We have tested another 166 moths since last week’s report and are seeing some improvement, maybe. This recent batch showed a drop to only 17.4 percent surviving the AVT challenge, making a 28.2 percent average survivorship for the seasonal 538 total tested—down a bit from the 31.2 percent survivorship reported last week. Before giving a sigh of relief, study the data from last season (see the attached line graph) and you will see an almost identical pattern with the same slight drop in early June of 2011 followed by a peak exceeding 50 percent survivorship. Stay tuned for more updates. We are also finding what appears to be a high percent of sweet corn ears infested (we pulled a bunch this week at the research center for our respective family 4th of July cookouts). We will be initiating our annual field corn survey soon which gives us the best idea of the size of the CEW population we will be dealing with.
Additional information: cew-cypermethrin-va-july-5-2012-pptx