The Problem Periodically, late season outbreaks of pests such as thrips, jassids, cluster caterpillar and spur-throated locusts may cause damage to the cotton canopy and/ or flowers. Research over 4 years investigated potential consequences for cotton by manually removing all leaves from the top 6 or 9 nodes at different dates from flowering to beyond cutout or removing 50 or 100% of leaf area. We also evaluated flower loss for a 1 week period to test if this interacted with leaf damage