Black light trap catches of corn earworm (aka bollworm) moths increased at most reporting stations, ranging from 5 to 58 per night this week. The pheromone traps at Suffolk also caught about 20 moths per night. Mike Arrington reported that he was seeing cotton fields (Bt and conventional) very close to egg threshold for bollworm in Suffolk and Southampton Counties.

Brown marmorated stink bugs ranged from zero to 1.7 per night. The data tables for corn earworm and BMSB are here: BLT_3_Aug_2017

Corn earworm moth survival in the cypermethrin vial tests was 36% for the week, and 40% for the seasonal average (to date).

Corn earworm/bollworm moth captures in the black light traps increased this week, with averages ranging from 2 to 65 moths per night. Suffolk and Hanover had high numbers. Brown marmorated stink bugs ranged from zero to 10 per night across our reporting stations (high numbers in Hanover). More details can be found in the tables here: BLT_27_Jul

Be sure to scout your fields to keep aware of your pest situation. The 2017 Virginia Cooperative Extension Field Crops Pest Management Guide contains thresholds, sampling procedures, and products/rates for soybean (pages 4-61 to 4-76), peanut (pages 4-77 to 4-86), cotton (pages 4-87 to 4-100) and other crops. There is also an online threshold calculator for corn earworm in soybean

Results (to date) from Dr. Taylor’s corn earworm survey of field corn are as follows:  Accomack= 29% infested ears; Northampton=38%; Henrico=37%; Chesapeake=19%; Dinwiddie=19%; Greensville=19%; Prince George=20%; Southampton=53%; Sussex=26%; Amelia=18%; Lancaster=4%; Northumberland=7%; Richmond County=4%; Westmoreland=6%; and Franklin County=46% infested ears.

This week, our black light trap operators reported a range of zero to 8.5 corn earworm/bollworm moths per night and zero to 2.7 brown marmorated stink bugs per night. The tables are in this pdf file: BLT_20_Jul_2017

The corn earworm/bollworm pyrethroid resistance monitoring program is averaging about 36% moth survival. These are pheromone trap-collected moths from Suffolk, Virginia. The pyrethroid is cypermethrin at 5 micrograms per vial.

Virginia Cooperative Extension ANR Agents, Virginia Tech personnel, interns, and others have started our annual field corn survey for corn earworm/bollworm larvae. It can be an indicator of the pressure that we’ll see in other crops (e.g., soybean) when the moths emerge and fly out of corn fields. We’ll have a full report in the beginning of August (including data from many more counties), but here are the average ear infestations from those surveys already completed (based on sampling 50 ears per field, 5 fields per county): Accomack=29%; Henrico=37%; Southampton=53%; Amelia=18%; Westmoreland=6%.

Virginia Cooperative Extension ANR Agents and Virginia Tech faculty/staff have started up their black light traps to monitor corn earworm moths (aka bollworm) and brown marmorated stink bugs for the season. CEW and BMSB catches have been low in the black light traps; however, our pheromone traps in Suffolk, VA are catching moderate numbers of CEW moths–averaging about 5 per night. We tend to pick up more CEW moths in the pheromone than in the black light traps during this time of year. Dr. Taylor’s cypermethrin vial tests are showing about 35% of CEW moths surviving the 5 microgram rate (the moths were collected from the Suffolk pheromone traps). Watson Lawrence reported 26 brown stink bugs in his Chesapeake black light trap this week.