. podisi but of naturally occurring egg parasitoids. This reveals the need for a combination of different strategies to efficiently and sustainably manage stink bugs in complex agroecosystems [1].
The active ingredients belonging to the group of insect growth regulators, such as chlorfluazuron, teflubenzuron, novaluron, and lufenuron, are more selective to T. podisi [78] but are normally used against lepidopterous pests. By contrast, pyrethroids (bifenthrin, beta-cyfluthrin, zeta-cypermethrin) and organophosphates (chlorpyrifos and acephate) are efficient against stink bugs, but are harmful to egg parasitoids, especially to adults, which are more susceptible than pupae that remain protected inside the egg chorion [78,79]. The importance of preserving parasitoids in soybean fields was registered by [80] during the 2013/14 soybean crop season in Paraná state (southern Brazil) when Helicoverpa armigera (Hüber) was first reported in the country. During this soybean growing season, a total of 1387 caterpillars were collected in soybean fields from October 2013 to April 2014 in 16 different cities in Paraná and were taken to the laboratory. Only 414 caterpillars out of those 1387 sampled (29.8%) survived to reach the adult stage (moth), not being killed by parasitoids or entomopathogens [80]. Therefore, these broad-spectrum insecticides should be avoided at least 10 days before and 15 days after T. podisi release [71] or whenever possible to be replaced by a more selective insecticide.
The best option to mitigate negative impacts on egg parasitoids is the use of other biocontrol agents [81]. The three species of entomopathogenic fungi which have been commercialized in Brazil as augmentative biocontrol agents are Beauveria bassiana (Bals.-Criv.) Vuill., Metarhizium anisopliae (Metsch.), and Cordyceps fumosorosea (Wize). The isolate BRM 2335 of M. anisopliae has shown high virulence against different species of stink bugs [82,83,84]. It causes mortality and reduces E. heros feeding activities by 86%, which completely ceases after five days of spraying [85].
In addition to the use of selectivity, other strategies can also be used for conservation biological control [86,87]. One of the easiest ways to preserve biocontrol agents in the area is the simple adoption of IPM and an ET, which will limit insecticides or any other control strategy to only when technically required [88]. For example, soybean-IPM adoption not only reduced insecticide use in Brazil by an average of 52.8% but increased the days the soybean field took to receive the first insecticide spray, from an average of 46.9 days after sowing (for non-IPM adopters) to 73.4 days after sowing (for IPM adopters) [27]. Staying 26.5 days more without using any insecticide conserves the natural biological control in the area, which still has an underestimated value [89,90]. The importance of only a few natural biocontrol agents has been previously studied in the laboratory for a restricted number of soybean pests [15]. For instance, Geocoris sp. can consume around 9 eggs of Anticarsia gemmatalis (Hübner) while Nabis spp. consumes 21.1 eggs or 3.2 third instars of this Lepidoptera species per day [91]. The larvae of Callida sp. consume around 65.6 caterpillars to complete the larval stage, and Lebia concinna consume 4.8 caterpillars per day of A. gemmatalis [92]. However, an abundant diversity of predator species for several pest species that cause damage to soybean fields [93,94,95] still require better study [96].
Despite the claim of importance for conservation biological control in IPM, more studies are still needed to take advantage of the native biodiversity of the natural enemies always present in the soybean agroecosystem. Studies are needed about how the target pests live and reproduce. For example, the life histories of stink bugs, following their abundances on crops and wild vegetation, the number of generations per year, hosts and associated plants, and the roles of natural enemies should be studied in further detail to help better explore biological control [97].

6. Innovative Tools for Stink Bug Management

Taking into consideration the few options of alternatives to efficiently control stink bugs due to different reasons, including (1) resistant populations to insecticides, (2) few active ingredients with activity against stink bugs, (3) lower performance of entomopathogens against stink bugs compared to lepidopterous, and (4) no transgenic plants available against stink bugs, among others, the development of new innovative tools against stink bugs are being intensively studied [98].
Among the most advanced studies, pheromones in baited traps have efficiently attracted and captured stink bugs [99,100]. Reducing the price of pheromone production, this technology will start to be used more frequently both to monitor insects and to help control them by mixing pheromones with insecticides and even biological control entomopathogens [101]. The use of images from automated traps, satellites, or drones for stink bug sampling and monitoring with precision and low costs will revolutionize stink bug management and may be closer to becoming reality with the aid of artificial intelligence (AI). Moreover, imaging methods to identify captured insects, combining information on texture, color, and shape, should improve stink bug monitoring and management in the future [101].
Botanical insecticides have also stood out as an innovative alternative to synthetic chemicals. The growing research and adoption promises to boost the bioinsecticide market, representing a sustainable transition in global agriculture and a good alternative for stink bugs [102]. In addition, the application of RNA interference (RNAi) has emerged as a promising approach for the targeted control of stink bugs [76]. More precise and less expensive stink bug monitoring associated with the use of not only biological control but newer innovative “greener” sprayable insecticides based on RNAi, essential oils, or even the adoption of genetically improved plants (GMs or edited plants) has been intensively studied against stink bugs [102,103] and is included in the innovative tools under development against those pests. Only the combination of a great diversity of tools and a more complex approach of landscape management will enable stink bugs to be sustainably managed.

7. Final Considerations and Conclusions

This review elucidates that the use of a single tool against stink bugs is destined to fail if not used within an IPM context, taking the entire landscape into consideration. Against isolated strategies, nature will always find a way to either select resistant populations, occupy the empty ecological niche with other species (e.g., outbreaks of secondary stink bugs), or similar negative consequences. Despite no landscape-scale ET being available for stink bugs, mainly because there is constant pest movement, causing neighboring fields to be impacted by stink bug outbreaks in both soybean and maize crops, control decisions (to spray or not to spray insecticides) still need to be taken on an individual-crop basis. Nevertheless, for resilient, sustainable, and efficient stink bug management, a more complex landscape perspective, instead of the traditional individualized crop perspective, is required [27]. Pest management recommendations must evolve to crop protection procedures, and then to landscape management, taking into consideration the landscape scenario. By leveraging interdisciplinary collaborations and regulatory advancements, precision pest control strategies promise to redefine agricultural practices, paving the way for a more sustainable and resilient future for global food production [9].
Chemical insecticides [104] should be restricted to when the pest populations reach the established ET (individualized for each crop) and more selective and harmless insecticide should be adopted [27]. Moreover, the management of stink bug populations should not aim for their complete elimination from the fields, but to keep their population under control, providing hosts to maintain natural biological control in the area.
Whenever possible, biological control alternatives should be wisely used to replace chemicals [105]. They also need to be used within an IPM context, respecting the ET, which still require additional study for the development of the ET specific for biological control use. Not only the overuse of chemicals but the overuse of biologicals can trigger negative side effects [106], despite biologicals usually being safer than chemicals.
In summary, during the first crop season, stink bugs should be controlled only in the reproductive stage of soybean fields (from the R3 to R6 plant development stage), when the population is equal to or higher than the ET (two stink bugs.m−1). When the ET is reached or surpassed at R7 and R8, more tolerant maize varieties (fast growing) should be sown with treated seeds using recommended insecticides. The presence of weeds and soybean grains fallen on the ground at harvest must always be avoided. Additionally, chemical insecticide sprayings on maize (second crop) might still be necessary if Diceraeus spp. outbreaks equal or surpass three insects.m−1 during maize early stages (until V5–V7). Novel IPM tools under study [98] should be implemented when available to reach the ultimate goal of a more sustainable and resilient management of pest stink bugs.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, writing—original draft preparation, and review and final editing W.P.S., A.R.P. and A.d.F.B. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Data Availability Statement

No new data were created or analyzed in this study. Data sharing is not applicable to this article.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Embrapa Soja, Embrapa Trigo, and the Universidade Federal do Paraná for their support, as well as the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).

Conflicts of Interest

Adeney de Freitas Bueno works as a researcher for Embrapa Soja, Londrina, Paraná, Brazil. Antônio Ricardo Panizzi is a retired researcher from Embrapa Trigo, Passo Fundo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and Weidson Plauter Sutil is a post-doc from Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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Figure 1. Stink bug species composition (%) in specific crop seasons sampled in soybean fields cultivated in the Neotropics (average of different farms in the State of Paraná, Brazil), adapted from [27].
Figure 1. Stink bug species composition (%) in specific crop seasons sampled in soybean fields cultivated in the Neotropics (average of different farms in the State of Paraná, Brazil), adapted from [27].
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Figure 2. Landscape Integrated Pest Management (IPM) taking the complexity of the agroecosystem into consideration (Figure created by authors using photos and enhanced by Gemini 3 Flash).
Figure 2. Landscape Integrated Pest Management (IPM) taking the complexity of the agroecosystem into consideration (Figure created by authors using photos and enhanced by Gemini 3 Flash).
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Figure 3. Comparative use of insecticide by adopters and non-adopters of an ET as the basis of soybean integrated pest management (Soybean-IPM) to take control of decisions for stink bugs. Results are from the State of Paraná, Brazil adapted from [27]. Blue numbers in percentage (%) indicate the percentage of reduction of adopters (blue) compared to non-adopters (red).
Figure 3. Comparative use of insecticide by adopters and non-adopters of an ET as the basis of soybean integrated pest management (Soybean-IPM) to take control of decisions for stink bugs. Results are from the State of Paraná, Brazil adapted from [27]. Blue numbers in percentage (%) indicate the percentage of reduction of adopters (blue) compared to non-adopters (red).
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MDPI and ACS Style

Sutil, W.P.; Panizzi, A.R.; Bueno, A.d.F. Landscape-Level Integrated Pest Management Strategies for Stink Bugs in Soybean–Maize Agroecosystems of the Neotropics. Agronomy 2026, 16, 1087. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy16111087

AMA Style

Sutil WP, Panizzi AR, Bueno AdF. Landscape-Level Integrated Pest Management Strategies for Stink Bugs in Soybean–Maize Agroecosystems of the Neotropics. Agronomy. 2026; 16(11):1087. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy16111087

Chicago/Turabian Style

Sutil, Weidson Plauter, Antônio Ricardo Panizzi, and Adeney de Freitas Bueno. 2026. "Landscape-Level Integrated Pest Management Strategies for Stink Bugs in Soybean–Maize Agroecosystems of the Neotropics" Agronomy 16, no. 11: 1087. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy16111087

APA Style

Sutil, W. P., Panizzi, A. R., & Bueno, A. d. F. (2026). Landscape-Level Integrated Pest Management Strategies for Stink Bugs in Soybean–Maize Agroecosystems of the Neotropics. Agronomy, 16(11), 1087. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy16111087

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