Capsids (mirid bugs)

small, dark, sunken spots on green shoots and young pods, each like a little water-soaked scab with a slightly raised, corky rim. On a shoot these spots turn black and girdle it (choke a ring right around the stem), so the tip above wilts, browns and dies from the top down. This dying-back of shoots is called dieback.

feeding leaves rows or rings of black, sunken specks that harden into rough, corky scars and twist or stunt the pod as it grows. Small young pods (cherelles — the finger-sized baby pods) that are heavily fed on turn black and shrivel.

dead brown shoots stick up bare above the canopy like antlers (farmers call this 'staghead'), the tree throws up a rush of straight upright suckers (chupons — the water-shoots from the trunk and main branches), and a whole patch of trees looks thin and gappy. These damaged patches are the capsid pockets — that is where the bugs are concentrated.

a small, fast bug about 8–10 mm long — the size of a grain of rice or a small ant, reddish-brown to dark brown, with long thin feelers (antennae) and long legs. It is shy: it feeds on the shaded underside of shoots and pods in the cool of early morning or late afternoon, and when you disturb it it runs sideways to the far side of the branch or drops to the ground. The young ones (nymphs) are smaller, orange-brown and have no wings yet.

capsid pod spots are small, separate, sunken specks that stay put — unlike black pod disease, which is a spreading wet black rot that swallows and destroys the whole pod, often with a white mouldy bloom. And capsid dieback starts from these feeding spots on green shoots — not the all-over leaf drop of a drought or the even browning of a sun-scorched top.

check whenever the tree is pushing soft new flush (young reddish shoots), and right through the months when pods are on the tree, from tiny cherelles to maturing pods — those soft shoots and pods are what capsids feed on. Warm, humid spells after the canopy has opened up are the danger times. Look in the cool of early morning or late afternoon, when the bugs are out feeding rather than hidden.

don't just check the trees beside the path. Walk a large 'W' across the block so you cover all the corners and the middle, and give extra attention to sunny gaps in the canopy and any patch that already looks thin or has dead shoots — capsids gather in these pockets.

look over the young shoots, the flowering cushions (the knobbly spots on the trunk and branches where pods grow) and the pods, on the shaded underside where the bugs hide. Search for the fresh, dark, water-soaked feeding spots and for the fast-moving bugs themselves. Gently shaking a branch over a light cloth can knock hidden bugs down where you can spot them.

capsids are so damaging that you do not wait for big numbers. Even 1 fresh lesion or 1 live bug on a single tree means that pocket is active — if you find fresh damage or live bugs on any of the trees you check, treat that pocket now. (Old, grey, healed-over scars with no fresh dark spots are last season's damage — don't spray for those.)

capsids need sunny gaps, so deny them the gaps. Keep an even, closed shade canopy by managing your shade trees, and prune out dead and dying wood so light doesn't pour in. Cut away the upright chupons (water-shoots) and any mistletoe, and keep the trees strong with good feeding and mulch so they shrug off feeding damage. A well-shaded, healthy plantation is your single best defence, and it is the method that works best short of spraying.

because the damage clusters, find the pockets early and deal with them before they widen — prune out the dieback, and where a pocket has opened a hole in the canopy, close it by training in side branches or replanting so light stops flooding in. Shutting pockets early is what stops the slow spread across the whole farm.

black weaver ants (the ants that build leaf nests up in the canopy) and other small predators hunt capsids for free. Encourage them — link their nests tree to tree with sticks and don't destroy them — and avoid blanket spraying that wipes them out. On their own they only knock numbers down part-way, so lean on them alongside a closed canopy, not as your only tool.

when scouting shows an active pocket, spot-treat just that pocket with a recommended insecticide — never blanket-spray the whole farm. Aim the spray at the shoots, cushions and pods where the bugs feed. Spray in the cool, still hours of early morning or late evening with the wind behind you; cover your skin, eyes, nose and mouth; keep the spray off food, off water sources, and away from children and helpful insects like the weaver ants and pollinators; and wash yourself and your clothes afterwards. Respect the pre-harvest interval — the number of days the product label says you must wait between spraying and picking pods — so no chemical reaches the beans. To stop capsids getting used to a product (resistance), rotate to an insecticide from a different chemical group each time rather than using the same one over and over.

re-check the treated pockets after a couple of weeks and re-treat any that are still active, always rotating the product. If pockets keep widening despite closing the canopy and spot-spraying, ask your extension officer or cocoa buyer about coordinated, area-wide timing — capsids fly in from neighbours' farms, so whole-community timing beats one farm acting alone. And where a pocket of old trees is already staghead and barely bearing, cut your losses: stump or replant those trees and re-establish the shade, rather than pouring inputs into a block that will not recover.