As Dr. Herbert mentioned in his advisory, corn earworm moth captures in our network of black light traps are beginning to increase. Reports north of the James River ranged from 0 (Essex Co.) to 7 (Richmond Co./Warsaw) moths per night. In southeast Virginia, reports ranged from <2 (Petersburg) to 10 per night (Southampton Co./Courtland). Please see the attached table (pdf) for more information. Additional information: blacklight-table-10-pdf
Category Archives: Insect
New invasive insect pest of soybean
I am paraphrasing an email we received from Jack Bacheler at NC State last week alerting us to a new invasive insect pest of soybeans. The Figure images (Fig. 1, Fig. 2, and Fig. 3) are attached:
The bean plataspid, Megacopta cribraria Fabricius, is a new invasive pest from south Asia that is currently spreading throughout the southeastern United States (Fig. 1). This insect is a piercing sucking pest (similar feeding as stink bugs) on legumes and was first found on kudzu in Georgia during December 2009. It has since been confirmed on both soybeans and kudzu in both Georgia and SoI am paraphrasing an email we received from Jack Bacheler last week alerting us to a new invasive insect pest of soybeans. The Figure images (Fig. 1, Fig. 2, and Fig. 3) are attached: uth Carolina in 2010. The confirmed distribution is represented in Fig. 2.
Research on insecticide management options is being conducted by Dr. Phillip Roberts, University of Georgia, and his colleagues. The University of Georgia researchers and Dr. Jeremy Greene, Clemson University, are monitoring this pest and we need to be vigilant for the appearance of this pest in North Carolina. Many invasive insects are found in extremely high numbers upon initial establishment, which may aid in our detection of this pest (Fig. 3). Current numbers from Georgia in soybeans are reported as close to 10 insects per sweep near field borders, where the distribution of this pest is the highest.
Please contact me if you see this insect in your soybean field (Ames Herbert, 757-657-6450, ext 411, Herbert@vt.edu).
Additional information: bean-plataspid-jul-22-2010-ppt
Corn earworms are increasing and many appear resistant to pyrethroids
Corn earworm is on the rise. Trap catches started increasing this week, up from near zero last week, and we are seeing moths flying in soybean, peanut and cotton fields. The worst news on corn earworm relates to the resistance monitoring program. As in the past several years, we are testing live-caught male moths in what we call the AVT program (adult vial test). Live moths are placed individually into small glass vials pretreated with a known amount of cypermethrin (the pyrethroid used throughout the south in the AVT program). We check the vials in 24 hours and any live moths are considered to be ‘survivors’ demonstrating resistance. Although we have only tested 363 moths to date, we found that 48% survived in this week’s sample (see the attached chart). This is the highest level ever recorded in Virginia. Last year we found about 40% survivorship in some later season samples, which was the highest level for the years up to 2009. We will continue posting the AVT results, but all indications are that we may be in for some pyrethroid control issues again this summer. Additional information: cew-avt-jul-22-2010-ppt
Cotton insect update: stink bugs low, bollworm increasing
So far we are not seeing much boll damage from stinkbugs. We think this is due to the overall very hot, dry weather we are experiencing. Week before last I saw 106 degrees on a local bank billboard in my hometown (Franklin, VA), the first time ever according to the ‘old-timers’. This week Johnny Parker with Commonwealth Gin reported that he looked at a couple of thousand acres and found only about 3 bolls total with stink bug damage. He says he has never seen stink bug pressure this low. Yesterday he found a hot spot in an irrigated field approaching 10% boll damage with about 15% dirty blooms. The only insect in the field was tarnished plant bug so he assumed they had caused the boll damage (spots with light internal damage).
Corn earworm/bollworm is on the rise. Trap catches started increasing this week, up from near zero last week, and we are seeing moths flying in soybean, peanut and cotton fields. Stan Winslow with Tidewater Agronomic, Inc. in North Carolina reported today that they were finding an increasing number of bollworm eggs in cotton. We are recommending that growers not react to eggs, but wait to see how they progress and base any sprays on worm escapes. If worm pressure gets high, we can expect some escapes. For example, last year we found 2-4% boll damage on some Bollgard 2 and Widestrike varieties. But time will tell. We may or may not have to treat depending on how many worms break through the Bt and Widestrike toxins.
Insect trap counts on the Eastern Shore for Week Ending July 16
Blacklight trap catch in Painter this week again yielded very little activty from the major moth pest species. Weekly counts were as follows: 0 European corn borer, 0 armyworm moths, 2 corn earworm, 6 hornworm moths (increasing), 42 green stink bugs (increasing), 3 brown stink bugs (decreasing). We are still not seeing the main flight of corn earworm. Spider mites remain an important pest concern particularly in areas that have missed the rain, or commercial tomatoes. An outbreak of fall armyworm in late-planted corn was also reported this week. Coragen insecticide is a new option for fall armyworm control in early whorl stage corn. It has shown very good efficacy, with a long residual, and it is a safe chemical to apply.
Corn earworm black light trap captures for the week ending 15 July 2010
New supplemental label for Belay applied aerially on soybeans, cotton, and potatoes
Attached is a Belay Supplemental label that has been approved by the EPA and is pending state approval. This Supplemental Label allows Belay to be applied aerially in soybeans, cotton, and potatoes. In addition, the aerial use rate is 3 to 6 fl oz/A. This is a higher use rate than the current ground application label (3 to 4 fl oz/A); however, the EPA has approved the change of the use rate for Belay when applied by ground in soybeans and cotton. That Supplemental Label will be out this coming week. Additional information: belaysuppl-label-aerialappl-2010-bel-0015-xcaflny-pdf
Insect pest activity on the Eastern Shore for week ending July 8
Blacklight trap catch in Painter has revelealed very little insect activty this week. We are still not seeing the main flight of corn earworm, which is good news for our growers because we they’ve had enough to worry about with drought. The hot dry weather has caused some outbreaks of Spider mites in tomatoes and soybeans. Commercial tomato growers are having particular difficulties managing this pest even with some of the best miticide tools on the market for vegetables (Oberon, Portal, Acramite, and Agrimek). I’ve heard of some tomato fields receiving applications of all of these products on a 5 day rotation and they still have spider mites, particularly in the lower canopy. Some rain could really help.
Introducing – Insect trap counts for Virginia Beach
Click more to find the pheromone trap counts and blacklight trap counts for corn earworm moths, beet armyworm moths and some other pests in Virginia Beach. In 2010 we initiated a monitoring program for these pests at the Hampton Roads AREC and on three commercial farms near Pungo, VA. These data will be posted weekly so that you can monitor the flights of these key insect pests of vegetables and field crops.
In summary corn earworm moths have been flying in the Pungo, VA area since June, but we’ve probably not seen the huge migratory flight that occurs each year around mid July. Beet armyworm moths have yet to appear in traps. Additional information: vabeach-pheromone-trapping-2010-xls
Cotton insect pest update
Not much is happening in cotton right now in terms of insect pests. The hot, dry weather seems to have things on hold, for the most part. Spider mites are common on a lot of field edges but are not widespread. We are not seeing much evidence of square loss to plant bugs (in untreated fields) and square retention is in the 90% + range. A few stink bugs, mostly brown stink bugs, are beginning to show up and soon we will begin assessing bolls for stink bug damage using our newly released ‘Decision aid for stink bug thresholds in Southeast cotton’ which presents a dynamic internal stink bug damage percentage threshold (changes as the crop matures) that begins with 50% internal damage in the first week of bloom. We will post more details soon.